I am new to openhab, but it seems te be very intresting for me/ my job.
As i am responsible for ITin a Technical school, it could be a great tool to monitor our energy use and even better adapt heating scheme’s daily ?
What is the idea:
We have to replace almost all our radiator valves, maybe, we can better replace them by models that can be controlled remotely via a central system.
I even can’t imagine how much energy we can save if we can create a heating schema according to the times that a classroom is used.
Example: Now: All radiators are switched on from 8AM till 20 PM as some classes are even used in the evening. But otthers are just used a few hours a day…
Can this be possible ?
-What type of radiator valve can handle this with OpenHab ?
-Z-Wave will be a problem, as the meshing goes only 4 hops
-We have wifi coverage in all rooms.
-+/- 200 rooms
Let me try to give you some ideas and answers to details:
First you should distinguish between different questions which you asked:
Hardware to control a radiator
There are a lot of devices/systems which which can do thi job. You can search for e.g. Homematic or FritzDECT.
In most cases it is not necessary to replace the valve but only the thermostat controlling the valve.
Such intelligent thermostats are often able to operate independend from a control (e.g. if the central control is down).
They have a program which they run until they get some new program to run.
Transmission technology
The transmission technolgy used by these devices is manyfold. It can be based on 433MHz, DECT, z-wave or other technolgies.
Central control
OpenHAB allows a central control of such devices. You can either define “standard program” (like time controlled behaviour) or even include other type of information (e.g. weather data) to control the the temperature.
If you search for heating you will find a lot of similar use cases. Mostly the only difference will be the amount of radiators / room which are controlled.