ViCare Smart Climate - API

[Tomasz]

Hi team, when will the API be supporting Smart Climate devices? i.e. I can see zigbee gateway and RoomControl devices for my installation, but they do not provide any properties or commands.

[MichaelHanna]

Hi @Tomasz ,

Thanks for the question. It is not currently planned to support smart climate devices in the free version of the API. However, I'm interested to hear about your specific use cases that are related to the request!

Best,

Michael

[Tomasz]

Smart Home systems become really smart only when they can be integrated with other components of Smart Home. So I am using PyViCare API client through ha integration to read the state of the heating system and to control it when needed. 

When upgrading from circuit control to per-room control I can image many scenarios where public API is needed:
* check the charts of (historic) ViCare sensor room temperature to adjust manually your heating system (i.e. adjust temperature curve on the boiler/circuit or the maximum flow on your floor heating circuit)

* control the humidifier(s) based on the humidity value from the ViCare sensor

* try to adjust the temperature based on the humidity (sometimes it could make sense to lower temperature to increase humidity and your comfort will be the same)

* switch to reduced temperature when you are not present at home (presence sensors or geolocation and the distance from home) 

* disable the heating in the room if the window is open 

* switch to reduced temperature for the room if the expected energy from the sun will be enough for a given day (based on sun radiation sensor or weather forecast) 

Btw. not asking about it here, but publishing all the data to local MQTT broker could be a game-changer for you in longer term. 

[TakieYC]

Also note from the things you mention the historic charts and reduced temperature based on geolocation and/or sensors is something that competing systems generally always include themselves in the product. Vicare Smart Climate does not.

Don't expect any updates on this from Viessmann. To me it seems they abandoned this system completely right after market launch.

[Tomasz]

@TakieYC I was checking your experiences about the Smart Climate and that is why I am asking here about the APIs. In Open systems (or ones that expose some kind of API) you can implement/fix many things on your own. What commercial system would you pick to replace the Smart Climate?

In general in my current setup (only floor heating) everything works pretty OK. I use the typical (not smart) wired thermostats in every room that closes the valve (dedicated for a given room) in the floor heating circuit if needed (thermostat implements some algorithm, probably PWM).

To make it smart I was thinking about adding zigbee temperature sensor in every room and control the valves based on my logic  - and then realised the Smart Climate uses exactly such technology with a gateway that I already have (vitoconnect).

So I am double checking if using Smart Climate would be a good solution for me ... 

[TakieYC]

My advise is to stay far away from Vicare Smart Climate and everything Viessmann related to that extend.

The company went from A+ reputation to total garbage for me in less then a year.

Other commercial systems: I would say Tado or Netatmo as prefered options for zone-controlled systems. Maybe Honeywell Evohome or Bosch Easycontrol but (not unlike Vicare) info on those is very sparse and limited to non-technical marketing bs afaik. For regular thermostat control I've had great experience with Google Nest.

Can't say anything about the API's, haven't looked into them.

[Tomasz]

@TakieYC for sure ViCare is far behind those when it comes to heating systems with radiators.

However, after quick check: Nest, Tado, Netatmo, Bosch Easycontrol does not support controlling the underfloor heating circuits. They can only communicate with a boiler using OpenTherm (or similar) protocol.

Honeywell Evohome can do that with the following controller: https://heatingcontrols.honeywellhome.com/products/Underfloor-Heating/HCC80/ ... but their website makes me think they are as modern company as Viessmann. 

...

I think in central/eastern Europe underfloor heating is the most popular choice these days. Having closed underfloor heating circuits I have no need to optimise the boiler work, because it uses less than 1kwh energy (less than 0.03 EUR) a day to maintain the temperature in boiler controlled circuits. However, low temperature underfloor heating has big inertia and I am right now thinking it can be a reason why the big players do not support those heating systems... so I still see ViCare and its limited capabilities could fit my needs.