How good is the app support for your heat pump?

Steelbadger · 2025-10-15T08:51:15Z

I've not been on here long, but one recurring theme seems to be that the apps are often a bit bare bones, and that the energy monitoring information is either limited or untrustworthy. It would be interesting to hear from the owners of different heat pumps about the app support (if it even exists). I have obviously heard about the seeming inaccuracy of the Daikin app's monitoring, and I've also heard a few complaints about the Vaillant app, too, but it would be great to get some more info on what all the different apps actually do. Our Bosch 5800i 5kW has a ConnectKey installed which, in addition to giving Bosch remote access if needed, allows us to access it using 'HomeCom Easy' which gives the following information and controls: At a glance see the hot water and controller room temperature as well as local weather. Access more detailed data like flow-return temperatures, compressor modulation, start-stops and operation hours. See the daily, monthly, and yearly energy consumption and generation. Data resolution is 0.1kWh with round-to-nearest, but the graph seems to use higher resolution data when it's being built. See hourly data for the last three days, daily data for the last three months, and monthly data for the last three years. This shows consumption/generation, as well as flow/water/room/outdoor temperature, split between central heating, hot water, and cooling. I get push notifications for any errors or warnings thrown up by the unit. I can see and modify the schedule for both hot water and central heating target temperatures. I can set the quiet mode level (limit maximum compressor power). I can tell the heat pump I'm away (to turn it to frost protect), and I can schedule up to 8 upcoming holidays which will automatically start/stop the heat pump's holiday mode. I can also export the energy monitoring data to a CSV file, but it's still limited to a precision of 0.1. In general, I find the app okay. It's pretty slow, and it's either not caching any of the energy monitoring data, or it's just really, really slow. Allowing remote access to an engineer is a nice QoL thing to have, and the holiday programming is really nice. I'd love to have access to the full data resolution rather than the rounded numbers as I'm a mathsy guy. I'd also like to have some kind of connection to Home Assistant or other smart home system. Overall, not bad. The engineer in me wants more data, of course, but the control options are fairly good for a typical home owner. Then again, I don't necessarily know what I don't have. So it's show and tell time. What does your app look like? How well does it work? What can you do with it, and what do you think is missing?

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JamesPa

(@jamespa)

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04/12/2025 8:37 pm

I would describe the Vaillant app as pretty reasonable-good. You can change set temperature (which actually shifts the WC curve), change the wc curve itself (which is in the installer menu on the controller), switch heating/dhw/cooling on and off or to timed, set up a weekly schedule, set holiday mode, monitor all of the above, do a DHW boost. You can also monitor and download energy and temperature stats. You can see real time water pressure, power consumption OAT and IAT.

I dont use it much, occasionally I look at OAT when we are away, from time to time I monitor/download the energy stats. The reason for this is that, having set up weather compensation and balanced the rads, the only real change we make to controls is to switch from pure WC, which we run for the vast majority of the season, to a temperature sensor limit mode at either end of the season, and to switch it off during the summer months. Other than that we only very rarely touch the controls, because there is no need to.

Other than at the very ends of the season 'room influence' doesn't help for our house, unlike @judith. What would help is humidity influence - ie the heat pump to increase the temperature a bit when its damp indoors. This is a human factor, it feels colder when its damp! Sadly, although the heat pump does measure and the app does report, humidity it doesn't react to it

From study of manuals only I would say that the Vaillant controller ('sensocomfort'), as distinct from the app, is one of the better ones in terms of UI and useful features.

I do also use HA for monitoring, because the graphs are nice and easier to 'get at'. I don't use HA for heat pump control. The interface to HA relies on the same cloud API as the app, no additional hardware needed.

This post was modified 1 month ago 4 times by JamesPa

4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.

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Batpred

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05/12/2025 7:04 pm

@jamespa

Thank you, will need to take a closer look, as I am looking for programmable thermostat type of control.

It also seems that the Vaillant ebus can be extended with an ESP32 device and HA integrations (similar to modbus for other pumps). This would be a local setup using simple hardware. A few relevant posts on HA around here! This eBUS Adapter Stick C6 seems get power from USB-C and directly taps the eBus?

Chrome translate does miracles...

16kWh Seplos Fogstar battery; 8kW Solis S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS hybrid inverter; Ohme Home Pro EV charger; 100Amp head, HA lab on mini PC

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JamesPa

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05/12/2025 7:31 pm

I think you are right about the ebus stick.

It's certainly possible to change at least some of the exposed vaillant parameters through the ha integration I use (requiring no hardware). I just don't bother because, for me, it isn't necessary. This does however rely on vaillants API and the cloud whereas an ebus implementation wouldn't.

This post was modified 1 month ago by JamesPa

4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.

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