Geyserwise Tuya

Been running this for a few days now. Convenience factor alone makes it worth it. I often remember its LoadShedding when I am in bed looking at the schedule for the next day. So to change settings on your phone is great.

Ideally would've been great to have an app in the store to run both the admin side and grant permission to a guest user (aka spouse). But I understand the app/business is in its infancy. So crossing fingers that is in the pipeline.

Install and setup was easy for me. I am basically only good with a screwdriver so worked out really well. I felt the instructions were a bit too tech savvy for the average joe as the installation is the easy part.

Once I have all my integrations running in HA, its time to add the this to the mix.

Installed on a Geyserwise Max
 
1edge1 said:
Ideally would've been great to have an app in the store to run both the admin side and grant permission to a guest user (aka spouse). But I understand the app/business is in its infancy. So crossing fingers that is in the pipeline.
Click to expand...
This you could achieve with Home Assistant, install the HA on the phone and create a profile for any other people.

Even better is if you are using any Apple devices you can use the Homekit bridge in HA and have the devices show up in the Apple Home app, this is what I do and it's much easier for somebody that's not super techie to control things.

1695996083687.jpeg

The Thermostat-style card is a bit of a hacked together integration in HA, that just allows me to expose the current temperature to Homekit, but the "Geyser element" card is just a simple button that can turn the element on/off (mine is a custom template in HA which only allows the element to be turned on if there is mains power).
 
kidcolt said:
For those whom choose to go with the custom firmware... I noticed that the firmware dev lifted tracks when replacing the WBR3 module with the ESP12-F module.

A guide for replacing the module without damaging the board...
(Disclaimer: This information is for education purposes only, changes could impact the installations COC and information is followed at the readers risk.)

Since the board seem to be using lead free solder... removing the module without pulling a trace or dumping alot of heat into it can be difficult. I recommend first dragging fresh solder 40:60 solder onto it (to lower the temperature required to heat all solder points and slide the module off the board). Then apply a liberal amount of solder flux and use a hot-air station @380-400 degrees to remove the module, I use a pair of helping hands at ~45 degrees to slide the module off. Do not excessively push or pull on the module and preferably pre-heat the area @ ~250 degrees.

Due to the proximity of the resistors to the module I recommend covering them with some kapton tape, as I'm yet to find a smd resistor that has blown off a board :)

Once the original module is off apply more flux and gently drag your solder iron over a wick and clean the area of access solder. Then using isopropyl alcohol and a cotton bud, clean the remaining flux from the board. Flux can be corrosive to the board so it is best not to leave it on.

Now using the smallest amount solder paste on each pad (~15-25% the size of a grain of rice), drop the pre-flashed replacement ESP12-F module in the module outline on the board and use the hot-air station to solder it on. Once the solder paste becomes shiny and has "soaked" up into the holes on the solder pads you are finished. Allow the board a few minutes to cool off and depending on the amount of solder use check for solder bridges. If you used the correct amount of solder paste the new module should "float" into place without any bridges.

View attachment 1500385
View attachment 1500383
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How did you get the temperature sensing to be accurate after?
I ask because I assume they are using an ADC on the Tuya and now you've switched to ESP?
 
Now that the faulty non-return valve was replaced and we're getting summer temps again, the evacuated tubes working great again. Went from 42C in the morning (showered the previous evening) to 58C now.

1697555838073.png
 
isie said:
I see on the Tuya app there is next button now available that tracks the geyser temperature (the max shows collector temp as well)
Click to expand...
The app is really tatty. The blocks and buttons (components) are not lined up nicely and the spacing between them is not consistent. Ugly in fact. The text color on the charts is very light grey so not easy to read at a glance. The chart for the geyser is labelled Geyser Temp. while the chart for the collector is just labelled Collector instead of Collector Temp. Yes I know I'm being picky, but as a programmer myself, I question the functionality of the app as a whole if the programmer can't even layout the components neatly. There are several other shortcomings in the app as people on this forum have mentioned.
 
petum said:
Sorry where is this?
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There is a new button called "Next" to access the charts which just appeared all by itself a few days ago. The button is slightly offset to the right which tells me that the feature was added in a hurry. The text on the charts is not very legible.

2023-10-18_11-24-20.png 2023-10-18_11-28-58.png
 
GTHORN said:
There is a new button called "Next" to access the charts which just appeared all by itself a few days ago. The button is slightly offset to the right which tells me that the feature was added in a hurry. The text on the charts is not very legible.

View attachment 1603562 View attachment 1603568
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Ye the view for the geyserwise stuff in the Tuya app is abysmal. I just configure things in Home Assistant when I need to.
 
I have just had a situation where the pump wasn't running and the collector temperature went up to 122 degrees. The geyser temperature was 72 degrees at the time so I don't know why the pump wasn't running. I climbed into the roof to check and while I was there, the pump started running. I have noticed this before so I thought now I would be able to check for these events using the "Collector" chart but guess what? It seems to average the reading to the extent that you can't see the real peak collector temperature over a +-30 minute period :-(
2023-10-18_14-08-01.png
 
GTHORN said:
The app is really tatty. The blocks and buttons (components) are not lined up nicely and the spacing between them is not consistent. Ugly in fact. The text color on the charts is very light grey so not easy to read at a glance. The chart for the geyser is labelled Geyser Temp. while the chart for the collector is just labelled Collector instead of Collector Temp. Yes I know I'm being picky, but as a programmer myself, I question the functionality of the app as a whole if the programmer can't even layout the components neatly. There are several other shortcomings in the app as people on this forum have mentioned.
Click to expand...
na i get you it has a lot of short comings -

GTHORN said:
I have just had a situation where the pump wasn't running and the collector temperature went up to 122 degrees. The geyser temperature was 72 degrees at the time so I don't know why the pump wasn't running. I climbed into the roof to check and while I was there, the pump started running. I have noticed this before so I thought now I would be able to check for these events using the "Collector" chart but guess what? It seems to average the reading to the extent that you can't see the real peak collector temperature over a +-30 minute period :-(
View attachment 1603674
Click to expand...
seems to me like its only only every hour
 
Gnome said:
How did you get the temperature sensing to be accurate after?
I ask because I assume they are using an ADC on the Tuya and now you've switched to ESP?
Click to expand...
Sorry was travelling... The wifi micro-controller does not directly talk to the relay and the thermostat in the PSU... instead the legacy protocol between the PSU and the display stays the same for most... and the wifi mcu talks a standard tuya mcu/serial to a new serial interface on the display... and even that is not well designed IMHO,,, they tried to show horn the more flexible timing options in the display panel into a more limited dpid options / structure...

This is one of the reasons I ended up just complete disabling the timing on the Geyserwise... and just use it to retrieve the geyser temperature + control the relay... and put all the "smarts" in HA
 
kidcolt said:
Sorry was travelling... The wifi micro-controller does not directly talk to the relay and the thermostat in the PSU... instead the legacy protocol between the PSU and the display stays the same for most... and the wifi mcu talks a standard tuya mcu/serial to a new serial interface on the display... and even that is not well designed IMHO,,, they tried to show horn the more flexible timing options in the display panel into a more limited dpid options / structure...

This is one of the reasons I ended up just complete disabling the timing on the Geyserwise... and just use it to retrieve the geyser temperature + control the relay... and put all the "smarts" in HA
Click to expand...
Oh so your MCU is literally doing nothing but serial communication?

EDIT: Also thanks for responding :)
 
So I bought one of those "Geyserwise Thermal Cut Out"/Thermostat.
It is a 10k NTC.
I had the most accurate tracking using 3350 beta value (on ESP8266) but I suspect the actual thermistor is 3950.

I'm not really convinced by the cut-off they put into it tbh.
So I've just gone and put a 100k NTC 3395 I had around (glass bead) with some 0.1mm enamel wire at the end of my standard Thermostat.
Set my thermostat to 70c and called it a day.

I also experimented with running this all from a CBI Astute, but it isn't isolated from mains.
While measuring to check if it is isolated from mains, I shocked the sh#t out of myself, so confirmed that part.
But I was able to get Tasmota/CBI Astute to report the temperature accurate

1699216079232.png

Next phase is to just create my own isolated version of this.
Hopefully by buying something cheap and making some adjustments.
These solutions like "ThingWala"/"GeyserWala"/"Geyser Wise"/etc. cost quite a bit of money and I feel like there is a simple solution here that costs less and is open source.
 
I had the GW max installed last week, intergrated into HA and seems to be working fine. I am just seem to be missing the values for the time slots. On the Tuya app it only has block 1,2,3 etc and in HA it states morning temp, afternoon, evening and overnight. I would prefert o have these as actual time slots. Does any know what the default time slots are that would corraspond to these blocks?
 
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