[APP][Pro] Heating Controller with utility prices

Version v. 0.8.0 in app store now:

  • Added ‘Current price is [ x ] percent below today’s average’ condition.
  • Added ‘Current price is [ x ] percent above today’s average’ condition.

I think there may something wrong with the action ‘Set home override on, and automatically off on next schedule’. The action doesn’t seem change mode from Eco to Comfort.
If I edit the flow, and instead use the action ‘Set home override on’, then the mode is changed to Comfort when the flow is run.

The other action ‘Set away, and automatically switch to home mode on next schedule’ seems to work fine.

After the ‘Set home override on, and automatically off on next schedule’ has run, the “Home override” shall be “Yes” and “Heating” will be “Heating on” … if is is day. Otherwise “Heating” will be “Heating off” in the mobile app. I guess you’re checking the mobile app ?

Before:

After:

And the Comfort and ECO triggers will only trigger if the heating changes.

I tested now by adding a flow that sends a push message then the Comfort triggers, and another when ECO triggers… And I cannot see any bugs…

If you can explain what you are doing, I can try to reproduce.

Hmmm… Changed the flow back to using the ‘Set home override on, and automatically off on next schedule’ action, and now it suddenly worked…
Maybe it was the Homey itself that may have had a hiccup. Or maybe I did something wrong :wink:
Anyway, sorry to waste your time

No problem :slight_smile:

It seems Heating Controller treats 8th of May as a Norwegian holiday, and therefore assume that I´m not at work.
Although it is the day of liberation, it is not a holiday :slight_smile:

Hi Ketil,

Yes, I saw this myself… Will switch to another solution for holidays… so it will be ready for next 8th of May :slight_smile:

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Released v. 1.1.0.

Reduced size, with new solution for holdays.

I can’t seem to get your “High price trigger 6 hours - Comfort” example to work.
It’s active all the time instead of just 6 hours, shouldn’t it use the Comfort Mode settings if the price is low/active more than 6 hours? Or am I missing something :sweat_smile:

Hi,

I’m using “heating is equal to ‘yes’” myself. Not “heating is true”… so the example might be wrong.

And this is the target temperature:

Yes, that I was aware of.
Maybe I am misunderstanding the function. I was under the impression that when there are high prices 6 hours of the day it would regulate the temperature down a couple of degrees, and outside of the 6 hours it would use the temperatures set in ‘Comfort mode’ rule, or if it was 2 consequative hours it would skip.
Because right now it only regulates in ECO similar like your graph and during the day it is fixed at the temperatures set in the ‘High price comfort’ rule. Should I use the same rules as I use in Eco for comfort as well, but opposite?

It finds the 6 hours with lowest prices when in ECO mode.

You can add several HeatingController devices and set separate schedules, if that’s necessary.

Thank you for a great app, I am totally new to this, but wonders if it could be possible to have a motion override?
For example IF anyone at home during daytime (meausured by motion sensors) = comfort temp without any interaction in any app.

Best regards

Helge

Hello.

  1. Can You give some more detailed information of the inputs and outputs of the app? E.g. at which conditions the “high_price” becomes true or false, and the same for “low_price”? I am also facing issues of probably combining the parameters properly. Right now my outputs of flows are the notification messages, and I seem to get high price indications for lower utility price and vice versa (for “high prices /x/ hours” triger). Utility prices are logged correctly. Or perhaps there is some mismatch/shift in finding top /x/ high-price hours, when considering different time zones.
  2. Can You consider also adding a secondary ‘layer’ to the app, as at least in Estonia the utility price can be purchased as stock-based, but the transmission price can be time-based. As the transmission price can be higher than the utility price, then it might make sense to follow the transmission cost instead/in addition. Of course would be an option to make a secondary controller instance for transmission schedule and try to combine the outcome by Homey’s flow(s). Of course, it depends, if the user’s target is to optimise only energy, or also save money.
  3. can You comment the usage of the currency in the app? Is it only for Nordpool data fetching? At least in the app’s GUI the dollar-sign seems to be in use even when euro is selected.
  4. can You comment, at which time the utility prices are downloaded from the Nordpool? What happens if, for some reason, it fails (e.g. network connection is down or alike)?

thank You!

Hello,

You can read about the app on this page:

Hello.
Thank You. I have looked that and still not fully clear. Are the X hours counted only from the hours of ECO mode, or X-hours per 24h, where the high-price hours which are during comfort mode are excluded?
2) for some unkown reason I do not get any outcomes from the “controller” during midnight (I have one notice at 23:00 and then the next one at 01:00). Timezone UTC+2 /for Estonia/.
3) what happens during the two consequetive high prices, e.g. will it mark the first one as ‘high’ and the second one as ‘non-high’ (even when the second price might be even higher)? Or will it pick the higher value out of two?
thank You!

Hi,

I’ve just installed VThermo and it works great! Can this app work together with it or are they “competitive”?

best regards,
Dag-Inge

Hi Dag-Inge !

Oh yes, they work together. VThermo can be used standalone, and is an active device that turns wall plugs on/off as a thermostat. You just have to add a temperature sensor to the same some as the VThermo and the wall plug. The wall plug must be configured as a heater device. So VThermo will work without any flows for itself.

HeatingController is normally used to set the setpoint / target temperature for thermostats, physical and virtual (like VThermo). The minimum configuration is having just one HeatingController for your whole house, with just one flow to set the Comfort temperatures for all thermostats, and one flow to set the ECO temperatures for all thermostats.

You can use several HeatingControllers if you like, with separate schedules for separate parts of your house.

Thank you for your quick and well explained response! VThermo was very easy to get started with. Just as apps should be. I’ll install HeatingController this evening. Looking forward to it!

(Tusen takk for info! :+1:)