Reccomend me a wireless thermostat control system

[Conor]

We have our system up and running, heatpump timed on certain times of the day, and the room stats call for heat when needed. Three zones, one pre floor, all wiring at the buffer in the plant room in the basement.

 

Problem is, we have heatmiser NeoAir2s, which, are utterly terrible. The range is non existent, to the point where all three stats have to be in the basement in order to communicate with the hubs. Some zone also randomly switch on and off, even when the remote unit is not calling for heat. The the remote stats themselves, are a horror to use. I don't have the WiFi hub, but I'm not risking another £160 on this terrible system.

 

Is there any chance I can get a system that has the range to get through two sets of precast concrete floors and at least one dense co cteete block wall? I'm thinking I'll need something to work through my mesh WiFi network?

 

Google Nest? Do the stats connect to the wiring boxes directly or via WiFi?

[richi]

I've been very happy with this Computherm wireless stat/controller, originally recommended by the immortal Jeremy. Range seems decent; when last I checked there are repeaters available.

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Edited December 28, 2022 by richi
added note on range/repeater

[JohnMo]

You could try to balance the system, set weather compensation and dump all but one thermostat and use the whole system as a single zone? Big volume of water available to heat pump, long run times, lower flow temps (than on/off times), win - win

[Conor]

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

You could try to balance the system, set weather compensation and dump all but one thermostat and use the whole system as a single zone? Big volume of water available to heat pump, long run times, lower flow temps (than on/off times), win - win

That is an option and I did consider this. However, the basement gets VERY warm, very quickly, and I'd have to reduce the flow rates way down. And the top floor is the opposite, it's all carpet, lots of glass plus a few roof lights, meaning heatloss is highest here and slowest to warm up. I think I need two zones as a min. So might keep the basement on the neo stat and have it wired, and get an alternative to the top floor.

[Alan Ambrose]

Hmmm - as two data points -  I have a couple of Heatmiser installs using the Heatmiser Zigbee hub and they're fine - one is 80 m^2 (with 5 x neoStat 12v + 4 x neoStat-e + 1 x Wireless Air + UH8-N + NeoHub), one is 180 m^2 with (13 x neoStat-e + 2 x Wireless Air + NeoHub). These are both single floor with typical stud walls, so not as tricky as 2 x concrete floors though. These are the kind with wired power (the signal is Zigbee) so they mostly don't have batteries. All fine except I sometimes lose connection for a few hours to the battery-powered Heatmiser temperature sensors which are outside in weatherproof boxes. FWIW the two systems I have seem pretty reliable.

 

I wonder whether Heatmiser trims the signal output for battery-powered sensors to conserve battery life?

 

Knowing how dodgy RF is, and how busy the spectrum is, and since you don't have that many sensors - is there's a way to run cabled sensors? You wouldn't have to change the batteries then either 😎.