Most reliable thermo-control for electric heater

Other Devices & Integrations Climate Control & Temperature Sensors
1

I have searched, I have read the horstmann thread and a couple of others… but want to just ask a question if I may.

I’m having a home office built, external to the main house.

I have concluded that I want to automate it as any man-cave should be.

My first motivation for this was simple:

To be able to turn the heating on in there from the main house while I am eating breakfast if I am heading over there (it’s not far away, maybe a few meters).

It will have an electric panel heater.

I like the look of the Hortsmann thermostat / switch and my thought was to get a Vera Lite, and the Horstmann combo so I could click the heating on via my phone or a remote.

What I have read leads me to think this might not be the best approach and it might be better to have a separate thermometer, relay and use the Vera Lite as the controlling element?

Ideally, I would have temperature control via phone and wall unit, and also a simple “on[to a fixed temperature]/off[frost guard]” control.

Really I want something that is ultimately reliable and is going to have a reasonable update-frequency. Its a UK install.

2

Sound like a good plan to me :wink:

Assuming the heater is just on/off - using vera as the controller you can manage the heating ‘on demand’ and/or you can also set it ‘trigger’ when certain events/situations occur . E.g the temperature in that room drops below 5c.

The list of options/ideas are quite long, but I hope the above helps.

3

It sounds to me, that it might be better heating with a air/air heat pump, controlled via a remotec zxt-120.

If you are deciding to heat the place while eating breakfast, and then head over there, I think your panel heater will not have a chance at getting the temp up. The heat pump will be much faster.

I have this set-up in my home cinema, where I want to to ramp temp those nights it is in use, and keep colder during the other days.
This way, I think most/all apps will be compatible, at least the Authomation, which I use gives me the control for setting temp directly.

Also this will give you the benefit of cooling during the hottest summer days.

If possible, try to make sure to get a heat pump that is compatible with the zxt-120 to make things work the best way.