Having them fitted when the cavity and loft insulation is done under a grant scheme. Know nothing about them, anyone enlighten me?

Googled….. Found nothing.

Grant scheme….. Ahhh 🤔

Grant scheme

?

Looks interesting. Smart TRV which learns room occupation patterns. Be interesting to see how well it actually works. No app so just pop on the valve onto radiators.

radbot 1

wow – these look pretty good…

i might buy 4 as half the time our kid’s rooms are empty so don’t need heating…

Interested in real world useage…

DrP

these look pretty good…

Totally rad.

Looks interesting. Smart TRV which learns room occupation patterns.

Yeah, it’s like that thing Nest does that everyone ends up turning off, only you can’t turn this off. Sounds great 😂

I think they could be a bit of a pain potentially  – they seem to ‘sense activity’ and priorities heat to rooms by whether or not the lights are on. So if you turn the lights off to watch a film they might presume theres no-one in the room.

Looks like you dont have to ‘do’ anything with them other than treat them like normal TRVs, theyre just TRVs with a bit of a mind of their own…. and with a battery that can go flat.

A bit like a broken escalator (ie something that fails to being ‘stairs’and therefore still does its job) I guess the question is if the batteries run out or anything else effects the ‘smart’ bits  to they just become dumb TRVs and still work? Or do they become broken TRVs?

I guess the question is if the batteries run out or anything else effects the ‘smart’ bits  to they just become dumb TRVs and still work? Or do they become broken TRVs?

they won’t do anything – valve is driven by a motor so needs power. Because there’s no app or hub they can’t tell you when the battery is low – so if like me most of your TRVs are obscured by something you won’t be able to see the flashing light without physically checking!

I guess for free they’re better than nothing, but the cost is similar to “proper” smart TRVs only with way less functionality, so a bit meh I think u less you’re genuinely allergic to apps/tech etc 😀

seem to be a fair few unopened ones on eBay though – I guess from this grant scheme 😂 – so could be a cheap way of trying them!

It could partly explain

Energy savings from insulation ‘vanish’ after four years, study claims

Or maybe botched cavity wall insulation

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-10390579/Botched-cavity-wall-insulation-ruining-homes-causing-damp-mould.html

i like the idea, im not allergic to apps, ive got too many smart home apps: Nest, Hue, Reolink, QNAP. but not wildly convinced about the idea of using a light sensor to detect presence. That doesnt seem like a good metric at all.

Much better to detect sound surely? not recording obviously, just the presence of noise. TV and general family life, but once everyone goes out or goes to bed the house goes quiet.

should be simple enough to do, a small microphone should just create a minor voltage fluctiation that can be picked up by a microprocessor. wouldnt need to be constantly checked like a resistant light sensor either, you could use the voltage as a wake interrupt.

I would be interested in seeing some real world reviews.

I think they could be a bit of a pain potentially  – they seem to ‘sense activity’ and priorities heat to rooms by whether or not the lights are on. So if you turn the lights off to watch a film they might presume theres no-one in the room.

For an extra £10 I’d have the Drayton Wiser valves, which are actually controllable and can call for heat. I’d be inclined to see if I could pay the difference. If not, then this is just another manipulation of Government funding by a large company with a pal in the cabinet (Secure are most famous for their smart meters, of which the rollout has of course been a huge success…).

I can see some advantages to these (particularly the boost feature), but without any ability to call back to the boiler for heat they just seem a waste of money.

The presence detection also seems like it might be prone to issues. Stick one of these in an en-suite with no windows and it’s not going to warm the place up in the morning. Is the presence detection definitely light-based? It’s possible to get microwave presence detection which are likely to be more accurate. The data sheet is somewhat lacking on how they work.

I can see some advantages to these (particularly the boost feature), but without any ability to call back to the boiler for heat they just seem a waste of money.

Drayton has boost on each valve too! But you’re right, unless the boiler is firing already (unlikely if you’re trying to economise) then the boost on these Radbots is useless.

It’s possible to get microwave presence detection which are likely to be more accurate.

I have mmWave presence detection which works great, sensor position is paramount though, absolutely no way they’d be effective arbitrarily placed at shin level!

So does that mean the bedroom will be stone cold when you go to bed?

I have a box of 8 of these in the shed I never fitted, was super excited to have these till I realsied I like going downstairs in the moring into a warm room! #stealthad

They only drop the temp 4 degrees so not stone cold no

This sounds like a good idea, except as someone else mentioned, as a Nest user I turned off the learning function as we both work from home on an irregularly pattern, so it wasn’t long before Nest had filled up the schedule with lots of heating periods and didn’t seem to learn to remove them.

If the Radbots were simply a noise or PIR detector that switched the rad from a background temp to an occupied temp that would be good, although some of my rads would need a remote sensor if it was PIR as they are behind furniture.

Would also be good as I often get home and the heating is cranked up and the house is hot…except where my wife is working, so she is wrapped up in blankets and a scarf…as I turned the valve down a few days earlier as I was working in a different room!

It could partly explain

Energy savings from insulation ‘vanish’ after four years, study claims

Am I being thick or is that a really stupid study?

The exact reason why people use more gas after installing insulation is unclear, but researchers said it could be from turning up the heating,

Well, duh.

… opening windows in stuffy rooms, …

Problem with the people, or maybe ventilation, not the insulation.

… or combining the retrofit with building an extension or glazed conservatory, which take up more energy.

Again, well duh. Nothing at all to do with the insulation. Energy use would be even worse without insulation, so what’s your point?