Request Data Point "heating.flue.sensors.temperature.main"

[davids1]

Hello Viessmann

I just migradted from the unofficial API to the new one. Everything smooth so far, thansk very much!

I would really a apreciate (I guess I'm not the only one...) if you could make the data point "heating.flue.sensors.temperature.main" accessible.

This datapoint is mandatory to monitor the heating system performance and the effect of optimizations.

I know that the real life performance of their heating systems is a well kept secret of any manufacturer. That's probably why this datapoint was skipped in the official API. But hey guys, your' manufacturing state of the art heating equipment on a high quality standard. Your systems perform great if planned and installed properly. If the system does'nt perform as predicted it's normally a planning or installation issue, which can only be fixed by providing very accurate information about the system performance to the viessmann customer service. ("I'm cold, the system is crab" is not what the technician needs to nail down the issue...).

So please, let us monitor our systems and help us to provide information to improve your products.

Thanks very much

David

[MichaelHanna]

Hi @Davids ,

Thank you for your feedback and the request!

With the public API, we are at the beginning and start to build up the service for our users. Our plan is to enhance our offering, also in terms of features that are provided.

To better understand your use case, could you specify how this features helps you in monitoring your system's performance?

Best,

Michael

[davids1]

Thanks for your attention Michael,

Smarthome as it is right now is more a marketing label or business model than something really useful. Who needs an app with some nice animations just to control the fridge? What's smart about doing the same thing you can do on the display of the fridge by an app (and sending your data around the universe...)?

Unfortunately Viessmann is leading towards the same direction with the new API (not the unofficial one, this was cool!). Really guys, no one really needs an app just to set the room temperature. You install it once, enjoy the nice animations and tell everybody how trendy your heating is. But after that you never use it again because as long as your house is warm you don't care and you have 1000 other apps to feed...

My vision of smarthome is different. To do something really smart you need to connect several devices of different manufacturers together and find algorithms for example to save energy or optimise the charging of your electric car depending on solar production. Those are very specific solutions which are different for every building. You need to implement the same optimization as it is done in large systems as heatings for factories and large buildings.

To achieve this, you need open and standardized API's of any manufacturer you use. To find the algorithms you need access to all available sensors and parameters and after some coding and tryout you will find some params more useful than others just for your specific system.

And now the important thing: you need feedback! For heatings it is the efficiency factor. In a lab environement you will stick energy counters to every pipe you find. In the real world this costs way more money than you will ever save. So you need a cheap and accurate way.

The flue temperature is the key factor of the efficiency of wallmount boilers like Vitodens (calorific effect). As Vitodens provides a flue temperature sensor (nice work Viessmann!) I use this to simulate the efficiency of the whole system. With some maths I get pretty accurate results. Just the effect of the LAS (which is minor cause of the limited heat capacity of air) and the standby losses (which are pretty small on Vitodens, again nice engineering...).

So, as soon as I get back access to this important sensor I will be able to thweak the algorithms further and make the Viessmann heating smarter and smarter... Without nice animations and apps but with the perfect temperature in every room at the absolute minimum of energy consumption... Big project (large historic house without any thermal insulation) but the results I already got are pretty exciting...

I really hope that the Viessmann API will head towards an open plattform and not staying focused on how much people will be willing to pay for which datapoint. Let us create some really smart solutions and you will be inspired and take Viessmann to the next level...

Thank you guys...