The Register published this article in June 2014 with a round-up of the top systems available. It is in four parts and covers Apple’s new HomeKit framework, Heatmiser Wi-Fi thermostat, Hive, Google’s Nest, Tado and nCube.
Automated Home
After I set up this blog I discovered Automated Home with a lot more detailed information and an HVAC category for the kind of products I’m interested in. There’s also a writeup of the author’s home automation project on his own house.
Open Source Projects
I’ve come across a number of open source projects aimed at home automation and smart heating control. The first I found is OpenRemote and then OpenHAB came along that offers even more flexibility. The new generation of smart controllers I mentioned in the welcome post have proprietary TRVs, but the OpenTRV project aims to bring control to individual radiators or zones. There’s also a project to control Heatmiser WiFi thermostats and a German one for Worcester’s Heatronic 3 system.
Cosy
Cosy is another start-up that I heard about recently. Doesn’t yet do heating zones but does do boiler control and smart sockets. They’ve reached their Kickstarter goal and seem to be pressing on with new features.
Pegler i-Temp
Have just discovered Pegler Terrier i-Temp products, don’t know much about them and unfortunately there’s not a lot of information on the site. The intriguing thing is they mention a PC Programming dongle with some software to control the individual TRVs, but that’s about all they do say.
Update: I asked the manufacturer about the PC dongle and they pointed me to a different website. Even though the page is entitled ‘New Accessories’ the PC dongle is only “Compatible with Windows XP or Windows Vista operating systems.” It would appear that you can program multiple TRVs using the PC application, but there doesn’t appear to be any live control or facility for using a smartphone.