EPH Ember

glancing through some of the comments on this thread, it looks like people are having a lot of issues with Ember and the app. Am I best avoiding this system? I have an EPH dual system already installed and was asking my plumber (who originally installed it) about going wireless. He said he would give me a quote to fit and supply the Ember version. Would I better off buying another system and getting it installed?

This is what I currently have...

As far as I know all the smart heating systems are closed source with some small stuff exposed to public APIs. You'd need to do a lot of research to estabish which ones are best via HomeAssistant but I'd imagine you will always hit an issue that the commads are sent to their server rather than directly to your device.

Ember EPH has some support for sure but it still requires EPH server to continue to work (i.e. it's just using their APIs).

You could look into systems with WiFi / Zigbee / Z Wave support with some of the below: (I didn't!)

Control Boiler / Zone Valves:

• Sonoff TH10/16 / other smart relay(s) to turn on / off the boiler or zone valve(s) and hot water

Heat Water (if not Combi):

• Monitor the temperature of hot water cylinder if you have one (i.e. not Combi Boiler) via SONOFF TH10/TH16 with DS18B20 sensor(s)

Heating:

• Option 1: Smart TRV radiator valves that can make a call to activate the relays-zone valve (via Home Assistant possibly)
• Option 2: Monitor the temperature of the room(s) with HomeAssistant Compatbile / smart / Zigbee / Z Wave Thermostat(s) (or add DS18B20 temperature monitors to the TH10/16 relays connected to the zone valves / boiler) that can make a call to activate the relays-zone valve.

Some users have gone down this route but it is very techy.

You can likely use HA to setup schedules for when the relays should turn on or setup the schedules for the TRV valves / thermostats and link the TRV valves to a specific relay-zone valve if you have more than one. Basically loads of ways to work it.

You would just need to make sure that you set it up properly, set the upper limits (i.e. turn off relay when >22deg) and timings correctly. There's a lot more you can break by doing it this way.

The other crowd you can look into are Vesternet, they have relays and thermostats and loads more. If you go with Z Wave / Zigbee you will need some gateway.

Relays:

Z-Wave Plus Secure Boiler Receiver HRT Gen5

Without trying to sound like an ar$e, maybe flip the trip switch for the house for 5 mins and see if she restarts. Might be the stat on the pipe is kaput and you need another one otherwise.

Is the unit that shows the temp dead? Maybe it just needs new batteries.

Got an EPH Ember system installed in the summer and only really starting to use it now. The problem is that the heating doesn't always turn on. We have three zones, upstairs, downstairs and hot water. At 5pm today I turned on the downstairs boost for an hour and the heating came on and turned off as it should. I just turned on the upstairs boost at 7pm and no heating.

This has been happening frequently. It's always the second time we turn it on in a day. We've tried turning it on from the app and on the control panel. The panel lights up for the correct zone but nothing happens. We continue turning it on and off and eventually it works. We're going to have someone look at it but Murphy's law it will all work correctly while they are here. Anybody else experience this?

I still have the Ember, but the thermostat for the water is located on the wall while a wire runs through the wall to the sensor on the tank. However, the batteries in the unit are dead and I can't take it off the backing plate more than a cm due to the wires. I don't just want to yank it out an rip the wires out. Any ideas how to replace the batteries?

I take the batteries out of the thermostat and it works fine. Didn't realise it had got that warm already and was panicking that my boiler was broken. But I absolutely detest the Ember system, was sold a pup by my installer. As soon as I have spare cash I'm replacing it with a system that works properly!

Thanks a million that seems to have worked 👍

I'm hoping to replace mine this year

Does that leave it boosted indefinitely?

If so you might want to add two more actions, a Wait one for X minutes and one to switch back to Auto mode.

Alexa app and skill were working fine until this morning I noticed a problem with communications. devices showed as unresponsive in alexa.

I tried reset the wifi on ember gateway and took about 7 attempts to get it to work. Then tried disabling the zones and the skill in the alexa app and reanabling. it reconnects to skill but could not re-discover the hot water or heating zones, these are working in the ember APP however.

Have emailed EPH support to see if they know of any issues with alexa and or the skill not working.

Anyone else seeing the same?

+353 21 434 6238 I have this number for a while for support, worth a try

Back working again here , had to re-discover the thermostats again and rename them so my routines worked. I have mine re-named hot water zone and heating zone and they discover as just hot water and heating. All good again. hopefully won't need the heating too much during the next few months :-)