Zipato - Automatic hot water schedule
I wanted to replace my boiler timer and thermostat and add additional intelligence to my home heating so I scoured the Internet looking for a suitable system.I ended up choosing Zipato for the following reasons:
- Low entry cost
- Very flexible communication protocol support (Not just Z-Wave but also 433KHz and ZigBee etc.)
- Easy to create rules generation engine
- SMS message integration
- Very good support
With everything set up I then purchased a temperature sensor and a central heating switch.
I really liked the design of the Fibaro FGMS-001 motion/temperature/lux/acceleration multi sensor which is the same size as a ping pong ball and flashes different colours when motion is detected (colours depend on the current ambient temperature).
For the switch I chose the SECURE SSR 302 which contains two switches allowing me to control hot water and central heating via the Zipabox from Zipato
Both were supplied by Vesternet (http://www.vesternet.com) who I have found to be really helpful with advice and excellent with service and price for these types of items.
Once installed by a qualified electrician I was ready to set up.
What I wanted was to build a schedule for my hot water but there is not actually a facility for that in the Zipabox system so I built one using "Virtual Thermostat Pro" which is available.
This facility is actually designed as a thermostat replacement but it has a schedule built in to change the temperate so was an ideal vehicle for building a thermostat.
Firstly I registered the switch and the motion sensor. The Switch was set up with Hot Water on zone 2 and Heating on Zone 1.
Next, I added the "Virtual Thermostat Pro" using the Zipato interface
- Login
- Device Manager > Add New Device > Virtual devices > Virtual thermostat pro
- Configure the new device: Heating output = Switch Zone 2
- Configure the new device: Thermometer = Fibraro motion sensor
The trick is to modify the schedule now and set the required temperature. I do not want to actually control the temperature of the water but just want to use the Thermostat Pro as a switching device so I set Required temperature to 30 C when I want hot water to be on and set to 8 C when I don't.
Simple but really effective.
