I bought some Z-Wave danfoss living connect LC-13 and some Popp radiator thermostats to embed them into my home automation by Z-Wave.
I decided to go with this combination 'cause the Popp thermostats also return the current temperature. For the cheaper Eurotronics thermostats it is said that they do not return a manually set setpoint.
Unfortunately my radiators and valves are 30 years old and the adapters (RA & K) supplied with the danfoss do not fit. I figured out that I need a RAVL adapter (packaged with RAV adapter and a stuffing box), which adds another 7€ per radiator.
The Popp thermostats look like the danfoss ones, just the logo is not printed. But they have the same cheap looking plastic cage, ugly display with very limited viewing angle and the buttons with an inaccurate pressure point.
The first Popp thermostat worked for around 24 hours. Then it reported the settings every second and drained the battery in a few hours. Additionally it returned negative temperature measurements for a room that was at 18°C. Resetting to factory settings did not work, so this one is out for RMA.
The other 2 Popp thermostats worked out of the box, same like 2 out of 3 danfoss thermostats. I don't like the menu and the general user interface. It is not explained in a good way and the menu Pb (for the size adjustment of the radiator) is not mentioned in the official manual.
The 3rd danfoss could not be paired with my Z-Wave controller. Since it was also missing batteries I expected that this was already in use and paired with another Z-Wave controller. But after the second factory reset it seems to work fine. Probably pushing the middle button for a longer time also resets the embedded Z-Wave chip.
Interesting is also that the Popp manual names the product ZWE Connect and the manufacturer ZWE GmbH (which is Z-Wave Europe GmbH). Popp and ZWE have own manuals on their website for it.
As gateway I use a Raspberry Pi with the Aeon Z-Wave Gen5 Stick and domoticz. This works fine so far. Tried homegenie before but the UI did not satisfy me. (hanging, notifications blocking functionality and out of the screen). domoticz is quite compact, but with the scripting feature it looks promising.
I also use a danalock v2, but this is not completly included yet (idea is to have the blue lock from the official app somehow done with Z-Wave). For including the danalock it is important to use a secure inclusion, else it will not work. Probably it is also wise to use a own secret key for security devices ;)
Just my first impressions... maybe more about this topic in the future ;)
Update 26.11.2017
After using Z-Wave for around a year now I gained some more experience with it.
It looks like some devices just do not act as good as others.
Problematic devices at least with domoticz and Aeon Z-Wave stick:
Eurotronic Comet-Z: This thermostat is quite cheap but it did never run longer than 2 weeks without a new pairing.
Aeon Micro Switch (2nd Edition): Inside the controller range it works fine. But as soon as it is outside the range and a switch command can not be executed it will also fail permanent back inside the range. Not sure what is exactly the reason - a repeating node was just 4-5 meters away...
Btw. if you need RAVL or RAV adapters you can get it quite cheap from Eurotronics. Just 1,20€ per set instead of 7€!! Without stuffing box. Btw. 30-year old danfoss RAVL thermostats did not loose any value if you're going to sell them :)
Now I'm playing a bit with self build sensors from mysensors.org. Looks promising (cheap, open source and better debugging) but also has some bottlenecks. Signing and security is by default not activated and you might have trouble if you buy cheap chinese clones... Also a lot of time is needed to build these sensors. Hope that someone will create some ready to solder kits and sell it :-)
