In my house I have 3 circuits of floor heating elements, each is connected to single phase (230V) 16A fuse and on one of them I have Heatit Z-TRM3 connected via z-wave to my home assistant. Others are manually controlled dumb thermostats.
That thing works, but at least the particular one I got causes a lot of interference to the z-wave network, so I’m a bit hesistant to add any more of those.
Features I must have:
- Option for a floor temperature sensor. Each thermostat has separate pipe going to the floor and the floor sensor is easy enough to replace, but it is a must have option
- Air temperature sensor. 2/3 of the heating elements are in a concrete slab and that means that measured temperature of the slab very slowly affects the air temperature, so I need both. ESP32 or equivalent as a separate sensor might be a decent workaround, but I’d rather have both on a single unit.
- Obviously the 230V 16A capability as that’s what they’re wired on and even if I don’t have 3kW elements on the floor it’s what’s needed to meet the code
- Manual controls on the device itself. Should my raspberry pi running home assistant kick the bucket or some other major issue with the automations happens, I still need an option to control the device. And that’s a strict requirement, no bluetooth apps on the phone or anything, I must have manual buttons or some other way to control the thing without home assistant or any other smart device.
- And addition to previous one: No cloud requirement. Allowing the device to the internet for a setup is fine, but in the long run it must be happy in a isolated network without internet connectivity
For the communication I don’t really care. I currently have only wifi/z-wave as an option, but if there’s something on zigbee which ticks all the boxes I can invest in a usb-dongle or a hub.
Price is obviously a concern, but it’s hard to set any strict boundaries. I won’t throw a 1000€ for a thermostat, but anything even remotely reasonable goes.
What are your suggestions for a situation like this?
Voilà:
https://www.sinopetech.com/en/products/smart-thermostat-electric-baseboard
https://www.sinopetech.com/en/products/smart-thermostat-floor-heating
Don’t use relays for heating, they have a high likelihood of staying stuck closed. And to be efficiently controlled you want heaters to be able to modulate the duty cycle.
Interesting product, but based on a quick search online it seems like they don’t have reseller on the EU. PWM or any other kind of modulation isn’t really necessary on my use case, as the building itself dictates that the floor sensor should just keep the full power on until the set temperature is reached. It doesn’t hurt either, but as there’s no availability around EU then I just can’t get my hands on one.
And even if I did, it most likely isn’t sold here for a reason, and I’d be pretty hesitant to install that on my house for insurance and other liability reasons.
Ah yeah EU changes things. FWIW I’ve seen loads of ZigBee thermostat, using relays, on Ali…