Posted by: @papahuhu

↑

that deletes the access of the actual installer and relieves them of their warranty obligations. 

Is that what homely told you, or what your installers told you? 

Anyway, that it a pain that following those steps hasn't worked for you. Perhaps they have locked it down. I really don't get why they don't just officially allow customers access to the dashboard and why they need to consult on it to try and identify wht parameters to share. Why restrict any of it? They've already done feedback via the app a while back and it was the top suggestion from customers by quite some way.

Our house is more comfortable without homely, and seems to be marginally better efficiency wise. Looking back at my previous notes our lifetime COP for our system was 3.4 in June last year with it. Removed homely Aug/Sept 25. Bearing in mind we're towards the tail end of the winter heating season now, its currently just over 3.5 so has been steadily rising.

Posted by: @benson

↑

...

I really don't get why they don't just officially allow customers access to the dashboard and why they need to consult on it to try and identify wht parameters to share. Why restrict any of it? They've already done feedback via the app a while back and it was the top suggestion from customers by quite some way.

...

If customers have that kind of information, they can independently cross-check Homely's claims. There may be other reasons why Homely is being so possessive of the customer data but I can't think of any.

@benson it’s what homely tech support told me last week. The installer still has 18 mths of warranty liability, given I’ve had niggles I can’t afford to let them off the hook. 
The homely is working like a dream now, I’m getting very tight internal temp control +/- 0.2C and it’s modulating the output perfectly. Even when it was cycling it gave me decent efficiencies but there was an uptick when the modulation improved The reported lifetime combined SCOP is 4.5 which I’m satisfied with and now it’s warming the house properly. For the moment all is well, but I don’t like how fragile the system seems, particularly when I can’t be sure what I did to remedy the previous fault condition.

@majordennisbloodnok 

it is intentional, their USP is that it provides installers a quick and easy commissioning process and remote monitoring. It’s better for the installers if the owners don’t have access to their data or they will be constantly bothering them every time something happens. 
I also suspect the machine learning algorithms are very rudimentary and probably don’t provide significant benefit to the domestic customer above and beyond having a well dialled in weather comp curve and a bit of tweaking with respect to tariffs. 

But my system doesn’t have a web interface, so it does provide some additional value in being able to adjust heating settings without the need to interact with the horrible Samsung controller interface. It is also useful to have the solar gain functionality as the node is situated in a room where there is extensive glazing. It does keep very tightly controlled room temps without overshooting or on/off cycling. At least it does now it’s fixed. 2 months ago I hated it and was planning its removal, but now I have to conclude it is of real value to me.

Posted by: @papahuhu

↑

...

it is intentional, their USP is that it provides installers a quick and easy commissioning process and remote monitoring. It’s better for the installers if the owners don’t have access to their data or they will be constantly bothering them every time something happens.

...

@papahuhu, I would prefer to go with "it is probably intentional". In the strictest sense, we cannot be certain of their technical or commercial motives even if the chances of you being wrong are vanishingly small. I would, however, be happy with the unequivocal statement that the approach is most certainly not customer focused.

@majordennisbloodnok 

Their customers are the installers, they are the ones whom need to be persuaded to specify including it in the system. For example, in my quotation, it wasn’t even mentioned, I knew nothing about it until a few days before the install. 

Very true, @papahuhu.

Do you have an ongoing cost for the Homely service? I'm interested about the legal situation of potentially having to keep paying for something not included in the quote and yet installed anyway.

@majordennisbloodnok 

I choose not to pay for the optional subscription, it provides a time of use tariff optimisation functionality (it works with agile and cosy) that is not relevant for me as I power mine through home batteries anyway. 

My install was very complicated, financially. I did it via a little known mechanism called LA eco4 flex, a non means tested partial grant system/fiddle. I won’t bore you with the details but my chosen contractor had to become a sub contractor in the contract. A legal mess in terms of consumer protections. 

@majordennisbloodnok The only thing I am aware of is the voluntary subscription to avail oneself of the ‘Smart+’ service; this offers some finer control of a few parameters. Smart+is included in the first year but if one requires renewal, it is £25 per annum. Regards, Toodles.

@toodles smart+ is no longer included free in the first year, they must have changed this after your install. But regardless, it would be valueless to me.

@toodles I went to enable mine, as I too thought it free of charge for the first year, I wanted to try the temp setback function. But when I tried to activate it required an immediate £25 sub, so didn’t proceed as you had previously advised the setback doesn’t work well anyway. 
I suppose there is always the possibility that my unit had been previously installed somewhere else, but it didn’t look second hand.

There is a further point about using ‘Smart+’ and it was another reason not to renew the subscription apart from the fact that TOU tariffs are less important to using Homely if one uses battery storage; Smart+ anticipates the more expensive periods on TOU tariffs and will boost the heating during the cheaper periods in an endeavour to reduce usage later. I found this boosting just did not work for us anyway as we prefer a very constant comfort level rather than allowing several degrees of modulation. Regards, Toodles.