Honeywell Evohome good or bad.

[Charlie108]

I'm thinking about installing a Honeywell evohome system in my own house. It looks good on paper but I'm still in two minds as it's a lot to spend. Has anyone out there got experience of fitting or operating it?

 

[kris]

Yeh fantastic system but expensive, Massive control on every room if getting the full kit , well worth it ,

 

[Vee]

Best system out there.

 

[Riley]

Agreed lot of kit for your £££

 

[jcs8215248]

I had this installed in December 2017. I had some teething problems with the installation as it showed up some faults that were there, but undetected, in the original heating system.

The hot water zone valve was sticking and partially open (sometimes) and the hot water was not being correctly controlled. Now replaced.

Two of the original TRVs were not operating correctly and were casing vibrations in the pipework when partially open. This became much worse when a radiator was replaced and the TRV moved from flow to return. In investigating the cause I found a second original TRV that was also causing vibration. Both of these TRVs have now been replaced and we have no further vibrations.

I have had a problem as yet not resolved where a radiator control head loses connection to the Honeywell controller. It can take over two hours for it to reconnect. It has not done this for over two weeks. The RF checks show a signal strength of between 4 and 5 (max). Whether the vibration was causing this - who knows?

Apart from these issues it is proving very easy to set and change timers for each room. We have 12 zones. The radiator controllers make a whirring noise when adjusting but is is not too annoying.

I can't yet judge whether it will save any money as the winter has been much colder than last year and we have only been in the property for 18 months.

I had some difficulty finding an installer. The Honeywell web site had a feature to invite installers to contact me but I am still waiting. The first two heating engineers disappeared (no response to emails) between the first contact and 6 months later deciding to go ahead. I did eventually find a local company that had installed a small number of systems and so seem to understand it.

I did a lot of research into competitive systems and in particular about any security vulnerabilities (by profession I have been a network security specialist - now retired - responsible for the integrity of a number of critical systems). For example I would never accept a system that depended on having a mobile phone as the sole means of controlling it. There is too great a risk (in my opinion) of a compromise revealing whether the premises are unoccupied = heating switched off) and Honeywell's competitors did not seem to understand this issue. Honeywell also refused to answer my questions, or reveal their communications protocols, but their Evohome system will operate without Internet access which makes me feel a little more comfortable and I judge the risk to be just about acceptable. It is not regarded as good practice to rely on security by obfuscation. Security measures should be open to critical inspection by experts (far more capable then me) in order to be trusted.

I am however pleased with the end result so far.