Hive Home Heating network performance

[sophiecentaur]

I guess this post is mainly aimed at UK members because I think my particular query is about a particular product range.

I have a Hive Heating control system with 'smart' TRVs and a single radiator which is controlled by a wall thermostat. The system is controlled by a Hub with connection to my WiFi Router via ethernet. It's controlled by an iPhone App. It appears that communications with the TRVs and Thermostat is via the Hub.

'Apparently' there are two wireless networks involved; Bluetooth (for setting up) and Zigbee, for continual intercommunication round the network of Hive Devices. Setting it all up is a dreary task because there's a terrible time delay involved (many minutes at times). Hive claim that there's some clever optimisation involved to set the rad valve openings to the best opening. Paying for the installation process would be frustrating because the installer would be sitting around waiting for things to happen.

Why need it be sooo sloow? Clearly it uses low power (battery) and most devices are near the floor, etc... Are there any fellow users in the UK with experience of or an opinion? Zigbee, I now find, is a well known protocol and I may already have gear with Zigbee without knowing.

 

[Guineafowl]

I don’t know, but some searching suggests Zigbee latency is a bug, not a feature. Troubleshooting involves the usual suspects, eg internet speed and addressing signal propagation in the house, changing wifi channels. One useful-sounding suggestion was to add more powered devices to strengthen the mesh.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Troubleshooting involves the usual suspects, eg internet speed and addressing signal propagation in the house, changing wifi channels

I did go through this loop a bit and found that Pairing of Rad to Hub is reluctant. Whether that 'pairing' refers to Bluetooth or Zigbee, I don't know The hub is connected to the router with ethernet so I don't think WiFi can be to blame. Also, on occasions, if I make a change in the app, a rad valve will operate (buzz buzz) very soon and, of course, the smart plug will click instantly. That may indicate that the RF aspect is not the problem

add more powered devices

Yes. That was suggested and I bought a 'smart plug'. There is a position which produces two out of three signal strength bars on all rads (on the app) so now they are (mostly) all getting better signals. The house is elderly with thick brick walls everywhere, which doesn't help. The rads are very low power (one year+ on two AA cells) but the plug is mains operated.

The problem with this system is that there are many links in the control loop and it's hard to identify just what's what. Thinking about it, I can see that stability could be a huge problem. With five rads and a basic room thermostat, there is potentially a lot of interaction between rooms*. Hive claim that the little brain does a lot of thinking about the system; some times it never gets round to making a change (say a boost in one room). Hive 'instructions' are sometimes contradictory and they don't want the customer to gerfingerpoken.

They say 'give it time' and that's reasonable (if it works eventually) but it may well be that the Hive software is not actually very good. Hive sales are still good, despite loads of customer whingeing so why bother? I guess the software development team is pretty small.

* It made me think of solar system orbital interaction - same sort of thing, bordering on chaos.

 

[sophiecentaur]

There's another very annoying fact. To do a full restart on a rad valve you have to start from scratch and re-progrmme its daily schedule. That Hive App could very easily store a schedule and load it back into a re-started rad valve.
I could continue ranting on but, as there seems to be no one with actual experience of the damned things so I'll just keep trying.