This months ‘My Automated Home’ feature follows Johannes Jensson’s compressive review of his Heat genius installation…
Nobody has escaped the rapid rise of gas and electricity prices over the last 5 years. I had a feeling that my cash was really going up in smoke and I needed a permanent way to reduce my heating cost.
I had already taken quite a few steps to make my home energy efficient. I was an early adopter of low energy lighting and the kitchen is fitted with an induction stove. All white goods and electrical appliances are ‘A’ rated. My electricity consumption had dropped so rapidly that my energy supplier was suspicious and sent an inspector!
All the windows are double glazed with high performance thin sealed vacuum units. My house is well insulated and draught proof. Both front and back doors are double glazed composite doors that have insulation core and are classed as highly thermal energy efficient and draught proof. The attic space is insulated using cross-laid 30-40 cm thick glass wool and the floor concrete slab on the ground floor is insulated underneath using two layers of 5 cm polystyrene insulation.
The house is heated using a 30kW gas condensing boiler with 8 designer type, double-column and triple-column radiators. Column radiators create a greater surface area which allows more effective convection and control than standard panel radiators. This also cuts down how often my boiler switches on and off as the radiators stay warmer longer because they contain a greater volume of water.
Despite this, my heating bill was becoming uncomfortable. My boiler was controlled by an external Drayton Digistat 3+ room Thermostat. It can punch above its weight in comparison with many other mightier thermostats but there’s a point that you cannot take it any further and in order to save energy, you must take a quantum leap in technology.
After doing extensive research into what I could do to save on my heating energy cost I decided to turn my home into a smart heated home.
Deciding what I want
I started by created a long tick list of features that I wanted included in my system specification and went about to compare available systems and their features. I looked at Hive, Tado and the Nest and although I found them very clever, I also came to the conclusion that they are really only a means to control your house thermostat remotely through your mobile. Neat, but not exactly groundbreaking.
I then came across the heat genius System, which can control individual radiators using wireless valves. That’s a huge step forward, because then you can turn off the radiators in any of the rooms you’re not using (e.g. the bedrooms during the day). That must save a lot more energy than simply being able to turn the heating off when you go out.
I contacted the company with a long list of questions about precisely what their system was capable of, so I could compare them with the Honeywell Evohome system. To my surprise heat genius (HG), a UK based startup company matched all Honeywell’s smart features that I wanted to turn my home into a smart heated home but they also had invented few of their own unique features. since I installed my system they have added even more features to their already impressive specification.
The heat genius System comes with a “Genius Hub” which connects to your Internet router and then uses Z-Wave, an open wireless communications protocol, to communicate with the boiler controller, electronic radiator valves and motion sensors. It means you can control the heating in any of the rooms of your house using any suitable smartphone (iPhone or Android), iPad or any web browser. To be honest the app’s not perfect on my Blackberry, but it’s usable.
Z-Wave is a wireless communications protocol designed for home automation, specifically to remotely control applications in residential and light commercial environments. Z-Wave communicates using a low-power wireless technology designed specifically for remote control applications.
Heat genius System Features
Setback temperature — the heat genius System has an important setback temperature feature that gives the user the option of changing the temperature setting automatically at night and also during the work day when the occupants have left the house.
Timer — timer mode lets you set the temperature of a room from between 4C and 28C, for any period of time.
Footprint mode (aka smart occupancy detection) — in Footprint mode the system will note your footsteps and help you reduce your carbon footprint. As it learns which rooms you use and when they are used, it will continuously optimise your heating schedule based on your lifestyle.
Each room that is in footprint mode will heat up ready for when you use the room, based on the pattern of use it has learned. at all other times, the system will switch off the radiator, saving you energy. The system also learns how long each room takes to warm up, so that it’s ready and warm when you come in.
Footprint mode requires a heat genius radiator valve controller on each radiator and a heat genius motion sensor in each room that you wish to control automatically. You don’t need to fit these to every room, you can just install wireless heat genius radiator valve controllers and sensors in the rooms you use the most and schedule the other rooms manually.
Setting up temperatures can be done very quickly and easily, using ‘copy and paste’ to set schedules for other days of the week and other rooms in the house.
History — this feature allows you to look back at the temperature, the occupancy and what the heating was doing in previous weeks. You can even choose to be emailed a summary of how long your heating has been on for at the end of each month.
Weather compensation — when the weather is sunny, the temperature can be reduced and you’ll still feel comfortable. using the weather forecast and checking for sunny weather, the heat genius Hub can automatically reduce the target temperature in the rooms of your house, saving energy. You can choose to enable or disable this feature for each individual room.
Frost protect — looks after your house when you are not there. If the temperature falls too low, then the heating will protect your home, and you can be sent an email alert to reassure you that everything is okay.
Away — when you go away on holiday, there is no point heating the house as normal. but you shouldn’t let the house get too cold either, or you could have burst pipes and other problems. tell the system that you are ‘Away’ and enter a ‘Setback’ temperature and rest assured that your home will be looked after. You can check the temperatures when you are away using the app on your phone or any computer with Internet access, just as you can at home.
If you’ve installed heat genius System in a second property, it can prove really useful to have full control of the heating even when you are not there. If the house is unoccupied you can simply choose to turn the heating off until you or your guests arrive.
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What sold me the heat genius System?
It was the ability of the heat geniusSystem to be expanding into home automation and how the heat genius System was well suited to retrofitting to my existing central gas heating system that convinced me that the heat genius System was the right system for me. I must admit that it was also many of the features that are unique within the heat genius System and the systems favourable ‘return on investment’ also weighted heavily and admittedly influenced my decision.
The heat genius System allows you to cut your household energy consumption by only providing heating when you need it and where you need it. The heat genius System can control heating in each individual room. It can even learn the best schedule automatically, to fit when you normally use each room. (Footprint Mode)
The heat genius System allows you to create zones in your home – meaning you only heat when you need and where you need. You can create zones in your home that have multiple radiators that you can control as one area. I have one designated zone that is an open area that covers my Living room, kitchen and dining room. This zone has 3 radiators that work as a single identity.
You can create your own heating schedule that reflects your lifestyle and the way you use your home.
Placing my heat genius System order
My heat genius system consists of:
1 x heat genius Hub — the ‘brain box’ that provides the link between your broadband router all the other components on the wireless (Z-wave) network. The Hub allows you to schedule your heating from any web device.
1 x heat genius boiler controller and thermostat — the heat genius System comes with HRT4-ZW and a ASR-ZW boiler controller that have extensively tried and tested, and uses open Z-Wave standard wireless technology. The boiler controller is compatible with most heating systems because it fits onto a standard thermostat backplate. The HRT4-ZW comes supplied with 2 AAA batteries and you can expect a battery life in excess of two years.
8 x heat genius wireless thermostatic valve controllers – these slip on to the end of your radiator instead of the existing thermostatic radiator valve head, and communicate wirelessly with the genius Hub.
6 x heat genius intelligent zoning thermostats and motion sensors — the heat genius multi-sensor looks like a motion sensor and acts like one too. but it’s also so much more. The sensor combines a PIR (Motion) sensor with a light sensor and a temperature sensor all in one small package.
The multi-sensor enables intelligent control with motion sensing. The wireless heat genius motion sensors allow the system to be able to collate and then learn when you use each room and schedule the heating automatically (Footprint Mode).
The sensor’s 3V Lithium battery (CR123A) that is provided should give you more than 2 years of use in normal situations; the sensor sends an alert to the network when the battery needs replacing.
4 x smart sockets — these simply repeat the wireless signal it on to other Z-Wave devices in your network. This extends the range and ensures that the network is reliable even through thick walls and other obstacles.
Within minutes of placing my order on the HG website, I received a confirmation of my order together with an email with installation instructions and user manual. While I waited for my order I spent some time reading over the instructions they had sent to me and tried to see the whole picture how the system needed to be installed and what the system was capable of.
Installing the heat genius System
I installed my own system – yes it took me much longer than it would take a professionally trained HG installer because I had to read the instructions manual first. Still, I found the system can be installed quickly and easily. There is no plumbing required and no mess. The wiring for the boiler controller is sometimes mains voltage though, so unless you’re sure that you can do it safely, get a heat genius installer to do it for you!
If you