I want to build a heating control system with the openhab as a central controller.
Could you please help me to choose a hardware and bindings for my project.
Here is the simplified block diagram for the system.
So I need some thermostats located in different rooms connected to openhab (z-wave or other protocol).
I should be able to read and set the data from/to each thermostat with openhab (on tablet or any touchscreen display).
And the main part is that whenever one of the thermostat switches , OpenHab should send the signal to control unit , which can be a relay box, to open or close corresponding valve on the heating manifold.
I think that using the z-wave technology would be the best for flexibility but I am completely new to all these.
normally, getting and processing temperatures to do something is the job of the heating controller. Is it for an existing home or are you building anew?
My 2Cent: relying on wireless transportation for key vital systems like heating is not ideal.
And most importantly there are dedicated (certified and reliable) heating solutions, which only purpos is to do the job and which don’t rely on a central logic. openHAB isn’t meant for 24/7 operation of vital systems, it is a completely open platform, which you can Change (bindings, items, rules, …) everyday with a pretty good chance of errors and failures.
Try to use a dedicated heating system (thermostats, controller, valves, logic) and just provide some automation tasks via openHAB like changes in setpoints according to presence or other logic. But don’t use openHAB as a central logic unit for heating.
In generally I agree with Thomas.
But because of some misconfiguration and wrong components in my home I’m running my full heating system with OpenHAB since 3 years now.
It’s stable enough.
I’m using a heatpump and floorheatings.
In my first year I even got 500,- energy savings refunded.
I realized a three-layer system:
Without OpenHAB the heatingsystem controlls itself with minimal funktionality - but works.
Then I have a preconfigured Raspberry with openhabian that only controls heating. I don’t play around with it and usually it’s switched off.
And then there’s my everyday OpenHAB that controls the full home.
My components:
heating manifold valves were controlled with knx heating actor
temperature sensors are wired with knx or wireless with enocean or zwave (I prefer the enoceans because they don’t need a battery)
heatingpump is an early model without any app/ip-possibilities. I connected some wires to knx-actors for controlling them manually and some signals to an knx binary-input to read their state.
in the hotwatertank I inserted a cheap temperature-sensor to get that value
the power of each component is measured separately - so I have an exact report of energyconsumption separated by hotwater and heating
In general I want something that Michael did for his heating system.
The solution should work on the existing heating system.
The system has radiators for each room, The Combi boiler (heating, hot water and the pump in single unit) and finally the manifold to distribute the hot water to each radiator in parallel.
On that manifold I have actuator valves which aren’t connected to any device yet.
I have done some researches on dedicated systems, but they are really expensive.
For example Danfoss link system which have one central unit, several thermostats and valve controller would be over 1500 USD. And all that system works on z-wave but with propriety implementation. They have also open protocol z-wave models but with even higher prices. The main part of the cost is the valve controller unit, which is simpy a z-wave relay box which turns on/off the valves when gets the signal from main unit.
So if there is a way to build a central unit with openhab, and the valve controller on relays, then I can buy just thermostats and run all system.
sorry for interrupting and for being the bad guy: there’s a reason, why dedicated and certified systems for vital purposes costs money: the companys behind it have done a lot of R&D and they’re responsible for the outcome…
I want to do the same as Mushegh. I am also doing a full house renovation.
I propose to have temperature sensors in each room (zone) that are monitored by OpenHAB whereby rules are set (temp values; time of day values) for switching on/off the heating manifolds. Surely this is a simple task for OpenHAB?!
I’m thinking that using sonoff TH10 [reflashed with mqtt] that provides OpenHAB with the on/off signal with the temperature values for the thermostat high/low figures. OpenHAB then drives relays for switching the manifolds.
Alternatively using a simple DS18B20+ temperature sensor for providing OpenHAB (via GPIO) temperature values and using simple relay feeds for switching manifolds.
Am I missing something?
Any advice would be greatly appreicated.
Homematic doesn’t have boiler controller as such. They do have thermostat with relay, but this is only up to 1A and I’m not sure it is good enough to trigger boiler pump ON/OFF. Probably is, or you can use another relay on top of it. But this will still not control manifold valves.
So my question is: What is your exact configuration, and what Homematic devices are you using for controlling boiler, hot water tank and valves?
MDAR
(Stuart Hanlon, UK importer of Velbus hardware)
10
Hi
Are you looking for a wireless system, or would you consider a wired system like Velbus?
Each glass panel has a full function heating and cooling thermostat, which is then linked to as many relays as you require.
Zone valve control
Pumps
Boiler heat call
Air chiller
Fans
Air flow diverting
