How to manage my electric heating system?

Hello everyone,
I’m an open source software enthusiast and I’m planning to manage my electric heating system with home automation.
Each room has a radiator connected to the electrical outlet: I would like to put a digital thermometer in each room and set, via a smart socket, that the radiator turns on when the respective thermometer detects that the temperature has gone below the set temperature.
Is this possible? What hardware do you recommend?
I guess I need a gateway, thermometers and smart sockets.
Thanks in advance

Welcome!

This is easily doable, and you’ll find examples in the community of people setting up their own thermostats via rules. My own system is based on integration with Google Assistant, which is now the primary way I control heat.

It’s hard to recommend hardware without knowing where you live or any details about your radiators. It would be better for you to look up what’s available and then search the community to see if others are already using it.

You would only need a gateway if your thermometers and/or sockets require a gateway (e.g. Z-Wave or Zigbee). It’s easy to find WiFi sockets (again, depending on where you live), but harder to find WiFi sensors.

Make sure that the sockets you buy meet your electrical codes and that they are properly rated for the power draw (Amperage) your radiators require. That might be obvious to you, but it isn’t to a lot of people.

As far as programming goes, my recommendation is to start simple and improve it over time, so that you can smoothly adapt the system to your needs. Don’t try to set up all of the rooms at once–start with one room so that you learn how it works without too many variables. Then it’ll be easy to add the remaining rooms.

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Hi Russ,
thank you very much for your reply. First of all I’m glad it’s doable and I’ll follow your advice… I live in Switzerland and these are the radiators: Stiebel Eltron
If anyone living in the same country as me, has any suggestions on the best solution for smart sockets that would be great. In the meantime I will do some checking and research as suggested.
Thanks

Looking at the heater it may have a soft switch, meaning if you turn the power off at the power point and then turn the heather back on it will not turn on until you physically press the button on the heater.
If this is the case then what you want to do will be harder as putting a smart plug is the same as turning the power point on and off.
I would test the heater to see if it turns on after power has been removed and restored.

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Nice catch. I see from the photos that this unit has both a master power toggle and a soft switch, so I’m curious what the results will be.

If it had an IR remote, you could use Broadlink RM Minis to control it. Doesn’t look like that’s the case, though.