Free Climote heating / hot water control

Anyone know the terms and conditions.

Does it have to be direct debit

I think there's a monthly fee for using the Climote.

built my own for 22e. took about 20m from start to finish. no monthly fees. actually got the idea from electric ireland when their flyer came in the door looking for THREE HUNDRED for the unit alone. see attached

Villan11 wrote: »

Hi all,

Hope this counts as a bargain.
Electric Ireland are giving away a free Climote control system to anyone who signs up to a 2 year contract at the ideal homes exhibition this weekend.

I am currently 1 month into a 1 year contract with them as it stands but was still eligible to sign up.

Ahh balls I changed over last month. Might ring them and see if I can get one

Plan to build something like this my self(waiting on parts). But want to add couple of temp sensors. Why do you need servo for?

romperstomper wrote: »

np. will stick it up on a blog over the next day or so. code is already on github:

https://github.com/romperstomper/servoserial

shopping list:
arduino(any microcontoller will work but these r cheap) - 20
servo - 2

Missed that:eek:

ted1 wrote: »

Looks like its taped to the front if the controller and push the on off button

ted1 wrote: »

Looks like its taped to the front if the controller and push the on off button

cable-tied because it has to be quite rigid. this is physical computing

if u would like a better version make sure you pick up 2 ldr(s). this will be about 1e. you will use them tondetermine status

romperstomper wrote: »

cable-tied because it has to be quite rigid. this is physical computing

if u would like a better version make sure you pick up 2 ldr(s). this will be about 1e. you will use them tondetermine status

Would it not be neater and mor reliable if you were to just replace the button the controller and connect the relay output directly onto the board in parallel with the existing button.

romperstomper wrote: »

built my own for 22e. took about 20m from start to finish. no monthly fees. actually got the idea from electric ireland when their flyer came in the door looking for THREE HUNDRED for the unit alone. see attached

Thanks for sharing the details, as you say 20mins work. There's always room for improvement but a good start. I'll get busy reading up, cheers

rovoagho wrote: »

You can buy non-rental versions of the Climote, you don't need to go hacking hardware if you don't want to.

The rental is a total con, typical ESB. Much like the handset rental so many (primarily) elderly Irish people are still paying to Eircom.

Cheers, might be up for a challenge or might cave:-)

rovoagho wrote: »

You can buy non-rental versions of the Climote, you don't need to go hacking hardware if you don't want to.

The rental is a total con, typical ESB. Much like the handset rental so many (primarily) elderly Irish people are still paying to Eircom.

They don't charge rental, they charge fit the SIM charges and providing the service. I think its 27 euro

I hate any of these Internet connected devices that are tied to using a 3rd party to work. There is absolutely no reason why if you have an internet connected heater/fridge/toaster that you can't login into it directly. In 5 years time when iToaster Inc goes down and the service dropped you're left with a useless device.

Fair enough it does simplify setup for the non technical but give the rest of us direct access to it and not have to pay a bloody subscription.

Chet T16 wrote: »

I hate any of these Internet connected devices that are tied to using a 3rd party to work. There is absolutely no reason why if you have an internet connected heater/fridge/toaster that you can't login into it directly. In 5 years time when iToaster Inc goes down and the service dropped you're left with a useless device.

Fair enough it does simplify setup for the non technical but give the rest of us direct access to it and not have to pay a bloody subscription.

For a mass marketed product it would be a total logistic nightmare to support if they relied in 3rd party networks..

We supply data loggers for our SAAS product and have nothing but problems getting comms out even just on port 80

I have GSM heating control and lighting for the past two years so i have some experience of it, but the servo one posted earlier is very cool.

Its handy on a cold evening when you are out with the family and you have the ability to turn on the heating or hot water for kids baths before you even get home so the house is nice and toasty warm.

Its also handy if we are away in the in laws down the country and we can turn on the yard lights/landing/bedroom/sitting room lights to show some sort of occupancy while we are away from the house.

The system i have is the homeeasy range... which is end of line now as lan/wifi units become more available.

Check out the homeeasy HE101 SMS Base unit (which takes a PAYG simcard) and the HE105 heating controller (basically a relay unit that needs to be wired in parallel to your normal heating controller)

You would get the two for under €50 on ebay from the UK.

Ours has an O2 PAYG sim in it... as long as it sends a text every 6 months its active, and i reckon i put a fiver into it every 6 months so a tenner for the year is what it costs to keep it up and running.

Only downside is that the HE101 SMS base unit has to be sent to the manufacturer in the UK for programming when you buy it first for an irish sim card to work in it as it is set to seeing 0044 int codes from UK mobiles (or something like that), but this is a free service by Bryon UK on request and sent back free to you. Only costs your outgoing reg post charge to them.

System is good, i can text "heating on for 1 hour" or "heating on till 6pm" or "sittingroom corner light on for 4 hrs at 9pm" or whatever tag i have created for the individual light modules (which look like small grey plug in timers that you plug the light plug into and then plug them into the wall socket) and it sends back a text to you confirm it got your text (you can turn this confirm text back to you off too to stop needless wasting of bases sim credit if you wish). You set what mobile numbers it should respond to only so it stops unrecognised numbers from turning on your heating etc. too.

One downside of the gsm network way of things that i have experienced is that if it is a busy time like new years eve or christmas day... your text will be very delayed getting to the sms base to actually turn on/off whatever you wish and another is that mobile network time setting can be off sometimes, and the base gets its time setting from the mobile network so if you say "heat on at 6pm for two hours" it might not necessarily come on when you want it too. But these are small problems.

Other boardies on here are right... the climote from electric ireland is a good little gadget, but its a rip off from electric ireland as the sign up is long and the yearly running costs are way above what they would be if you supplied your own sim and credit.