I realise that there has been a Havenwise trial with OVO but they are now beginning to expand to Daikin units after their initial trials.
I’ve been interested and on their wait list and so I started a trial run.
It’s only been running a week but I can already see some positives and negatives appearing. I have an ESPAltherma link into Home Assistant so have quite an array of data to view and compare. The idea of an intelligent control for my set up is interesting because should I not be able to fully maintain on my own, I could pass things on to the rest of the family with a degree of confidence.
Negatives:
• HW appear to link to the slower data feed from the Daikin LAN controller and so some time bound decision points are being delayed.
• The system doesn’t appear to use the thermostat to control at all and therefore there are points when the heat pump is heating when normally I wouldn’t expect it to be. I do realise that some operate just by adjusting and maintaining flow but I’ve not been convinced that is the best option.
• Stats provided in HW are simple echoes of those via the Daikin controller .. that is not very accurate. At present (1 week only so far), only daily stats are visible, not split by heating and hot water.
Positives:
• The HW schedule allows set points with 0.5 deg steps, something that has been missing from the Daikin controller.
• There is an automatic mode to link your tariff and so optimise heating and hot water energy. (Can be switched off if you prefer).
• The hot water heating period(s) are adjusted to provide set points by the desired time but adjusted based on external temperature and heating required.
I will continue to see how things go over the next few weeks but would be interested in comments from anyone who has experience over a longer period.
