SmartHome Controls
automating the infrastructure of the home
Heating controls overview
Intelligent Control
System Features
Temperature and Time Control
The Zone Controller allows two occupation periods for each day of the week to be set up. During each occupancy period the temperature will be at a “comfort temperature” while outside of these times the temperature will be controlled to a lower “fabric protection” setting.
Holiday Setting
On the smartkontrols system, a single Zone Controller is designated as the Holiday Master and this can put the whole house into a holiday mode. This provides protection against condensation or frost damage, by a single adjustment. The system will then revert to normal occupancy on the programmed day, ensuring comfortable conditions are achieved ready for the your return.
The Weather Compensation feature will measure the outside air temperature and change the flow temperature of the heating circuit correspondingly to improve temperature control of the room.
Continuous Control
smartkontrols uses continuous control, where the heating/cooling is adjusted between ± 0 –100% to meet the actual requirement. This is combined with fuzzy logic to allow the smartkontrols system to automatically learn the characteristics of the property and adapt to them providing accurate temperature control.
The system automatically protects pipe work from frost damage by running pumps and opening valves when the outside temperature is near freezing. Valuable items can be protected from condensation when the building is unoccupied by ensuring the interior will be maintained at a minimum of 12°C to prevent the formation of condensation.
For each smartkontrols zone that is set up in the property, the system will measure the outside and inside temperature and then automatically calculate the optimum time to start or stop the heating or cooling of each zone based on its individual characteristics.
smartkontrols controllers incorporate advanced techniques such as Optimum Start and Weather Compensation to minimise energy usage in the home and to improve your comfort.
Some of these advanced features are described on the right, outlining how the system typically provides control of a property.
A warm floor makes early mornings a pleasure
Because the smartkontrols system is modular, it can be used to control all the plant in your home, from boilers to individual valves. This means that the intelligent controls can be integrated to provide optimum and energy efficient control and comfort.
For example, you set the times and temperature for when you want to use the room then on a mild day your heating system will switch on later than it does on a very cold day?
Unlike the conventional thermostat, that is just an on/off switch, these are intelligent controls that can interface with all heating systems, such as radiator heating, underfloor heating, ground source heat pumps, electric or solar to name just a few as well as air conditioning or heating your pool and then provide the optimum control.
The smartkontrols system operates a demand based control. This means that the boilers only run when there is heating requirement. When it is not needed, it is switched off saving energy and reducing CO2 emissions
By learning the thermal characteristics of each room in your house and taking into account the outside temperature, the smartkontrols Optimum Start feature works out how early to turn on the heating so that you are always comfortable when you get up.
In a similar way, the Weather Compensation feature ensures that the temperature of the water provided by your boiler to your heating system is only as hot as is necessary to keep you comfortable.
If you are at home or away, smartkontrols controllers are always on duty - protecting the building and its contents against damage caused by excessively low or high temperatures. For particularly sensitive for contents such as artworks, books etc, smartkontrols controllers can also provide humidity based protection.
Multiroom Control
Each room is controlled separately via a smartkontrols Zone Controller which provides individual temperature control from a sensor located in the respective room. For master controllers the time is controlled as well. Slave Zone Controllers are available for rooms where the times do not need to be individually set, but where temperature adjustment is still a requirement.
Each room is controlled to the required temperature
Where it is not possible to have one smartkontrols Zone Controller for each room, an area will be formed of rooms that have the same occupation time profile and similar temperature requirements.
You may want to have bedrooms at different temperatures and times to your living space. Perhaps you have a guest annexe that is only occupied occasionally.
With the smartkontrols Zone Controller you can override on/off a single room that can be useful for those times when for example you return home early but only need to heat a room or group of rooms as the rest of the family are still out.
Conventional thermostats are difficult to divide into zones but smartkontrols systems can control as many time and temperature zones as you require.
Remote Support - Peace of mind
Remote Support from our office enables our engineer to check your system operation
When you purchase a smartkontrols system from SmartHome Controls, it really is different from conventional controls. Every smartkontrols system comes complete with a 12 month parts warranty as standard and in addition we provide a one year remote support maintenance package.
This means that should any problems with the system occur, we will provide remote telephone support during our normal office hours via a cellular modem to enable our engineers to dial into the system and check the status and perform remote diagnostics or to make adjustments.
So if you find your heating is not working as expected, you can call our helpline and talk to an engineer. Using the remote diagnostics they can dial in and see how your system is behaving. They will be able to read the room temperatures as well as the boiler flow temperatures and from this information either adjust your settings or diagnose a possible mechanical fault such as a failed boiler or pump.