Question : Can this replace a Netatmo TRV that communicates to the boiler controller, that demands heat ? I believe this will not "ask" for heat, but only the heat coming in. Correct?
Hi Stu, how easy are they to pair with the App? I am junking two Meross TRV because the setup is garbage. I need App control because my MS doesn't let me get near my twiddly nob... Frank... Also what room temperature sensor would you recommend to use? IMHO on rad temp sensing is pointless... Cheers
The Aqara thermostat is cheap and easy enough to pair with the thermostats, makes it all internal to the Aqara system then. The setup was easy peasy… or at least I think it was! You know me, if the setup was trash, then I’d generally make a big thing of it in the episode because you know how much i despise bad setup experiences! 😂
So I have bought one of these to try out and so far easy to install and setup. I think the concept is sound and look forward to seeing if it pans out to actual savings. Meantime I did get the abnormal alarm too, so thanks for that tip. Second potential issue.... when the temperature is achieved or set less, then the valve seems well fitted and firm to radiator, allowing easy 'twizzlling'. However when I up to a higher temperature than current it goes all limp. The TRV then can't be easily 'twizzled' and you have to hold the whole thing and twist the top. Surely this can't be right?
It becomes loose because of the way TRVs generally work. When it’s loose it means that the valve is fully open until temperature is achieved, at which point it will tighten back down to restrict flow and lower the temp!
Hey Stu. Smart heating is great, but a plain old old heating thermostat only opens the valve when the room temperature is lower than the one set on the thermostat as well. So you didn't have to turn down the non-smart thermostat when you turned on the fireplace.
Yeah that’s *supposed* to be how they work, but I’ve yet to come across a manual TRV that actually functions as intended 😂 (my old ones certainly didn’t)… and also, with the 1-5 rather than actual measurements it’s pretty hard to get a desired temperature, so having the smart functionality is still way better than the regular TRVs (especially if they’re naff like mine were) 😂
Man, You are replacing a physical thermostat radiator valve with an electronic one. What you explain about your stove and the valve (not heating when the stove brought the room temperature up) is equally true for the old valve. The only advantages of those electronic valves is that you can set a schedule to drop the temperature when you are not present, when a door/window is open nearby and when a home automation hub would request a power boost to your central thermostat when the valve wants to open (I did that with some HomeAssistant automation). About price, Aqara is slightly more expensive than a Moes TRV. Of course it might not work that well with the rest of the Aqara echosystem but it definitely works the same way with HomeAssistant. My 2c,
I don't understand how to set one up in my place. My boiler came with a termostat on the wall which I can change, also got 2 main radiators I'd like to control. Do I set my thermostat to a temp I like and then these TRV's will maintain that heat? when does the thermostat even turn on? when it drops in below a certain temp? I'm not sure how to set that up. Just moved home and this is all new to me lol
Hi Stu, what are the dimensions of the Aqara E1 TRV? I've tried searching and emailing them, but no joy... I'm interested in the diameter of the control body to check it will fit my rads. The body of the Aqara TRV is quite chunky. I used to draw these when designing Oil Rigs, we called them Motor Operated Valves (MOVs). Cheers
It would be handy if the More settings "Valve inspection" toggle was global - would save going through umpteen Rad menus to disable (or set to off by default on setup?) - I'm assuming its safe to turn this off on all rads ? - I too was suffering many error msgs and the "Alarm Notifications" elsewhere are all on and can't be disabled?
Don’t these gadgets for your radiators require the central heating to be ON all the time though so that you can then turn individual radiators on and off?
@@StusReviewsUK Great review! Sorry if I missed something but that setting will just stop the notification coming up, it doesn't actually turn on the heating if needed, so the room remains cold? So would the heating need to be on permanently? The valve then only act as a temperature limiter. I'm not finding an easy answer to this one. Thanks
@@StusReviewsUK So heating needs to be on permanently? I’ve found no clean easy automation solution to this other than hacks and work around with HomeKit or HASS, as my heating system isn’t available via Aqara app. You would think that if less than set radiator temp would then somehow turn on the heating? Well thanks for getting back to me though Stu :)
Hi thanks for your video could you help me with this issuing i am facing i plan on purchasing aqara thermostat and google nest. my problem here, do i purchase the nest temp sensor or the aqara temp sensor, which one would recommend?
The Aqara one is the only one capable of pairing as an ‘instead of’ reading, because this is done internally on the app. Otherwise the TRV valves own thermostat is the sensor it uses.
I have manual valves on my radiators but they just off by themself. They are thermostat valves. While these products are very nice to do automation, it wont save massive amounts of money, except when your radiator valves are just open close i guess. Another problem for me is that i have one thermostat in my living room. So my house only gets heated when the temp drops in my living room. So when i should install these valves, i also need something that communicates with my boiler. For example: all rooms are 21 degrees. One room is 18C, that valve has to tell my boiler to activate and the themorstat valve has to open in that room untill it is 21C. The issue is, my boiler uses Opentherm and i have (for now) no idea how to do that. I see a lot of people that have an ON/OFF "switch" in their boiler who they can activate and tell the boiler to heat. But with modern boilers it talks through the protocol of OpenTherm. ... Standalon the valves are nice, but i would like to go that one step further, else it won't save me much.
Generally the boiler thermostat is installed where the coldest (usually Hall or living room near front door so usually it will be on first and usually it won't have a TRV on the radiator where the thermostat is as the thermostat should be doing that, when I used nest I removed the trv in the living room so the nest controled the room temperature, the house is quiet open in my case) some places use 2 thermostats (upstairs and downstairs) This company does sell a relay now so you can link all the room temp sensors to it (m2 hub > room temp sensors > smart thermostat valves > boiler relay) so any room you have setup can command the boiler to turn on I Still have the nest as backup (heat controler has manual override button or use dial on nest thermostat to turn up 2c higher)
Stu can you do a video on temperature sensors and how you have linked to your house. I've recently bought one and realised my smart trvs say one thing and the room says another. Trv says 14.3 yet temp sensor says 19.2. This means my heating will be on until the trv hits the required temp and just burning money
Which TRVs and temp sensors are you using? Also there’s lots of factors for different readings like airflow height positioning etc, along with calibration errors. Might be worth checking those first!
I've finally found a work around. The echo gen 4 has a built in temperature sensor. I can set a routine that if temp is below a certain temperature it will kick in the hive system. It's amazing what the echo gen 4 can do. No extra bridges, hubs or devices
On the saving Money front you can buy exactly the same TRV branded as HAOZEE(and others) on Ali-express for about half the Aqara price. I just installed 10 of them and they look identical to the Aqara E1. The Haozee hub is about £12. But i didn’t use it so cant say I’f its any good. From the description it sounds like it offers the same features as the Aqara hub. Mine are paired with Home Assistant and working great. (Significant config required!). NB while the valve looks identical the Firmware is not exactly the same so it’s very unlikely you could use the Haozee version with a Aqara hub and visa-versa.
I think a lot of these are produced from the same factories. When you look into it it’s fascinating stuff! The thing that makes Aqara stand out is the software, by far some of the most reliable!
@@StusReviewsUK Totally agree, I’m a fan of the Aqara stuff, I’m just to cheap to buy their TRV’s when in can spend many hours hitting my head against a keyboard making cheaper ones do the same job… eventually lol. Yeah I’d love to know who actually makes them and what tweaks the 3rd parties are really doing to them..
Unfortunately this product would be completely useless outside the UK as in the USA nobody has these kind of heaters/radiators. Everyone(90%) over here with a house has a combination Air Conditioner/Furnace system. The only exceptions being small apartments(what you call a Flat in England) and usually they either have a Window unit heater/AC combo, or more commonly an electric floor heater. I'm glad though that there are companies attempting to help out people with really old heating in their homes but it would be better in the long run to just replace all the oil heaters, plumbing and the like with modern heat pumps that require no fuel at all to function(other than electricity from a power grid which is also needed for oil heating anyway).
These sort of things are great, however having used a few different systems and currently sat on a cobbled together nest / Eve thermo combo I never noticed any money savings, however the house is way more even whereas before I could experience ever Climate between artic and desert by simple walking from room to room
I just called local high chain B&Q asking about gas heaters, they told me the gov have stopped all retailers selling any gas appliances. Lol wtf, so they don't want us keeping warm, nice. Stopping the sales of gas heaters simply awful.
I had another make of valve that didn't work very well. Never figured it was because the thermostat was too close to the radiator. The ability to run these off another thermostat away from the radiator is a game changer. Great video nicely done.
Mine had the added issue in that they are mostly all in radiator cabinets which encloses the heat even more. Paring their remote temperature sensor in each room is a must for this use case.
OK that's really good to know it can be paired with the remote sensor (I always thought how can it work correctly when it's right next to the radiator) do need to get the other 4 radiators replaced or at least the valve part below the thermostat as they was for un-pressurised system so the stupid things bounce off and on 2 times a second when they are nearly shutting off so had to remove the TRV knob's to stop that (anoying thing is the trv's actually work perfectly fine if it wasn't for the valve)
Got several Zigbee 3.0 Tuya TRVs made for Essentials DE, same TRVs but work with Tuya or Smart life, work just fine in HA via ZHA. I'm pretty sure that those are the same , just different Firmware , at least they look the same and work the same except under Tuya
Question : Can this replace a Netatmo TRV that communicates to the boiler controller, that demands heat ? I believe this will not "ask" for heat, but only the heat coming in. Correct?
This is the second best review for this thermostat that I've seen today! 🤣 Xxx
Shots fired....
I would agree 😂. Not enough schmutz in mine!!👉 🍩 xxx
-squeaky voice- oooh yeah!
Paul’s show has the better green credentials tho… with all the jokes recycled time and time and time and time again 😘♻️
Can’t fix what isn’t broken!
After you said "...female company..." I expected you to cut back to the "big satisfying knob" section :D :D :D
I need to hire you as my creative lead 😂
@@StusReviewsUK Channel strike incoming :)
First....woop. I have something like this. Great for turning off regions you dont need. Paul Hibbert not gonna be happy with you😄
Wait till you see who’s in this episode 😉
@@StusReviewsUK We want Collab....
Too bad they do'nt store aqara automations (set in aqara app) locally! :(
Is this compatible with hive? Thanks
Got The link to your channel from Paul Hibbert.
Great review 👍👍
Cheers and Welcome to the Country Club! 🥃
The only valves I have are in my radio, but I enjoy listening to you anyway. (I did watch Paul first.)
Hi Stu, how easy are they to pair with the App?
I am junking two Meross TRV because the setup is garbage. I need App control because my MS doesn't let me get near my twiddly nob...
Frank...
Also what room temperature sensor would you recommend to use? IMHO on rad temp sensing is pointless...
Cheers
The Aqara thermostat is cheap and easy enough to pair with the thermostats, makes it all internal to the Aqara system then. The setup was easy peasy… or at least I think it was! You know me, if the setup was trash, then I’d generally make a big thing of it in the episode because you know how much i despise bad setup experiences! 😂
I knew that man was going to be PH.
So I have bought one of these to try out and so far easy to install and setup. I think the concept is sound and look forward to seeing if it pans out to actual savings. Meantime I did get the abnormal alarm too, so thanks for that tip. Second potential issue.... when the temperature is achieved or set less, then the valve seems well fitted and firm to radiator, allowing easy 'twizzlling'. However when I up to a higher temperature than current it goes all limp. The TRV then can't be easily 'twizzled' and you have to hold the whole thing and twist the top. Surely this can't be right?
It becomes loose because of the way TRVs generally work. When it’s loose it means that the valve is fully open until temperature is achieved, at which point it will tighten back down to restrict flow and lower the temp!
Hey Stu.
Smart heating is great, but a plain old old heating thermostat only opens the valve when the room temperature is lower than the one set on the thermostat as well. So you didn't have to turn down the non-smart thermostat when you turned on the fireplace.
Yeah that’s *supposed* to be how they work, but I’ve yet to come across a manual TRV that actually functions as intended 😂 (my old ones certainly didn’t)… and also, with the 1-5 rather than actual measurements it’s pretty hard to get a desired temperature, so having the smart functionality is still way better than the regular TRVs (especially if they’re naff like mine were) 😂
@@StusReviewsUK Nor argument here. The smart features really are worth the upgrade.
Man,
You are replacing a physical thermostat radiator valve with an electronic one. What you explain about your stove and the valve (not heating when the stove brought the room temperature up) is equally true for the old valve.
The only advantages of those electronic valves is that you can set a schedule to drop the temperature when you are not present, when a door/window is open nearby and when a home automation hub would request a power boost to your central thermostat when the valve wants to open (I did that with some HomeAssistant automation).
About price, Aqara is slightly more expensive than a Moes TRV. Of course it might not work that well with the rest of the Aqara echosystem but it definitely works the same way with HomeAssistant.
My 2c,
I don't understand how to set one up in my place. My boiler came with a termostat on the wall which I can change, also got 2 main radiators I'd like to control. Do I set my thermostat to a temp I like and then these TRV's will maintain that heat? when does the thermostat even turn on? when it drops in below a certain temp? I'm not sure how to set that up. Just moved home and this is all new to me lol
Hi Stu, what are the dimensions of the Aqara E1 TRV?
I've tried searching and emailing them, but no joy...
I'm interested in the diameter of the control body to check it will fit my rads. The body of the Aqara TRV is quite chunky.
I used to draw these when designing Oil Rigs, we called them Motor Operated Valves (MOVs).
Cheers
You should check out wiser by Drayton. Quite alot more features than these and less expencice
It would be handy if the More settings "Valve inspection" toggle was global - would save going through umpteen Rad menus to disable (or set to off by default on setup?) - I'm assuming its safe to turn this off on all rads ? - I too was suffering many error msgs and the "Alarm Notifications" elsewhere are all on and can't be disabled?
LoRaWAN Self-powering TRVs don't seem to be making it to any of these reviews? They're phenomenal.
Don’t these gadgets for your radiators require the central heating to be ON all the time though so that you can then turn individual radiators on and off?
No - watch my episode and it’ll explain how I use them in the purpose of my own home. I actually talk about this specific situation.
@@StusReviewsUK Great review! Sorry if I missed something but that setting will just stop the notification coming up, it doesn't actually turn on the heating if needed, so the room remains cold? So would the heating need to be on permanently? The valve then only act as a temperature limiter. I'm not finding an easy answer to this one. Thanks
Just turns off the error fault not the valve for situations like mine where it’s not on all the time 👍
@@StusReviewsUK So heating needs to be on permanently? I’ve found no clean easy automation solution to this other than hacks and work around with HomeKit or HASS, as my heating system isn’t available via Aqara app. You would think that if less than set radiator temp would then somehow turn on the heating? Well thanks for getting back to me though Stu :)
No it doesn’t - I talk about this in the episode, just turn the diag fault off and it behaves like normal. 👍
Hi
thanks for your video
could you help me with this issuing i am facing
i plan on purchasing aqara thermostat and google nest.
my problem here, do i purchase the nest temp sensor or the aqara temp sensor, which one would recommend?
The Aqara one is the only one capable of pairing as an ‘instead of’ reading, because this is done internally on the app. Otherwise the TRV valves own thermostat is the sensor it uses.
I have manual valves on my radiators but they just off by themself. They are thermostat valves. While these products are very nice to do automation, it wont save massive amounts of money, except when your radiator valves are just open close i guess.
Another problem for me is that i have one thermostat in my living room. So my house only gets heated when the temp drops in my living room. So when i should install these valves, i also need something that communicates with my boiler. For example: all rooms are 21 degrees. One room is 18C, that valve has to tell my boiler to activate and the themorstat valve has to open in that room untill it is 21C. The issue is, my boiler uses Opentherm and i have (for now) no idea how to do that. I see a lot of people that have an ON/OFF "switch" in their boiler who they can activate and tell the boiler to heat. But with modern boilers it talks through the protocol of OpenTherm. ...
Standalon the valves are nice, but i would like to go that one step further, else it won't save me much.
Generally the boiler thermostat is installed where the coldest (usually Hall or living room near front door so usually it will be on first and usually it won't have a TRV on the radiator where the thermostat is as the thermostat should be doing that, when I used nest I removed the trv in the living room so the nest controled the room temperature, the house is quiet open in my case)
some places use 2 thermostats (upstairs and downstairs)
This company does sell a relay now so you can link all the room temp sensors to it (m2 hub > room temp sensors > smart thermostat valves > boiler relay) so any room you have setup can command the boiler to turn on
I Still have the nest as backup (heat controler has manual override button or use dial on nest thermostat to turn up 2c higher)
Paul Hibbert sent me :)
Nice work helping him get his channel back!
Hey Ralph - Welcome to the Country Club! 🥃
Stu can you do a video on temperature sensors and how you have linked to your house.
I've recently bought one and realised my smart trvs say one thing and the room says another. Trv says 14.3 yet temp sensor says 19.2. This means my heating will be on until the trv hits the required temp and just burning money
Which TRVs and temp sensors are you using? Also there’s lots of factors for different readings like airflow height positioning etc, along with calibration errors. Might be worth checking those first!
I've finally found a work around. The echo gen 4 has a built in temperature sensor. I can set a routine that if temp is below a certain temperature it will kick in the hive system. It's amazing what the echo gen 4 can do.
No extra bridges, hubs or devices
Tooop
On the saving Money front you can buy exactly the same TRV branded as HAOZEE(and others) on Ali-express for about half the Aqara price. I just installed 10 of them and they look identical to the Aqara E1. The Haozee hub is about £12. But i didn’t use it so cant say I’f its any good. From the description it sounds like it offers the same features as the Aqara hub. Mine are paired with Home Assistant and working great. (Significant config required!). NB while the valve looks identical the Firmware is not exactly the same so it’s very unlikely you could use the Haozee version with a Aqara hub and visa-versa.
I think a lot of these are produced from the same factories. When you look into it it’s fascinating stuff! The thing that makes Aqara stand out is the software, by far some of the most reliable!
@@StusReviewsUK Totally agree, I’m a fan of the Aqara stuff, I’m just to cheap to buy their TRV’s when in can spend many hours hitting my head against a keyboard making cheaper ones do the same job… eventually lol. Yeah I’d love to know who actually makes them and what tweaks the 3rd parties are really doing to them..
So I am guessing they don't work with the Aqara App ...? What about Homekit.?
@@marktime61 No but they work with the Tuya app I believe. As far as I know Tuya only support Alexa & Google integration.
Unfortunately this product would be completely useless outside the UK as in the USA nobody has these kind of heaters/radiators.
Everyone(90%) over here with a house has a combination Air Conditioner/Furnace system. The only exceptions being small apartments(what you call a Flat in England) and usually they either have a Window unit heater/AC combo, or more commonly an electric floor heater.
I'm glad though that there are companies attempting to help out people with really old heating in their homes but it would be better in the long run to just replace all the oil heaters, plumbing and the like with modern heat pumps that require no fuel at all to function(other than electricity from a power grid which is also needed for oil heating anyway).
These sort of things are great, however having used a few different systems and currently sat on a cobbled together nest / Eve thermo combo I never noticed any money savings, however the house is way more even whereas before I could experience ever Climate between artic and desert by simple walking from room to room
I just called local high chain B&Q asking about gas heaters, they told me the gov have stopped all retailers selling any gas appliances. Lol wtf, so they don't want us keeping warm, nice. Stopping the sales of gas heaters simply awful.
I had another make of valve that didn't work very well. Never figured it was because the thermostat was too close to the radiator. The ability to run these off another thermostat away from the radiator is a game changer. Great video nicely done.
I know right! That’s the big problem with lots of these… and why the Aqara ones are certainly one of the best ones out there!
Mine had the added issue in that they are mostly all in radiator cabinets which encloses the heat even more. Paring their remote temperature sensor in each room is a must for this use case.
OK that's really good to know it can be paired with the remote sensor (I always thought how can it work correctly when it's right next to the radiator)
do need to get the other 4 radiators replaced or at least the valve part below the thermostat as they was for un-pressurised system so the stupid things bounce off and on 2 times a second when they are nearly shutting off so had to remove the TRV knob's to stop that (anoying thing is the trv's actually work perfectly fine if it wasn't for the valve)
Got several Zigbee 3.0 Tuya TRVs made for Essentials DE, same TRVs but work with Tuya or Smart life, work just fine in HA via ZHA. I'm pretty sure that those are the same , just different Firmware , at least they look the same and work the same except under Tuya