Comfort to Heatmiser WiFi thermostat Integration

[yanza]

After developing previous PC (Windows Media Center) to Cytech Comfort integration software, YANZA has been offline for a while working out what people (the millions who don\'t already have it) need from Home Automation, the answer (apart from Comfort security, etc.) is to save money.

The average UK home energy spend is nearing £1,500, 60% being heating. The UK spends £33 billion on domestic energy each year. Getting everyone to turn down their heating by just 1 degree C could save 10%.

YANZA has Heatmiser WiFi thermostat cloud based remote control in beta testing. Please subscribe (see yanza.com website) if interested.

More importantly (for this forum) YANZA would like to ask the forum if there is interest in adding Comfort support to link Cytech Comfort to Heatmiser WiFi domestic heating.
For example, when Comfort is set to away mode, the heating goes off.

Please reply to this forum so everyone can share in the discussion.

Please also look at our survey
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2N2R6KY

Thanks

yanza.com

[slychiu]

Welcome back to the Comfort Community, Yanza

[slychiu]

Welcome back to the Comfort Community, Yanza

[schford]

Sounds very interesting - heating is the only thing left for me to integrate!

[ident]

Is it necessary to leave your PC on all the time for this? I think there will be resistance to using a PC for such home functions

[yanza]

Hi ident

I think the ground is gradually shifting as to what hardware is suitable for Home Automation.

I think there will ALWAYS be a place for dedicated 24/7 hardware like Cytech Comfort, mine has been working flawless for 10 years.

However, people are relying on their home PC for new functions, TV on demand, remote access to their music and video, remote access to their documents, so they are starting to leave their computers on 24/7.

YANZA has done three surveys. The first showed 71% leave a PC on 24/7, the second showed it was 26%, the survey in this forum shows 50%. A bit of a spread, and average of half, but a few years ago I suspect it would have been much closer to 0%.

In this instance, the Heatmiser WiFi thermostat is designed to work stand alone, and in my experience has saved money without the PC being on 24/7. A lot of the work is done in the cloud, which is 24/7, where the user can refine the heating patterns and where the learning is done to make minor adjustments to the WiFi thermostat schedule the next time they communicate. Also the PC doesn\'t have to be on 24/7 as the WiFi thermostat can be used via iPhone and Android, or even any browser, the PC/cloud combination is there to add extra \"glue\".

I don\'t see dedicated hardware like Comfort going away, just more PC integration, the best of both, especially as PCs become more reliable and people do start to leave them on 24/7!

So to answer the question, no it is no necessary to leave the PC on 24/7, the WiFi thermostat will work stand-alone, with maximum energy saving modifications each time the PC is switched on, especially with Comfort integration such as \"turn heating off when Comfort goes to away mode\".

yanza.com

[jmwhooper]

Hi Yanza

Came across this thread, I\'m looking to find a way to provide 2 way comms between comfort and heatmiser via RS485, can this be done with a UCM?

Thanks

[ident]

The Universal UCM is our solution for interface to 3rd party systems, see the forum at http://www.comfortforums.com/forum94/

The Universal UCM can be ordered with  Rs485, Rs232 or Ethernet interface

It allows baud rate, etc to be configured as well as start, stop bits and other protocol information
You can send any command to the device and receive messages from the device and assign to Counters, sensors or other  comfort elements

[yanza]

There is already a post on this
http://www.comfortforums.com/view_topic.php?forum_id=47&highlight=hometronic&id=918
including some documentation. However Heatmiser also publishing their own interfacing documentation on their website. The thing to watch is that a checksum may need to be calcuated and I\'m not sure how Comfort would do this. The WiFi versions certainly need to checksum to be calculated.

[slychiu]

The universal UCM can be programmed to calculate various kinds of checksums and CRCs