Loxone RetroFit (10 Year old Property)

[Mike Seaman]

Hello everyone,

It has been a while since I have posted on here.

So I am pretty confident with Loxone and KNX, installing a system in a flat a couple of years ago, which is still going strong and used as a holiday let.

The property had all lighting, heating, security and audio controlled by Loxone. Very impressive system. (I utlised the MDT Glass II for each room control, which was a very flexible controller).

So we have just moved into a new house that's was built 10 years ago. Unfortunately they did not wire it very well, no Cat 6 etc. so really just a standard install.

I am looking to retrofit Loxone to it and do the best I can without ripped it apart.

The existing Central Heating system is Wet Underfloor Heating with thermostats in each room. Whilst the pipework is perfectly good, the installation of the Control side of this is poor. the original seller even admitted its never really worked that well. Looking at it the whole thing is badly wired and the main mixing controller is "DEAD".

 

I have a couple of questions.

Loxone Air

How does everyone find this? Does it work well? Good distances?

Room Controls.

I am looking to put a controller in each room, to control heating and lighting. I like the Loxone touch but they have no display so you have no idea what temperature they are set at.

Would anyone suggest something similar to MDT Glass II that works wirelessly, maybe over TCP/IP or KNX RF? I can get a power cable to the device just no Cat6

Any help is greatly appreciated with this

Loxone Control for Underfloor Heating

Does anyone have experience here? Especially when dealing with Mixing Control for Underfloor Heating?

Any help is very much appreciated.

Cheers,

Mike

[Duncan]

mdt make a knx rf version of the glastaster 1 - unfortunately not the glastaster II but it offers some possibilities

ive used the mixing controller to control manifold temperature to give weather compensation with UFH - its not too difficult to use, but will require some tweaking and experiementation over a couple of weeks or months to get the parameters right. Many people seem to think that weather compensation in the boiler will deliver the same thing, but it wont usually unless your manifolds run without mixers and the boiler runs at the very low UFH circulation temperature such as 40-50 deg C. (this situation is more likely in a combi system or ground source heat pump with water store, where the system is more efficient when only trying to achieve low storage temperatures)

many UFH systems are providing hot water at 60-70deg plus to a tank and use a thermostatic manifold controller to bring the UFH temperature down to its usual operating temperature of 40-50deg - changing the boiler temperature wont change the manifold temperature because each manifold has its own thermostatically controlled circulation blender/pump

As well as the gain and offset temperature of the mixer control, each manifold will have different responses and resonances so for proper setup you need to add virtual inputs to Kp and Ki and log the difference between target temperature and actual temperature - tweaking of Kp and Ki will give you a system that isnt massively underdamped and slow to respond, or oscillating wildly with overheating.

Its not really necessary with the variation in uk temperatures, however the one thing it does do is maintain a more contstant warm-up time when the temperature varies a lot outside

as the weather gradually gets cooler the IRC learning will bring on the heating earlier to get up to requesed temperature at the start of the requested time. If you get sudden cold or warm spells, the IRC learning cant keep up - adding manifold temperature compensation means that the warm-up time for the rooms is almost the same in hot or cold weather because the manifold temperature is adjusted to compensate, hence the IRC doesnt have to change much once its learned a room

[Arnaud]

Hello Mike,

First of all, thank you for your feedback! 

I have been working with Loxone for 2-3 years, but it's always good to get feedback from users.

in my turn I can give you my experience with Loxone Air that I use for Smartsocket, Nano IO, Remote Air and Dimmer AIR, also EnOcean.

First of all, the cohabitation between Air and EnOcean is very good, but clearly Air is much, much, much, much more efficient. 

the stability is incredible, the response times even more.

I only have two criticisms to make of this protocol: 1/ it is proprietary, it is a little scary for customers, 2/ the product updates are long enough... I suppose Loxone did it on purpose so that the'Bus' is not saturated and the house continues to work during the updates.

Some say that the Nano are not good relays, personally (I have never installed castles)) I have never had a problem with range or isolated equipment.

Finally, what's great is that if you have a limited range, you'll always find a socket where you can place a smartsocket, and that's it.

[Peter]

I can’t say I have ever been happy with Loxone air devices. House is 110 years old of a reasonable size and mostly brick construction with few stud walls.
From the start the small stubby aerial wasn’t picked up by many of the devices, which I expected. So installed 4 smart sockets to create a mesh which has helped. Replaced the small aerial with the larger extension aerial. I’ve always thought supplied cable to fit externally was faulty but never got round to changing it. Most of the devices were working most of the time with the bigger aerial fitted directly to the air extension. Recently I’ve realised the battery powered devices are running flat in a matter of months. This is caused by the devices having very weak signals and spending all their time connecting to the Miniserver.
Ok, I get all that, I probably need to enhance the mesh with more sockets. But what I don’t understand is the crazy way these things do or do not hop. Each window sash has its own device (surface mounted) yet one will not hop and have a good signal and it’s mate just a few feet away hops twice and has a terrible signal, which will kill the battery life. Loxone’s explanation is weak, the devices find the best path, but with what logic? A one bar connection is flaky for the purpose I need the device and right now I feel like I’ve wasted a significant amount of money.
I’ll get another cable to reposition the aerial and add a smart socket in every room and see if that improves the situation. I really can’t be changing batteries at this frequency.
Incidentally Loxone’s other defence is interference within the house. But how does that work when two devices in close proximity perform with such a huge difference in signal?

[Arnaud]

Hello,

I think you need to increase your mesh size effectively.

On one project, I have several AIR valves, in service for about 1 year. 

The one with the lowest battery level is 83%.

The house is not very large, there are two Nano IO as relays, and the AirBase extension is mounted with an external self-adhesive antenna and 2m cable, the antenna is placed as high as possible above the electrical panel (flush with the ceiling).

I really have a very good signal, even in the outbuilding which is about 10M away through a stone wall of 80 CM and a block wall.

I've already heard about the problem of batteries draining very quickly, but I think it's always about ranges, a bit like mobile phones, when you have trouble receiving, they discharge at a frightening rate.

[Mike Seaman]

Hi All,

Thanks for the replies to this.

Really appreciate the comments on Mixing Controls. Need to bare this in mind when progressing forward. I am due to start buying parts for the build very soon.

Again thanks for the comments on loxone Air and Knx RF. I see the benefits of it all but I still have concerns around battery life and applicability to devices.

So as I progress forward I have done a little inspection in the house and found that every room has a 6 core cable 1.5mm copper strand going back to the cupboard upstairs. This is used for thermostats which I want to remove and put something a bit more complex in its place (i.e. Room Controller). Does anyone have experience of using 1.5mm or 2.5mm unshielded/untwisted cables for KNX/Loxone Tree communications. Distances will be 50m max. I know you shouldn't use it for comms. but I wonder whether Its possible to use it. (easy to place small conductors at either end for plugging into connectors?

Has anyone seen any room controllers that can measure temperatures but also provide a display for feedback. Preferably wireless?

Cheers

Mike