Introduction

Many roads lead to Rome

Humans tend to be predictable in their habits and that's why the basis in any home heating system is the concept of schedule. It means setting a baseline temperature for each zone that's only dependent on two things: day-of-week and time-of-day. With a basic assumption that all weeks are the same, it's a rinse and repeat paradigm.

Nowadays with so many people working regularly from home — plus kids living longer with their parents — being able to easily deviate from that fixed-schedule paradigm of yesteryear is more important than ever. Evohome itself remains schedule-based, what EvoControl adds is the ability to instantly and spontaneously tweak schedules and zone-overrides throughout the day:

• Constrained Overrides facilitate immediate ad-lib setpoint-changes in any number of zones or groups:
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  • Alexa, raise the whole house by 1° for an hour
  • Alexa, reduce all zones by 2° for 2 hours
  • Alexa, set the Office to 20° for an hour
  • Alexa, make it 20° in the Livingroom, Diningroom & Kitchen for 30 mins
  • Alexa, set the TV Room to 18° until 2 PM
  • Alexa, set the Kids Rooms to 20° for half an hour
  • Alexa, set the Bedrooms Group to 21° for 30 mins
  • Alexa, increase the Upstairs Rooms by 0.5° until 11PM
  
  
• Scenes/Activities imply using friendly-names of your choosing for pre-meditated combinations of setpoints/deltas plus the zones they should apply to. They can have a delayed start or trigger immediately and their duration can be optionally constrained:
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  • Alexa, activate 'Watch TV'
  • Alexa, start 'MovieTime' for 90 minutes
  • Alexa, activate 'Office Vacant' for 45 minutes
  • Alexa, trigger 'Studying' until 9 PM
  • Alexa, schedule 'Siesta' starting at 2PM for 1 hour
  • Alexa, schedule 'YogaTime' to start at 11AM
  • Alexa, schedule 'Working' from 4PM until 6:30PM
  
  
• Schedule Shifting facilitates live-schedule modification centred around the concept of easy-to-understand day-segments — it may also be thought of as 'Schedule Advance' or 'Delayed Start'. Segment names are all (generous) syntactic variations of 'Waking Up', 'Lunch Time', 'Dinner Time', 'Going to Bed':
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  • Alexa, start my day tomorrow at 6AM
  • Alexa, I'm going to bed at 10PM
  • Alexa, my lunch break tomorrow starts at 1PM
  • Alexa, dinner today will be at 17:00
  • Alexa, delay bedtime by 45 mins
  • Alexa, defer getting up tomorrow by 30 mins
  • Alexa, advance lunchtime tomorrow by one hour
  • Alexa, move suppertime forward by 15 mins
  • Alexa, postpone dinner tomorrow by 30 mins
  • Alexa, extend bedtime by 15 mins
  • Alexa, shorten lunchtime by 30 mins
  • Alexa, sidestep my lunch break tomorrow
  • Alexa, increase suppertime temperatures by 1°
  • Alexa, lower bedtime temperatures by 2°
  • Alexa, revert to baseline
  
  
• Multiple Schedules mean you have more than a single baseline to start out from — there are 3x ABC presets plus the nest_thermostat_sensor_eu Live schedule for a total of 4:
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  • Alexa, upload schedule A in the Kitchen
  • Alexa, restore schedule C in the Livingroom, Bathroom & Bedroom
  • Alexa, select schedule B everywhere
  • Alexa, upload schedule A to the Bedrooms Group
  
  
• Switchpoint Insertion allows spontaneously adding additional switchpoint(s) to the current live schedule by voice command:
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  • Alexa, make it 19° in the Kitchen at 4 PM
  • Alexa, make it 20° in the Bathroom at 5 PM for 45 mins
  • Alexa, make it 17° upstairs from 8 PM until 21:30
  • Alexa, I'd like it to be 22° in the Bedroom at 11 PM
  
  
• Bulk Setpoint Editing. The onscreen interactive setpoint editor has and buttons that allow you to tweak all zones in steps of ± 0.5° or ± 3° in unison. Combined with the groups paradigm, it makes it trivial to alter several zones in one swoop.
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• Zone-specific Standby. You can double-tap any tile on the Widget to drop the zone in question to a setpoint of 5°. Double-tap again to bring it back to scheduled operation. While 'down' in this manner the zone will still respond to local overrides from e.g. the knob of a HR92. On the DHW tile, the toggle works as a quick-action to switch hot water on/off. In fact, via Macros you can even customise this behaviour fully and for every zone independently.
  

These different methods can be combined at will to suit the particular circumstance, while each family member can have their own favourite 'approach'. All of these commands can also be triggered by tapping icons on the screen of your Echo Show, while Activities can even be triggered by tapping on the skill's widget.

Dashboard

System Overview in HD

The Dashboard is home-screen for the skill and is automatically displayed upon launch if your Echo has a touchscreen or if you are using a Fire Tablet or Fire TV.

All your zones (including DHW, if you have it) are shown in their own tiles in a colour-scheme familiar from the Evotouch and TCC^[1] App. The header boasts a weather-forecast icon flanked by the outside temperature. You'll also see the System Mode as an icon    nest_eco_leaf local_fire_department        which can be tapped to change both the mode and its duration. Within the tiles, any zones calling for heat will have a  symbol. Above each tile, the tint associated with a zone's actual/measured temperature is indicated in a small header-bar.

What's visually different to your Evotouch is the colour-coded appendage under each zone. It identifies the currently-active ABC schedule for each zone, showing if the live schedule does not match a preset. It also displays the next-expected switchpoint from the zone's current schedule (i.e. the time-of-day plus the setpoint SP). Arrows ↑, ↓, ↔ next to the SP indicate whether it will lead to an increase/decrease/no-change to the current SP. In the settings you can choose to hide the appendage when the next switchpoint implies no change to the zone's current SP (as seen in Guestroom/Garage in the screenshots above). In  Away and  HeatingOff system modes, the appendages disappear because the schedule is then inactive.

To remind users of the syntax for the many features of the skill, a revolving array of usage hints/tips is shown in the centre of the footer. To the left, there are touch-enabled icons for selecting  Scenes, nest_thermostat_zirconium_eu Setpoint-Editor,  LaunchPad,  Schedule Shift,  Help, and  Settings. To the right you'll see optional icons if certain features are enabled: battery_unknown Battery (with a HGI-80 in use, this reports HR92/CS92 battery percentages and incidentally shows heat-demand as percentage values),  Peek (if you have hidden any tiles to reduce screen clutter, toggling this will show/hide those zones),  Graphing (if you have connected a HGI-80, this draws a graph of the previous 24h's climate in a zone),  Location (to switch between up to 4 Evotouches if you have more than one location registered to your TCC account), plus warning Show Faults which will appear as the rightmost footer-button (only) whenever there are any TCC or HGI-80 faults present.

In the case of multiple locations, you'll always see the selected location e.g. or in the header. Tapping that icon will display the location's friendly name. On the topic of optional icons, if you have a HGI-80 in use then a symbol with the aggregated boiler demand percentage will appear in the header.

You can assign a default zone to each of your Echos by saying e.g. "Alexa, the default zone is the Kitchen". Subsequently, when speaking to a particular Echo, you can omit the zone name (or just say 'here') — "Alexa, make it 20° for 30 mins" (without mentioning Kitchen in the command) would then target the Kitchen zone by default. It can be reassigned at will and deleted by saying "Alexa, delete the default zone".

If you have a lot of Evohome zones combined with a smaller screen on your Echo, it's possible to hide certain tiles from the normal view and have them only appear whenever you press the  Peek button (which itself only shows if you've actually hidden anything). Visit the ad_group_off Hide Tiles button on the Settings page to set this up.

Note that a much more limited display experience is provided on the 1st gen. Echo Spot with round screen, while the new 2nd gen Spot with the hemispherical screen supports no visuals whatsoever. You also cannot create/edit activities/scenes or groups — nor create multiple schedules — without having a rectangular screen.

Important: Users whose spoken language is not natively supported by Alexa should visit the section on Aliases for an explanation of how to help Alexa understand 'foreign' zone names. It's also a boon for heavily-abbreviated English names like 'Mstr Bdrm R'.

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Activities / Scenes

The shortest path to Energy Savings

Activities (also called Scenes) are simply a means to provide a friendly name to a set of pre-meditated setpoints that are all applied simultaneously (either as overrides or schedule-edits) to zones that participate in the scene. You can create up to 12 of them using the skill's touchscreen scene-editor.

They can be triggered at will by voice or touch, be tapped into action from the skill's widget, be scheduled for later activation or triggered immediately, have an optional time constraint in the form of an until/duration applied, and they can even be launched from Alexa routines.

Each participating zone has either its own setpoint SP or else a delta Δ (±6°) which you decide upon when creating the scene. With DHW you of course specify on/off state rather than SP. Any activity can mix/match SP/Δ as desired, while any zones you omit from a scene are always unaffected when you trigger it. To assist in visual selection, each scene can have its own icon which you may choose from a library of (currently) 84 popular symbols!

As an example of the concept, the 1^st screenshot shown above is of an activity named 'GoodNight' which requests a delta of -2° for the LivingRoom to lower its setpoint by 2° (a +2° delta would raise it), sets the Wardrobe zone to 18.5°, the Bedroom to 20°, the Bathroom to 22.5°, and leaves all other zones unaffected.

On the start-page (reached from  Scenes on the dashboard) you'll see buttons for help_center  Help to the left, plus

•  Previous and  Next to browse sequentially through your existing scenes
  
  
•  Edit to unlock the currently-shown scene for editing
  
  
•  New which opens the editor to start creating a new scene from scratch
  
  
• farsight_digital Delayed Start to launch a popup with 2 sliders to define the Start-Time & Duration to apply when activating the current scene later today
  
  
• history_toggle_off  Duration to launch a popup with a single slider to define the duration when the current scene is activated immediately
  
  
• task_alt Activate to immediately activate the currently-shown scene without any duration constraint. In this case, the override(s) will apply until the next naturally-occurring scheduled changeover for each participating zone
  
  

Whether creating a scene or editing an existing one, a single tap on the centre of any tile toggles inclusion/exclusion in the Activity. Either a long-press or a double-tap can be used to toggle between SP/Δ mode for the zone. A long-press on the ▲/▼ arrows above/below the tiles alters the SP/Δ in steps of 3°, while a short tap results in a 0.5° step. Whenever at least 1 zone is highlighted during creation/editing the  Assign Name button is enabled — it will open an on-screen popup so you can type a name (max. 28 chars) for the activity when you're all done. You'll then be able to tap either  Save to save the newly-created scene or  Cancel if you change your mind.

When browsing scenes, zones that do not participate will show heat in the centre of the tile and also be dimmed. When in edit mode, the centre-icon will change to a add to indicate that tapping it will add the tile in question into participation.

The min/max allowed SP limits (usually 5° and 35° for the HR92) are always enforced by the skill, so if you have an extreme delta and the setpoint is already critical at the trigger-moment, you'll never inadvertently exceed the allowed floor/ceiling values when the activity triggers.

If you choose task_alt Activate, any deltas in the scene are applied with respect to the current TCC SP for the zone(s). For farsight_digital Delayed Start the schedule is examined for the nearest prior SP and a new SP with the Δ applied on top of that prior value is inserted into the schedule.

The final 2 images in the slideshow above show the icon-assignment and icon-selection screens, wherein a custom icon of your choosing can be associated with each user-generated activity (system-generated items have icons that cannot be reassigned). Any custom icons will also appear on the skill's widget. During the allocation process, upon tapping any icon a magnified view will be shown with the option to assign or reject that icon. This makes it easier to see intricate details on the small 5" Echos.

If an activity name ends with 1-3 digits plus either an 'm' or apostrophe (shorthand for minutes) then the activity in question will be activated for that particular duration in minutes via a TemporaryOverride. There should be no space(s) between the digits and the m/'. Examples: HW Boost 20m, HW Boost 120', Shower Time 15m. This automatic constraining only applies when the activity is triggered from the  LaunchPad (or the widget) and not when activated by voice or via the task_alt Activate button you'll see when browsing through your scenes.

Some example scene-related commands:

• "Alexa, open Smart Heat"…
• Alexa, show activities / scenes
• Alexa, activate 'Watch TV'
• Alexa, activate 'Boost Upstairs' for 20 minutes
• Alexa, activate 'SummerTime' permanently
• Alexa, trigger 'Studying' until 9 PM
• Alexa, start 'MovieTime' for 90 minutes
• Alexa, schedule 'GoodNight' to start at 10PM
• Alexa, schedule 'Working' from 4PM until 6:30PM
• Alexa, schedule 'Siesta' starting at 2PM for 1 hour
• Alexa, list my activities
• Alexa, revert to baseline

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Standby

When you first launch EvoControl Smart Heat, you'll see that an activity called Standby has already been created for you. It's a useful alternative to  HeatingOff and also assigns a setpoint of 5° to all your zones. There is one important difference though — when the system is in true  HeatingOff mode, Evohome rejects local overrides from your TRV valves and will also ignore spoken SP-changes via EvoControl. With this Standby activity active, any zone-overrides will still be handled. Some examples:

• Alexa, activate 'Standby' → until each zone's next scheduled switchpoint
• Alexa, activate 'Standby' for 2 hours
• Alexa, activate 'Standby' until 4PM
• Alexa, schedule 'Standby' to start at 7PM
• Alexa, schedule 'Standby' to start at 8PM for 2 hours
• Alexa, schedule 'Standby' from 2PM to 3:45PM
• Alexa, activate 'Standby' permanently
• Alexa, revert to baseline

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Avoiding Pitfalls

Here are a few pointers worth remembering about activities/scenes:

• You should be mindful that the changes introduced by a 'previous' activity don't auto-revert just because you trigger a 'new' activity — that's by design.
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• Any successively-applied Δs are accumulative — while SPs are independent and always supplant each other — when successively applied to the same zone.
• 
  
• Activating a scene — even one that involves all zones — doesn't change the System Mode but rather alters the mode(s) of the involved zone(s). For that reason, saying "Set the System Mode to Auto" won't have any effect on live activities!
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• To revert a scheduled activation you need to re-apply whatever schedule was in place beforehand. The command "Alexa, revert to baseline" can be used for any zones to which ABC's happen to be assigned (that's because the baseline concept 'remembers' which preset was previously assigned to each zone) but won't help if you have any non-ABC zone(s) with manual schedule-edits. There's a button labelled  Baseline on both the widget and the  LaunchPad to do this by touch. The section on Usage Tips has a suggestion for using an Alexa routine to automate this task every day so you cannot forget.
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• Reverting an immediate (non-scheduled) scene/activity means setting all zones to FollowSchedule. The  Reset button on the  LaunchPad or widget achieves this. By voice, you can say either "Alexa, set all zones to follow-schedule" or "Alexa, reset the system mode".
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Multiple Schedules

Every zone gets 3 + 1 schedules

Evohome natively supports a single-schedule paradigm but EvoControl Smart Heat can store up to three full schedules in your EvoControl account for upload to TCC at will (the nest_thermostat_sensor_eu Live schedule is separate so in reality the skill manages 4 schedules for you). This can be very useful e.g. for switching between Night/Day work-shifts or Summer/Autumn/Winter schemas. The extra schedules are referred to as ABC but a nickname can be assigned to them in the skill's settings to jog your memory. Which of the ABC schedules is currently-active for a zone is shown in each tile's dashboard-appendage:

There's another more day-to-day reason for having multiple schedules — they are easy to revert to when you need to 'undo' temporary schedule-edits that should not be repeated every week (remember that with Evohome, schedules recur naturally every 7 days). The multiple-schedule paradigm in EvoControl merely swaps out a saved 'alternative' schedule to the Resideo cloud every time you undertake a non-trivial schedule-related action.

With EvoControl, you can easily specify setpoint changes that should apply later today rather than starting now. If at 13:30 you say "Set the Kitchen to 20° until 2PM", that change starts now and is just a regular TemporaryOverride. However, you can also say e.g. "Make it 20° at 4 PM for 30mins" and that change will not be immediate but will take effect at 4PM (and last until 4:30PM). This is achieved by dynamically modifying the active schedule. Schedule Shifting also does this via a different route. That 'temporary' convenience-schedule can be discarded after use by reverting to a saved ABC.

As a visual reminder, after you have edited the active schedule so that it no longer matches any ABC preset, the appendage(s) on the main dashboard change so as to indicate . You should be mindful of that symbol every time you see it and ask yourself if this is what you want Evohome to do next week also…

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EvoControl's week-at-a-time schedule view is reached by tapping on any tile on the main dashboard. You'll notice a grey border around today's day-name in the header, while a vertical grey bar is drawn beside the switchpoint that resulted in the current SP/state for the zone (which can be from last night if there was no switchpoint this morning).

The footer contains buttons for topic-specific help_center  Help to the left, plus nest_thermostat_sensor_eu and the self-explanatory  Edit,  Save As,  More and task_alt  Go Live to the right. The nest_thermostat_sensor_eu button represents the Live schedule and you'll notice that task_alt Go Live is disabled when it is chosen (because it's already live). The logic with these buttons is that you first select one of nest_thermostat_sensor_eu before choosing one of the other buttons, whereby those subsequent buttons will then act upon the chosen schedule/preset. If any of the buttons are greyed out, it means that no preset has (yet) been saved under that button for the zone in question. Note that the  Edit functionality has its own chapter/tab on the website (here) and is therefore not described in any detail in this section.

The top right corner of most of the screens associated with schedules will display the so-called Badge indicating which preset is being displayed. Where relevant, the Badge will be captioned with the nickname associated with the preset. In the case of the nest_thermostat_sensor_eu Live schedule the Badge will reflect whether it matches one of the presets or whether it has not been saved to any preset and is effectively a .

The thick coloured border around the schedule grid/cells will also reflect the colour associated with a schedule —   for nest_thermostat_sensor_eu,   for ,   for , and   for .

Choosing  More will reveal a further 5 buttons to operate on the already-selected schedule-variant:

•  ΔT 24h will plot the weather service's forecast outside temperature for your location against the schedule in question (the 'gap' between these 2 plots provides a rough estimate of when gas/energy will be required to heat a zone or not)
  
  
•  Graph Form will allow you to see the selected schedule plotted as a stepwise-graph function instead of a cell-grid
  
  
• stacked_line_chart  Compare ABC draws the live schedule plus the ABC presets together in the same stepwise-function chart and makes it simple to visualise the differences between the different schedules
  
  
•  Copy to Zone will pop a zone-selector screen to choose zone(s) to clone the selected schedule/preset to
  
  
•  Delete will delete the preset in question (note you cannot delete the nest_thermostat_sensor_eu Live schedule so this button is greyed out whenever that is selected)
  
  

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Some example schedule-related commands:

• "Alexa, open Smart Heat"…
• Alexa, show the Bathroom schedule
• Alexa, make it 19° at 4 PM → inserts 1x switchpoint
• Alexa, make it 18° at 5 PM for 45 mins → inserts 2x switchpoints
• Alexa, make it 17° from 8 PM until 21:30 → inserts 2x switchpoints
• Alexa, undo → retracts the most recent insertion
• Alexa, upload schedule A in the Kitchen
• Alexa, restore schedule C in the Livingroom, Bathroom & Bedroom
• Alexa, go back to schedule B everywhere. → Note that this will include DHW if you have it.
• Alexa, upload schedule A to the Bedrooms Group
• Alexa, restore schedule C in the Bedrooms
• Alexa, revert to baseline

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When you first enable EvoControl, it automatically fills the A preset with your current TCC-cloud schedule for all zones (plus DHW, if applicable). This is so that you can easily revert to A after a temporary schedule-edit. You can of course alter this preset at any time and it's merely a starting-out convenience.

Make sure you also see the sections on Schedule Editing and Schedule Comparison.

Schedule Shifting

Advance/Defer or Reschedule daily 'moments'

Schedule Shifting is the name given to live-schedule modification centred around the concept of blocks or day-segments. It may also be thought of as 'Schedule Advance' or 'Delayed Start'. You can use it via the  Schedule Shift button on the main dashboard or by spoken command.

From a time perspective you can advance/defer switchpoints by simply specifying how much earlier or later than 'normal' anything bounded by the block should start. All the relevant switchpoints then shift by the same Δt (i.e. time). It's also possible to directly specify a time-of-day such as 6AM instead of a shift value. Under the hood, that translates to a Δt for the first active switchpoint which is then copied to all later switchpoints in the block. Finally, you can lengthen/shorten a block's effective duration by pulling in or pushing out all the switchpoints except for the first one for each zone.

Setpoint-wise, you can choose to sidestep blocks to coast over them with a continuous zone-specific SP. In that case, each zone's most recent scheduled SP from before the block-start is copied to all the switchpoints in the block. Finally, you can request a ± temperature adjustment to make the target zones warmer or cooler than usual throughout the block's duration. All relevant SPs are then raised/lowered by the same ΔT (i.e. temperature).

You'll first need to perform a one-time setup under the  Segments button on the settings page:

The idea is that you assign chronological boundaries to 4 named blocks —  Waking Up,  Lunch Time,  Dinner Time,  Going to Bed — as suited to your household. Default time-values will have been filled in for you but these can be changed to suit personal preference — tap on the text of any time-span (e.g. 05:00-09:00) to edit. Just make sure that the boundary times are 'wider' than the normal range of times found within your weekly schedule so that the blocks will always address your situation correctly. Note that if times are not monotonic/sequential across the 4 blocks then your edits will be rejected.

For each block you get to choose which target zones should be affected whenever you earmark the related timespan in a shift-command. DHW can participate too. Tap any of the 4  Zones buttons (if you have DHW you'll see  Zones/DHW) to assign/change participants. Observe the numerical '→' captions that reflect the number of currently-assigned target zones for each block, plus a red droplet symbol for hot water if present. Inclusion/exclusion uses the familiar zone-selector you will already have seen for both group-edit and schedule-cloning.

Each time you invoke a schedule-shift command, EvoControl will first check which of the target zones have any upcoming schedule-switchpoints that currently fall inside the block in question. From a setup perspective you never have to mark individual switchpoints in your schedule(s) as it's all based on a within-the-boundaries paradigm. Dynamic, simple and yet very effective!

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Shifting via the UI

From the main dashboard, choosing  Schedule Shift will display a screen with several tappable icon buttons plus a slider.

You first choose either  Today or  Tomorrow in order to enable/disable the 4 block-select buttons  Waking Up,  Lunch Time,  Dinner Time,  Going to Bed based on what is allowable/sensible given the current time of day and the current live schedules. For example, any blocks that have already passed for the day in question will show and be greyed out, while blocks that simply have no relevant switchpoints in their target zones (or only a single switchpoint in the case of  Shorter/Longer) will show --. Go ahead and select which available block you intend to shift.

Next, you choose one of 5 operations:  Cooler/Warmer, pace Shift, farsight_digital Time of Day,  Skipover, or  Shorter/Longer to apply. Depending on the chosen day and operation, the screen will show the current scheduled start-time for the initial switchpoint found within the block in question among the participating zones/DHW. Moving the slider left/right of centre will now allow you to select up to ±3° for  Cooler/Warmer or ±180 mins for pace  Shift, farsight_digital  Time of Day, and  Shorter/Longer. The slider's caption will automatically translate the ± minute values to e.g. ⌚ 6AM and vice versa. Observe that the slider disappears for the  Skipover function as there's then no shift-value involved. When ready, press task_alt Go Live or else hit the back button to abort. The  Segments button from the settings page is repeated here as a convenience to consult the segment time-spans if desired.

Alexa's spoken feedback and the resultant visual screen-popups will be the same as for the spoken version of the command(s). Note that if you have not yet visited the  Segments page to define target zones, you will be automatically taken there whenever you use the  Schedule Shift button on the dashboard.

To restore 'normal' schedules again, use the button labelled  Baseline from either the widget or the  LaunchPad on the main dashboard.

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Shifting by voice command

In daily use, many syntactic variations of the 4 block names (and also the command-verbs) are supported so that the wording when actually using spoken commands is not rigid.

Whichever form your shift command takes, you'll be told how many zones are involved — with their shifted time-of-day or temperature — and on Echos with a screen you'll see a brief dashboard-popup highlighting the affected zones where the tiles appendages will visually reflect the changes. If you try to shift a block that's already passed for today, Alexa will tell you. If the block boundary has already 'started' but the initial switchpoint(s) for all the target zone(s) have not yet occurred, the shift/reschedule operation will still be allowed. If, however, there are already-active switchpoints within the block-extremities then the command will be refused.

Some example schedule-shift commands:

• "Alexa, open Smart Heat"…
• Alexa, start my day tomorrow at 6AM
• Alexa, I'm going to bed at 10PM
• Alexa, my lunch break tomorrow starts at 1PM
• Alexa, dinner today will be at 17:00
• Alexa, sidestep my lunch break tomorrow
• Alexa, increase suppertime temperatures by 1°
• Alexa, lower bedtime temperatures by 2°
• Alexa, delay bedtime by 45 mins
• Alexa, advance lunchtime tomorrow by one hour
• Alexa, defer getting up tomorrow by 30 mins
• Alexa, lunchtime tomorrow should be half an hour later than usual
• Alexa, move suppertime forward by 15 mins
• Alexa, postpone dinner tomorrow by 30 mins
• Alexa, extend bedtime by 15 mins
• Alexa, shorten lunchtime by 15 mins
• Alexa, revert to baseline
• Alexa, when is bedtime today?
• Alexa, what time is wake-up tomorrow?

Saying "Alexa, undo" is supported and will work if it's said immediately after you make an inadvertent change. This will restore the schedule that was in effect just before you made the utterance.

Note that you cannot specify a day-name with these commands, but you can mention today (default) or tomorrow. That's deliberate because shifting/compansion is accumulative and if you were to shift things too far in advance there's a possibility you might forget you already did so and perhaps inadvertently shift again.

The command to revert to baseline returns each zone to its most recent ABC schedule, providing an ideal means to return to normal after a shift that should not be repeated next week. It works because EvoControl keeps track of which ABC preset was most recently uploaded to each zone individually, whether by voice or touch inputs. You'll notice zones not currently deploying an ABC by means of the indicator in the dashboard appendage(s).

Schedule Editing

Modify switchpoints in Bulk

You can do simple editing of today's schedule using voice inputs, but not create/modify a whole week's schedule by voice. For that we have the touch-enabled bulk switchpoint editor which is reached by selecting  Edit while viewing a nest_thermostat_sensor_eu Live schedule or ABC preset. As a reminder, you view a zone's schedule by tapping its tile on the main dashboard.

Upon selecting  Edit, 9 buttons will be shown in the footer and the entire schedule grid is automatically selected/highlighted for editing. If you indeed wish to modify all the switchpoints in unison, go ahead and tap any of the relevant history , update , , or buttons (collectively called the MOD buttons hereafter). A long-tap or double-tap on any of the MOD buttons will perform ± 1h and ± 3° instead of the captioned ± 10mins and ± 0.5°. You'll also see a  New SPs button on this screen which will launch a popup to allow you to add new switchpoints. More on that in a moment.

To drill down and choose specific cell(s) to MOD, tap any cell in the grid to switch to selective editing. The grid will dim and only the selected cell(s) will be highlighted to full brightness. Tapping a day-name selects the entire vertical column for that day, while a long-tap or double-tap on any cell selects the entire horizontal row of cells around it. Re-tapping simply deselects accordingly. The MOD buttons now address the highlighted cells.

You'll also see a  Del SPs button which will delete all the highlighted switchpoints. Because Evohome requires a minimum of one switchpoint per day for every zone, this button will be greyed out if that rule would be broken. Two extra buttons appear on this screen:  Unselect All and open_with  Select All. The former will take you back to an empty grid of cells ready to select new ones, while the latter exits selective mode and returns to the main edit screen with everything highlighted again and all your edits intact. Note that you can repeatedly select-MOD-deselect until all your envisaged edits are completed — there's no need to switch screens for multiple edits. As a visual aid to which cells were already modified in this session, a crimson icon is shown on modified switchpoints.

As mentioned above, the  New SPs button can be used to add switchpoints to the schedule. When tapped, it launches a popup with buttons to select the day-of-week, plus 2 sliders to select the time-of-day and the desired setpoint (or 'on/off' state for DHW). Tap the task_alt button on the popup to finalise the new switchpoint(s).

Just as Evohome requires a minimum of one switchpoint per day per zone, a maximum of 6 switchpoints is allowed on any single day. Those days which already have 6 switchpoints will therefore be blocked from adding new switchpoints here. If you attempt to add a new switchpoint at a day/time which already has a switchpoint (even if its setpoint is different to the setpoint you have now chosen), the entire add-action is blocked until you resolve. You'll incidentally notice the history update buttons being blocked if moving time-of-day values back and forth across day/midnight boundaries threatens to introduce more than 6 switchpoints on any particular day.

Once any cell(s) are actually modified and not just selected, the task_alt Go Live and  Save As buttons in the main footer become enabled. The former will upload the modified schedule to the nest_thermostat_sensor_eu Live slot for the zone, while the latter pops a selector screen to choose one of to receive the edited schedule.  Cancel will always discard all current edits and return you to the unedited original. Note that the  Back button in the top left corner is removed after any edit has been made so that you don't inadvertently exit an editing session without deliberately choosing whether to keep or discard edits.

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Schedule Backup & Restore

Note that you can easily backup and restore the entire skill configuration (which includes your schedules) from your smartskills Account Dashboard to a file on your PC/Mac. This can be useful if you fear inadvertently messing up carefully-crafted schedules. By keeping different versions of that file, you can switch between multiple/different ABCs and therefore access more than 3 schedules — there's no practical limit! Plus, if you ever have to swap out an Evotouch panel, this will allow you to re-apply your old schedules to the new panel in the blink of an eye. The how-to is here.

Schedule Comparison

Graphical Depiction of Schedules

A picture paints a thousand words and a graph can sometimes convey more useful information than a grid. That's why each zone's ABC switchpoints can be plotted graphically alongside the nest_thermostat_sensor_eu Live schedule for the zone.

You get here by visiting the schedules view after tapping on a tile on the main dashboard. It does not matter which of a zone's schedule-variants you view initially as the graph depicts all 4 variants anyway. Choose  More and then tap thestacked_line_chart Compare ABC button. The top right corner of the graph screen shows a Badge with a double_arrow icon that can be used to move on to the next day of the week for the comparison.

If you tap on the 🔴 🟠 🟢 🔵 caption text then the plot for that particular curve toggles opacity between 1.0 and 0.3 so that you can better compare overlapping portions of the stepwise line-segments.

Groups

Up to 12 named Zone-Groups

Activities and Groups both address simultaneous setpoint-changes for multiple zones but they do so differently. As mentioned earlier, with activities you pre-determine the setpoints/deltas when the activity is created. With groups on the other hand, the desired setpoint (or increment/decrement adjustment) is mentioned as part of the spoken command each time you address a group. Both paradigms have their uses!

Let's say you have a group called 'Bedrooms' with 2 members: 'Master Bedroom' and 'Guestroom'. If e.g. Master Bedroom was currently set to 18° and Guestroom was set to 20°, saying "Alexa, increase the Bedrooms Group by 1°" would assign 19° to Master Bedroom and 21° to Guestroom. Saying "Alexa, set the Bedrooms to 15°" sets the whole group to 15°. Whether you include the word 'Group' or omit it is optional but it can be useful for disambiguation if you have a regular zone with a very similar name. Groups can also be the target for ABC schedule commands.

You can view/edit groups by visiting linked_services  Groups from the Settings page. The very first time you come here you'll automatically be in edit-mode so as to create your first group. Tap whatever zones you'd like to see involved (DHW cannot participate) and hit  Assign Name when ready. Note that naming does not become active until you have selected at least 2 zones because a group must have more than one zone to make any sense. After submitting the desired name, choose  Save to register the group.

On subsequent visits to the Groups page, you'll see buttons for  Previous and  Next to browse sequentially through your existing groups,  Edit to unlock the currently-shown group for editing, and  New which opens the editor to start creating a new group from scratch.

Whenever you launch the nest_thermostat_zirconium_eu Setpoint-Editor screen you'll have the opportunity to pre-populate the editor with only the zones from one of your groups so as to edit group-setpoints by touch rather than spoken command.

Some example group-related commands:

• "Alexa, open Smart Heat"…
• Alexa, set the Kids Rooms to 20°
• Alexa, set the Bedrooms Group to 21° for 30 mins
• Alexa, increase the Upstairs Rooms by 0.5° until 11PM
• Alexa, set the Cellar Group to 10° permanently
• Alexa, lower the Downstairs Group by 1°
• Alexa, upload schedule C in the Bedrooms Group
• Alexa, list my groups
• Alexa, show the group-creator

Setpoint Editor

Set multiple zones in unison

The nest_thermostat_zirconium_eu Setpoint-Editor button on the main dashboard will take you to a screen that allows you to easily change setpoints SP of individual zones, of Groups, or of the whole house in unison. It looks a lot like the Scene/Activity Editor, with the exception that the centre of the tiles is not tappable here. You'll also observe that the current actual temperatures in the zones are shown in the left-hand corner of each tile next to a 🌡 symbol.

If you wish, the linked_services Use Groups button to the left allows you to cycle through your groups so as to pre-populate the tiles and restrict the set of zones that the editor will subsequently operate on. When a group is chosen, non-member zones are de-selected. You can always ignore the Groups paradigm here and just leave all zones highlighted. Also, the button itself is greyed out if you haven't (yet) defined any Groups.

The and buttons in the footer always operate on highlighted zones (not DHW) in unison. A long-tap or double-tap here will result in ± 3° instead of the captioned ± 0.5°.

On individual zones, a long-press on the ▲/▼ arrows above/below the tiles alters the SP in steps of 3°, while a short tap results in a 0.5° step. For the DHW tile, long-press is disabled and the ▲/▼ are replaced by / symbols.

As a visual aid to which tiles were already modified in this session, a crimson icon is shown on modified tiles. Note that after any change is made, the linked_services Use Groups,  Previous and  Next buttons are disabled so as not to inadvertently ruin your current edit.

You can mix-match any of the above modification possibilities until all your edits are complete. Choosing the history_toggle_off Duration button will launch a popup with a slider to define the duration to apply to the setpoint changes you've just made, while the task_alt Go Live button implements the changes without any duration constraint. In this case, the override(s) will apply until the next naturally-occurring scheduled changeover for each modified zone.

If you want to abandon an unsubmitted edit, you can use the back button at the top left of the screen or alternatively press the  Cancel button. You can say "Alexa, undo" even after you already submitted the changes, provided it's the first spoken command after the submission. This will restore the setpoints that were in effect just before the edits.

The  SysReset button to the left does the same as  Reset on the  LaunchPad or widget — namely set the system mode to AutoWithReset (a setting the API supports but which is unavailable from your Evotouch panel). Choosing it sets all zones to FollowSchedule and cancels all overrides. It's deliberately called SysReset here so that you don't inadvertently think it will just 'undo' any changes you made in the UI on this screen.

Note: When the system mode is  Away, the editor is unreachable. If it's  HeatingOff then only DHW is mutable (if you have it).

Widget

Quick Glance / Macros / Actvity Triggering

On any of your supported Echo Show devices, you can install a Widget for EvoControl — it can be found under the Smart Home category icon in the widget gallery.

When the widget is opened, you'll see a grid starting with a  LaunchPad button followed by tiles displaying the current readings from all of your zones/DHW. These tiles are gesture-enabled to detect both single and double taps.

When you single-tap a tile, if you are using a HGI-80 then you'll briefly see the demand-percentage for that zone (e.g. 🔥 30%) together with the zone's mode (e.g. Auto, ⏳ 22:50, ♾️). Without a HGI-80 that single-tap will show the zone-mode but no demand info. You'll also see the next switchpoint time/SP inside the SP frame with ↑, ↓, ↔ symbols to indicate the 'direction' of the next SP compared to the current setpoint from a heat perspective (e.g. 22:00 ↓ 16°). The frame will reflect the colour of that next SP.

If you double-tap, you can toggle between dropping a zone down to a 5° setpoint via a TemporaryOverride until the next scheduled change (i.e. a sort of 'standby' just for that zone), or toggle back 'up' to FollowSchedule mode for that zone. On the drop to 5°, the tile flashes blue with a large ❄️ snowflake symbol. You'll then also see the next switchpoint momentarily in the setpoint box (e.g. 22:30 ↔ 16°). On the way back up to 'normal', the tile flashes orange with a large 🔥 flame symbol.

Double-tapping on the DHW tile will simply reverse the state from 'On' to 'Off or vice-versa. Be careful when toggling to 'On' as it will stay on until the next scheduled 'Off' moment which may be quite a while in the future and therefore be wasteful.

The double-tap behaviour can be changed via so-called  Macros which can be accessed on the skill's Settings page. Here, for each zone you can choose an SP from 5°..35° or a delta (Δ) of ±6°. DHW may be ON or OFF. Also, instead of bounding things by the schedule, you can select a duration from 0-24h in steps of 10 mins. In use on the Widget, every tile can behave differently — a single-tap shortly after the double-tap will confirm the result of running the Macro.

On the widget's header, an icon with the current system mode    nest_eco_leaf  local_fire_department         is always shown. A  symbol with the number of zones calling for heat will additionally appear when you have a HGI-80 in use, as will a symbol with the aggregated boiler demand percentage. Any zones with heat-demand will have a thick white border around the tile so that they stand out clearly, while any zones reported by the HGI-80 as needing attention will have a red border to them.

Whenever TCC reports a fault via the API, a ⚠️ symbol will appear in the header. For zone/DHW faults, you'll also see a ⚠️ icon on the offending tile(s). A single-tap on such a tile will then show either "🔋Low Battery", "📡Comms Loss" or "⚡Sensor Fault" instead of the zone's mode. It's a good idea to consult your Evotouch panel or open the skill and tap warning Show Faults to drill down to the cause (see Diagnostics) because e.g. a TRV or CS92 with a low battery can interrupt regular radio communications between Evohome devices to a surprising degree!

On the widget, the coloured SP-bars under the tiles do not show any ⌚ override icons/times the way the tiles on the Skill dashboard do — as mentioned above, a tap is needed to reveal that information.

From time to time, the widget header may show "♻️ Update Available" to remind you that removing/replacing the widget will immediately get you to the latest version without having to wait for Amazon's phased rollout of updates.

Note that the Widget can launch the 'full' skill by tapping any part of its header/title area.

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Gas Usage

If you are using a HGI-80 and your Smart Home system has access to a P1 Smart Meter connection, both your today and total gas consumption can be displayed on a dedicated tile which appears at the beginning of the tile-grid.

When using  Domoticz, the device should be of type P1 Smart Meter and have the name Gas or else a description field containing alias:gas;.

In the case of  Home Assistant, you need to create a sensor with the name e.g. sensor.01_123456_gas. You should then define attributes where the value primary will appear in the upper section of the tile and secondary the lower. If unit_of_measurement is omitted then the default is m3.

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LaunchPad

Tapping  LaunchPad will take you to a second page of round buttons from which to trigger all your 'own' activities plus some extra system-defined items. As a reminder, you can create custom scenes/activities by tapping  Scenes on the main skill dashboard followed by the  New button.

In addition to your regular  Standby activity, you'll see one called  Standby ♾️ which automatically applies PermanentOverride to this oft-used feature.

There's also a button named  Reset which sets the system mode to AutoWithReset (a setting the API supports but which is unavailable from your Evotouch panel). Choosing it effectively 'cancels' an activity by setting all zones to FollowSchedule. Just be mindful that it inherently clears any PermanentOverride statuses assigned to zones/DHW.

Finally, there's a  Baseline button which returns all zones with a dynamically modified schedule to their most recent ABC preset.

If you don't tap any items on this grid then the widget automatically returns to the tile view after 8s. If you do tap any button here then it will flash several times before returning you again to the dashboard.

All custom icons assigned to your Scenes/Activities within the skill will automatically appear here on the widget too. A reminder that these icons can be user-selected will be displayed (provided you have at least one user-defined scene) until you have set a custom icon to prove you are aware of the feature.

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Inherent Duration

If an activity name ends with 1-3 digits plus either an 'm' or apostrophe (shorthand for minutes) then the activity in question will be activated for that particular duration in minutes via a TemporaryOverride. There should be no space(s) between the digits and the m/'. Examples: HW Boost 20m, HW Boost 120', ShowerTime 15m. This only applies when the activity is triggered from a widget or from the  LaunchPad in the skill and not when triggered by voice.

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XL Widget

If your Echo is XL-capable then a larger landscape widget automatically takes precedence over the older portrait style (the so-called medium widget). Medium was the de-facto size when widgets were launched by sliding to the left on the Echo homescreen, while Echos that support the widget-shortcut paradigm should all be XL-friendly.

This makes much better use of the screen width of the Echo. The view is responsive to the number of zones in your system and if you have fewer zones to show then the tiles will be bigger. In any case, it will all fit on a single screen with no need to scroll. The XL widget includes the outside temperature in the header.

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SysMode Dependency

Activities are normally not actionable when the System Mode is  HeatingOff. You'll see this on the widget in the form of greyed-out activity names and disabled buttons.

However, if you have DHW and the only item in an activity is Hot Water ON then this can always be triggered during  HeatingOff. In  Away mode, even DHW is blocked and only the  Reset option will be available to restore Auto status.

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Messages

Unlike the skill (which 'resides' only in the cloud and is not installed on your Echo), the widget is actually installed on your device and also stores some limited data there. When you launch the widget, you'll momentarily see that stored data until it is refreshed from the cloud with current values. If anything goes wrong during that refresh, the widget will show a message telling you e.g. that TCC is offline or the skill's authorisation has expired (note that the widget depends on the skill in the cloud to communicate with TCC under the hood). Also, due to a bug in the Echo's firmware, from time to time the Echo can be too busy doing something else under the hood to accept widget-data. This is not the skill's fault.

Although widget code-updates are published from time to time, Amazon does not push them out to all users at once but instead employs a staggered deployment which can actually span several weeks. For that reason, the widget will inform you once that a newer version is available in case you'd like to manually update right now. To do that, just remove the widget (not the skill!) and re-install it.

Note that Amazon does not allow widgets to provide spoken feedback and views them as a touch-only paradigm.

Smart Home Integration

Charting, Demand & More

EvoControl can optionally communicate with Evohome through RF (Radio Frequency) and either the open-source  Domoticz or  Home Assistant smart-home software packages. On your account dashboard there's a checkbox to indicate you wish to use this feature with EvoControl.

You'll need to have an original Resideo HGI-80 hardware device or a clone such as the SSM or nanoCUL (we use the term HGI-80 throughout to universally include the clones too). The HGI-80 monitors radio-traffic communication between your Evotouch panel and other Evohome devices and this data can then be freely interpreted. Note that the non-RF web-API Evohome integrations in / are rejected by EvoControl because they don't add much value over the use of TCC alone.

RF connectivity provides a parallel path for EvoControl to access data about your system that Resideo does not (currently) expose via the TCC API:

• Temperature readouts are accurate to 0.1° instead of 0.5°.
• The % heat-demand per zone is reported and EvoControl indicates it in the opacity of the flame symbol in each tile on the dashboard.
• Any zones with an Open Window status will show .
• Certain devices will not only report battery-low status but include the percentage too. This means you will potentially see , , , , or icons displayed.
• Historical data comprising setpoints SP, a graphical schedule-depiction, plus actual-temperatures from the previous 24h is available for each zone/DHW and can be plotted on your Echo.

Real-time connectivity status or towards / is always shown in the top right corner of EvoControl's dashboard. Clicking on the icon will show a popup to explain the reason for any error(s). Should any command via RF fail to complete, TCC is automatically used as a fallback data-source. You'll see on dashboard tiles which have had to fall back upon TCC because something was missing/unknown in the RF data. Bear in mind that when TCC is up and running, all control inputs toward Evohome use the TCC API and the HGI-80 route is read-only. The HGI-80 is also never used for schedule-related matters, not even when reading data. Should you have any ongoing issues with / you can temporarily disable using the HGI-80 via the toggle on the skill's Settings page.

Smart Home connectivity is unsupported when you have more than one  Location (Evotouch) associated with your TCC account.

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Charting

Access to 📈 graphical data can really help you to understand a room's thermal characteristics, providing visual feedback on response times for setpoint-changes and e.g. how quickly temperatures drift naturally over time due to thermal gain/loss. Those insights can help you plan the optimal schedule entries to achieve your home-comfort goals while minimising energy use.

Unfortunately, Resideo does not store any historical temperature/SP data for Evohome, implying that graphs are unsupported without external means. Luckily for us, both / do archive values sourced from the HGI-80 and both have mechanisms to retrieve 24h data via their respective APIs.

To view chart data in EvoControl, you simply double-tap on any tile on the main dashboard when a HGI-80 is active. In addition to drawing SP and actual-temperature data, a plot of the Live Schedule for the period is included for reference. You'll normally observe discrepancies between it and the SP curve due to the advancement/delay effects of Evohome's optimum start/finish plus e.g. any TemporaryOverrides you requested in that timeframe. If the system mode was Eco/Boost during that period, you'd observe the SP plot showing temperatures shifted from the schedule plot by an amount equal to your system's offset (usually 3°). This is clearly visible in the first 3 example images above.

Note that the schedule you'll see on the graphs is the current schedule for the zone (retrieved at the moment of drawing the chart) superimposed on top of the historical actual/SP data. If any schedule-edits or shifts were made in the last 24h or if you swapped out an ABC preset, the chart may not reflect the schedule that was actually in effect over the past 24h when the other data was being stored by /.

If you tap on any of the caption text entries above the graphs (i.e. the labels 🟠 Actual, 🟢 Schedule, 🔵 Setpoint) then the plot for that particular curve toggles opacity between 1.0 and 0.3 so that you can better compare overlapping portions of the 3 curves.

By default, the horizontal resolution is an impressive 5 minutes. The scaling on the y-axis is dynamic and adjusts so as to show as much relevant detail as possible. A horizontal line shows the average temperature for the period, while a vertical line is drawn through the lowest measured temperature of the past 24h.

Some example graphing-related commands:

• "Alexa, open Smart Heat"…
• Alexa, show the Bedroom graph
• Alexa, next

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Battery Status / % Demand

When you tap battery_unknown Battery on the dashboard (only present with a HGI-80 in use) — or whenever you ask Alexa either for a system-summary or ask if there is demand — a screen will pop up showing the numerical demand-percentage values for each tile. The opacity of the accompanying flame-symbols also reflect the percentages . In an appendage under each tile, the current battery-percentage of each zone's sensor/actuator is reported. Any mains-powered devices (e.g. BDR-91 relays) will show . Not all devices report battery as a percentage — the HR92 does but e.g. the HR-80 and CS-92 only report Low/OK. Even those that handle percentage only actually report 100%, 50%, or Low, so the granularity is unimpressive — this is an Evohome limitation rather than EvoControl's.

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TCC Offline Operation

With  Domoticz, whenever TCC is offline the skill can operate in degraded mode and still provide many useful voice/touch functions via your HGI-80:

• A 👷 icon appears in the dashboard header when this mode is active.
• All (constrained) change-setpoint and activate-activity commands are available, while anything schedule-related is blocked.
• The next block-time for an activity/scene becomes a fallback of 3 hours from now, since the real block time is unknown. You may of course specify any valid until/duration/permanent to override this default.
• You'll note the schedule ABC appendages that show the next switchpoint under each tile are hidden.
• In degraded mode, polling of  Domoticz is hastened to occur every 10s instead of 30s.
• If you change a setpoint without a constraint (i.e. block time rather than a specific until/duration), you'll see a ⏳ on the tile(s) until  Domoticz returns the real duration-status from the HGI-80 (max. 10sec).
• You cannot update your TCC configuration in degraded mode.
• Skill preferences can be edited as normal.

As soon as TCC comes back online, full operation is automatically restored. TCC will just query your Evotouch panel for whatever setpoints are 'live' when operation returns and take that as its status quo.

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HGI-80 Setup Instructions

Note that this RF feature is only for technically-savvy users with a smart-home setup. EvoControl works for 99% without doing any of this!

To enhance security, any parameters you will enter on the HGI-80 setup form will be validated in our back-end to ensure the JSON response is from a valid HGI-80 instance. Our service provider's firewall blocks outgoing cURL requests that are not on port 443 — hence the restriction that you must always expose on 443.

In order to enable communication with  Domoticz, you will need to:

• Have a working Evohome USB (for HGI/S80) configuration.
• Set up a https connection towards Domoticz via a password-protected proxy such as apache, nginx or ngrok. If you do not need to expose any other endpoints on port 443 then the normal Domoticz external-access can be used without a proxy. A valid SSL certificate is a must (e.g. Amazon accepts LetsEncrypt certs). Note that ngrok handles certs itself and issues a fixed domain name nowadays, even on free accounts.
• Visit your Domoticz UI to enable 'Allow Basic-Auth authentication over plain HTTP (API only)' on the Setup → Settings → Security tab.
• Next, visit the Setup → Users tab and create a new Domoticz user with 'User' rights. Important: If using a proxy, assign the same username and password to this user as you use with the proxy/ngrok. That way, the basic-auth passes through in the http headers and satisfies both the proxy/ngrok and Domoticz!
• Make sure to use 'Set Devices' to assign access to all your Evohome devices to this new user.
• You'll also need to have defined a 'Thermostats' or 'EvoControl' room-plan in Domoticz which contains all your thermostats zone/relay devices plus the Evotouch controller device and DHW if you have it.

For  Home Assistant, you will need to:

• Have a working ramses_cc integration via HACS.
• Provide a https proxy URL without password protection but instead with a long-lived access token.
• You'll also need to provide the ID 01:123456 of your Evotouch (you can find this among your HA entities as the controller ID).
• On older versions of ramses_cc, all your TCC zones must have a climate.xxx equivalent in HA and if you have DHW via TCC it must also be present in HA or you will receive an error message upon discovery. Newer versions of ramses_cc will auto-configure.

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Real Outside Temperature

For Domoticz, you can include an Outdoor Temperature device (whether real or virtual) called Outside or with the value alias: outside in the device description field. For Home Assistant, the device should be called e.g. sensor.01_123456_outside (the ID should mirror the controller-ID) and be no more chirpy than providing 200 data-points/24h.

EvoControl can use / data to display graphs of the outdoor temperature during the previous 24h (just tap the weather icon in the dashboard header or say "Alexa, show the Outside graph"). That header will then also show the current outside temperature from your own sensor rather than the Resideo-supplied outside temperature for your location (if you enabled that feature in settings). The weather forecast/prediction is always Resideo-sourced.

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Gas Usage

If you are using a HGI-80 and your Smart Home system has access to a P1 Smart Meter connection, both your today and total gas consumption can be displayed on a dedicated widget tile which appears at the beginning of the tile-grid. It is not displayed on the main skill-dashboard but you can ask to have a barchart of gas usage over the previous 24h drawn by saying "Alexa, show the gas graph".

When using  Domoticz, the device should be of type P1 Smart Meter and have the name Gas or else a description field containing alias:gas;.

In the case of  Home Assistant, you need to create a sensor with the name e.g. sensor.01_123456_gas. You should then define attributes where the value primary will appear in the upper section of the tile and secondary the lower. If unit_of_measurement is omitted then the default is m3.

Multiple Locations

Unite multiple Evohome Systems

EvoControl brings all your Evotouch panels together in a single place. When you have multiple locations registered to your TCC Account, the bottom right of your dashboard footer will have a  Location button which sequences through your locations every time it's pressed. You'll see the currently-selected location e.g. or in the header — incidentally, tapping that icon will display the location's friendly name from your TCC account. It doesn't matter if each Evotouch is situated at a different physical address (e.g. Home, Chalet) or at the same address e.g. in a large home or office that required more than 12 zones.

Some example location-related commands:

• "Alexa, open Smart Heat"…
• Alexa, list my locations
• Alexa, select location number 2
• Alexa, what's the selected location?

Note that only one location can be active at a time — you cannot issue voice commands addressing e.g. location while location is displayed on your dashboard.

Diagnostics

Real-Time Fault Reporting

Evohome makes use of radio-frequency (RF) communication between the various system components such as your panel and the sensors/actuators around the house. To extend battery life as much as possible, most signals are only sent every 4 minutes or so in pre-defined/synchronised time-windows, meaning non mains-powered devices are 'sleeping' in low-power mode most of the time. That's why setpoint changes from either the panel or from EvoControl can take a few minutes before a TRV actually opens or closes. You should also be aware that the rather dated RF protocol in use is 'fire-and-forget' with no acklowledgement or error-checking mechanism to request retransmission of faulty data. This means that radio-interference can mysteriously result in commands being sent but never received, and there will be no error-flag raised unless a device is not 'heard from' for a longer period. It's therefore wise to watch e.g. for low-battery warnings because a device with a critical battery can cause quite some RF interference in a system and reduce overall reliability considerably.

With EvoControl, whenever any faults are reported by Evohome, the dashboard will include a warning Show Faults button in the botton right corner. Tapping it will list the currently-known faults with a description and a timestamp. Unlike in the diagnostics menu on your Evotouch panel, this is not a persistent log — entries can appear and disappear from one skill session to another if the nature of a fault is fleeting. The log makes use of the following icons which also appear on the dashboard tile(s) individually:

• Reflects a SensorLowBattery or ActuatorLowBattery status.
• Indicates a SensorCommunicationLost or ActuatorCommunicationLost issue. You will sometimes see these faults popping up in your log for zones furthest from your Evotouch — they are often transient in nature due to temporary comms-glitches.
• Depicts a SensorFailure or ActuatorFailure issue.
• Is shown when a zone is not currently reporting its temperature. In that case, a red bar also appears in the zone header and a ❔ is shown instead of the current temperature. This error can surface for e.g. a spare HR-92 that's still bound but has had its batteries removed.

When using a HGI-80, any issues with reporting of either demand values or battery statuses via  Domoticz or  Home Assistant will result in a on the corresponding tile(s) on the main skill-dashboard or else a red border around the tile on the widget. If you see this then consult your  Domoticz or  Home Assistant dashboard to troubleshoot. These issues are often a precursor to a future panel/TCC warning that will show up after several days — knowing about them in advance will allow you to investigate the cause early on.

Incidentally, you'll also see diagnostics information on the skill's widget. For starters, a ⚠️ symbol will appear in the header. For zone/DHW faults, you'll also see a ⚠️ icon on the offending tile(s). A single-tap on such a tile will then show either "🔋Low Battery", "📡Comms Loss" or "⚡Sensor Fault" instead of the zone's mode.

Settings / Preferences

Configure Groups, Nicknames, etc

You enter this screen from the main dashboard by tapping the  Settings icon (note this can only be done on Alexa-enabled devices with a rectangular screen).

In the screen's footer there are 9 buttons:

•  Segments to edit the timespans for the Schedule Shifting function
  
  
•  Live→ABC to copy an entire week's live schedule to an ABC preset for 1-12 zones (plus DHW)
  
  
• language_international  Aliases to specify English equivalents for non-English or heavily-abbreviated zone names
  
  
•  Offsets to fill in the blanks for EvoControl by specifying Evotouch-parameters you may have changed but which are not retrievable via the API
  
  
• linked_services Groups for defining/browsing zone-groups for use either in the Setpoint Editor or in voice commands
  
  
•  Zone Order for setting the tile display order on the main dashboard view and other tile-based views
  
  
• ad_group_off Hide Tiles to specify tiles to be hidden from normal view on the dashboard (they are shown any time  Peek is toggled). When not revealing hidden tiles, the screen shows full-size tiles for the others. When unhiding/peeking, all tiles are shown but everything is smaller so as to all fit on your device's screen
  
  
•  Macros allow you to change the default double-tap behaviour of tiles on the Widget. For each tile you can choose an SP from 5°..35° or a delta (Δ) of ±6°. DHW may be ON or OFF. Also, instead of bounding things by the schedule, you can select a duration from 0-24h in steps of 10 mins.
  
  
•  Account to refresh the skill configuration if you change something in your TCC account or e.g. add/remove a HGI-80 on your smartskills smartskills account
  
  

Make sure to visit the  Offsets page to check that the skill is correctly aligned with the settings on your Evotouch panel. The defaults have already been filled out but it's good to check in case you changed anything. For example, EvoControl maps an AutoWithEco offset from -3°…0° to nest_eco_leaf while 0°…+3° is local_fire_department. These icons are shown in the dashboard header (SysMode) but also e.g. on each tile next to the SP instead of the non-differentiating € used by Resideo.

Preference-wise, there are 8 toggle-switches on the settings screen that allow you to:

• subheader  Actual ° above Tile Show/hide the coloured header-bar above each tile on the main dashboard.
  
  
•  Trim Appendages Show/hide the schedule appendage under each tile whenever no setpoint SP change will actually result from that switchpoint being triggered. In other words, if the next SP is the same as the current SP.
  
  
• autoplay  One-Shot → Session Keep the session open on an Echo show after a one-shot command. A one-shot is when the skill is not in-session and you invoke with a fully-executable command included in your utterance. For example, "Alexa, ask Smart Heat to set the Livingroom to 20° for an hour". On a screenless Echo, the skill will always auto-exit after the command is confirmed. On an Echo Show, you have the option here of also exiting or alternatively automatically transitioning to a session (which will allow you to peruse the dashboard and issue more commands without re-invoking).
  
  
•  Hints in Footer Show/Hide the usage hints in the dashboard footer. The first few (important) hints are always the same but thereafter they appear randomly to help you learn all the available commands.
  
  
•  Enable a HGI-80 via Domoticz or HA If you have optionally linked the skill to use RF with a HGI-80 device and  Domoticz or  Home Assistant, this toggle allows to you disable the skill-connector while troubleshooting.
  
  
•  Larger Tiles If you have more than 8 tiles to display there's an option to make the tiles larger so that they are easier to read. This will, however, necessitate scrolling in order to see >8 tiles. Complementary to this is the  Peek feature which allows you to hide certain tiles unless a toggle on the main dashboard is tapped. Press ad_group_off Hide Tiles to select/de-select tiles for this feature.
  
  
• partly_cloudy_day  Show Local Weather EvoControl can retrieve weather and 24h forecast data from the same Resideo source that your Evotouch queries to show the outside temperature. To specify the location^[1], this uses the same ID format as the popular AccuWeather service. Note that the required ID is not your postal code — you can only find the correct ID to use by visiting the AccuWeather website from a browser. Enter your location (nearest city/town) in the site's search box where it says Enter your Address, City or Zip Code and take note of the number you'll see in the URL of the page you are redirected to. For example, specifying London UK as your city results in https://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/london/ec4a-2/weather-forecast/328328. In that case, 328328 would be the ID to use with EvoControl.
  
  Once you have entered your ID(s) in the skill, the Dashboard header will show a weather icon and the current outside temperature at your location(s). You'll be able to ask "Alexa, what's the forecast?" or "Alexa, show the forecast" (for a graph/plot) and per zone you'll be able to plot the  ΔT 24h between the expected outside temperature and the schedule for the next 24h for each of your zones — the wider the gap, the more energy your heating system will need to use. The weather icons will look like these:
  
  
  Note that EvoControl polls the weather service at most 1x per 15 minutes.
  
  
•  Brief %-demand feedback When you ask if there is demand on a screenless Echo, the response can be quite long as the demand percentages for several zones can be enunciated by Alexa. On a device with a screen, that's not needed. This setting shortens the spoken feedback to just a zone-count number and no specific percentages.

Under the slider switches are 3 form fields where you can enter the nicknames for your ABC schedules using an on-screen keyboard. These will then appear in the headers on the various schedule screens to jog your memory as to what each preset represents.

The screen's footer shows your current Default zone if you assigned one using the e.g. "Alexa, the default zone is the Livingroom" command.

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Zone Sort Order

Choose your preferred arrangement

This screen (which is reached by pressing  Zone Order in the  Settings screen) allows you to select the sort-order for zone-tiles as displayed on the main dashboard (incidentally, also in the setpoint-editor, the scenes-editor and the groups-editor).

When you tap any desired tile in the bottom row (unset) it is moved to the top row (set) as the next item. Tapping a top-row item moves it back down to the unset row. When all the tiles are set then the  Save button is enabled and the sort-order can be saved.

Hitting the back arrow in the top-left corner of the screen will abandon the entire edit-session without saving it.

Aliases

International Zone Names

If your native spoken language is not supported by Alexa, it's likely that you will use either British or American English as the language setting on your Echo(s). However, the zone names as displayed on your Evotouch — and therefore reported by TCC to the skill — are most likely to be in your native language, meaning Alexa will not understand them in spoken commands (they'll be fine for touch-activated commands on the Widget or the skill-UI).

On the  Settings page, you'll find a button language_international Aliases that will open the Alias Editor. Here you can define and save a 1:1 mapping from your native zone names to English language equivalents. The names you provide are your choice and do not even have to translate correctly, as long as they are understandable room names in English you're good to go! Note that DHW is always called Hot Water and cannot be assigned to.

The concept can also be useful if your zone names are already in English but e.g. strongly abbreviated so that fuzzy-matching a zone name fails. In that case, you can define an alias for just that zone with the name spelled out in full for Alexa to comprehend.

Whenever you define one or more aliases, your Activities/Scenes and Groups are automatically adjusted to reflect the aliased name so no manual editing is required.

Example Commands

So many ways to say a command…

Whenever you either tap the  Help button on the main dashboard or say "Alexa, help" when the skill is in-session, a scrollable list of example commands is displayed. Note that the help_center  Help buttons on screens other than the dashboard show topic-specific clues for the function at hand.

• System Mode
• Set the system mode to 'Auto'
• Set the heating mode to 'Economy' until 9 PM
• Set the system to 'Boost' for 30 minutes
• Set the heating mode to 'Away', ending
• Set the system mode to 'Day-Off' for 2 days
• Set the system mode to 'Custom'
• Set the heating to 'Frost Protection' (Off)
• Reset the system mode
• What's the system mode?

• Zone Control
• Set the Office to 20.5°
• Make it 19° here
• Make it 20° in the Livingroom & Kitchen
• Set the TV Room to 18° until 2 PM
• Undo → undoes an override if you got the zone name or temperature wrong
• Set the Lounge to 22° for 40 minutes
• Set the Garage to 10° permanently
• Raise the whole house by 1° for an hour
• Lower the Office by 0.5°
• Reduce the whole house by 1° for half an hour
• Return the Bedroom to follow-schedule
• Cancel the Bathroom override

• Query
• What's the Cinema temperature?
• Tell me the Bedroom setpoint
• Show the Livingroom schedule
• What's the average temperature?
• What's the coldest room?
• What's the warmest zone?
• Is there heat-demand?
• What's the Studio climate?
• What's the Outside temperature?
• What's the forecast?
• Give me a system summary
• Show today's roster
• What's next for the Office?
• What's the Hot Water state?
• What's today's gas consumption?

• Schedule
• Show the Livingroom schedule
• Make it 19° at 4 PM
• Make it 18° at 5 PM for 45 mins
• Make it 17° at 8 PM until 21:30
• Make it 22° in the Bedroom at 11 PM
• Undo → removes a verbally-added switchpoint
• Upload schedule A in the Study
• Restore schedule B in the Bathroom and Bedroom
• Go back to schedule C everywhere. Note that this includes DHW, if relevant.

• Schedule Shifting
• Start my day tomorrow at 6AM
• I'm going to bed at 10PM
• My lunch break tomorrow starts at 1PM
• Dinner today will be at 17:00
• Sidestep my lunch break tomorrow
• Increase suppertime temperatures by 1°
• Lower bedtime temperatures by 2°
• Delay going to bed today by half an hour
• Advance lunchtime tomorrow by one hour
• Defer waking up tomorrow by 30 mins
• Revert to baseline
• Undo → reverts a schedule shift
• What time is bedtime today?
• When is lunchtime?
• When is supper?
• What time is wake-up tomorrow?

• Schedule Compress/Expand
• Extend bedtime by 15 mins
• Shorten lunchtime by 15 mins

• Scenes/Activities
• Show activities
• Activate 'MovieTime'
• Undo → undoes an accidentally-wrong activity-activation
• Activate 'Boost Upstairs' for 20 minutes
• Trigger 'Watch TV' until 9 PM
• Start 'Cooking' for 30 minutes
• Activate 'Standby' permanently
• Schedule 'GoodNight' for 10PM
• Schedule 'Studying' from 4PM until 6:30PM
• Schedule 'Workout' starting at 2PM for 1 hour
• List my activities

• Groups
• Set the Kids Rooms to 20°
• Set the Bedrooms Group to 21° for 30 mins
• Increase the Upstairs Rooms by 0.5° until 11PM
• Set the Cellar Group to 10° permanently
• Lower the Downstairs Group by 1°
• Upload schedule A in the Bedrooms Group
• List my groups
• Show the group-creator

• Domestic Hot water
• Turn off Hot Water
• Turn on Hot Water for 20 mins
• Turn on Hot Water at 5PM for 45mins
• Turn on Hot Water at 10PM until 11:30PM
• Show the Hot Water schedule
• Upload schedule B for Hot Water
• What's the Hot Water state?

• Multiple Locations
• List my locations
• Select location number 2
• What's the selected location?

• Miscellaneous
• Update my configuration
• The default zone is the 'Lounge'
• Delete the default zone
• What's the default zone?
• Show the forecast
• Help
• Go Back
• Repeat
• Say that again?
• Cancel
• What's new?

Screenless

Uncomplicated ease-of-use

The myriad of features in EvoControl Smart Heat have been designed in a way that you can just ignore the ones you don't want to use and keep things uncomplicated. That's the beauty of voice control — there's zero UI-clutter!

If all you have is e.g. a screenless Echo Dot device or the Alexa app on a tablet/phone, all of the intuitive constrained-override commands are still available and require no setup. They're the ones that help save money and raise comfort by allowing you to specify an until/duration for overrides both to setpoints and the system mode:

• Set the heating mode to 'Economy' until 9 PM
• Set the system to 'Boost' for 30 minutes
• Set the TV Room & Playroom to 18° until 9 PM
• Set the Bathroom to 22° for 20 minutes
• Raise the whole house by 1° for an hour
• Reduce the whole house by 1° until 5PM

It goes without saying that all the query commands work too, so you can ask if there is heat demand or what's next for the system.

If you also own an Echo Show and have set up the likes of Scenes/Activities, Groups, schedule-shifting targets, and/or Multiple Schedules, all of the commands for using these features work perfectly on screenless devices in other rooms — the touchscreen is only needed to set them up, not to use them!

Usage Tips

Some useful Pointers

First off, you don't install EvoControl on a device such as an individual Echo but instead set it up it inside your Amazon account so that it's automatically available on all your Echos, including any new ones you may add to your arsenal in the future.

EvoControl is a so-called custom skill, which means its voice-model is not based on one of the pre-defined templates from Amazon. Instead, hundreds of syntactic variations of all the commands have been handcrafted into a full-custom voice model specifically written just for this skill. Because it's not a so-called (in Amazon's parlance) smart-home skill, your thermostats won't appear in the Alexa app as devices — if you do see them there it's because you also have the standard Resideo TCC skill enabled. While EvoControl and the TCC skill can co-exist you should have no need whatsoever for the standard TCC skill when EvoControl is in use.

Every time you use any custom skill by voice, you have to initially invoke it by name. For EvoControl you just say any of "Alexa, open Smart Heat" or "Launch Smart Heat" or "Start Smart Heat" because the skill's invocation name is "Smart Heat". Amazon requires the use of 2 words at a minimum and it transpired that Alexa had difficulty understanding 'Evo Control' (because Evo can be pronounced as 'eve-oh' or as 'evvo') so Smart Heat it was!.

On Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices, you need to add the word "skill" to the command: "Alexa, open (the) Smart Heat skill".

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One-shot vs Session

We can differentiate between one-shot and session invocation — how they behave depends on whether your Alexa-enabled device has a display or not:

• With a one-shot, while Alexa is idle you say something like e.g. Alexa, tell Smart Heat to set the system mode to Auto or Alexa, ask Smart Heat if there's heat demand. It's called a one-shot because it will just execute a single command and then the skill will exit. You could subsequently issue another one-shot or e.g. ask Alexa for the weather. Without a screen, the skill will always exit but if you have a display then there's a user-preference in the skill-settings to automatically transition EvoControl to session-mode after handling a one-shot.
• To deliberately start a session, while Alexa is idle you say Alexa, open/start/launch Smart Heat. Note that on a Fire Tablet in 'Show' Mode, you need to add the word 'skill' as otherwise the Tablet will look for Android apps instead of skills — it's then "Alexa, open Smart Heat SKILL". After the beep you can now issue back-to-back commands without first having to say the Alexa, ask Smart Heat… part each time. For example, Alexa, set the system mode to Auto or Alexa, is there heat demand?.

Remember that while you're inside a session, Alexa only handles commands intended for this skill so if e.g. you ask for the weather while a session is active, you'll get an error that "EvoControl cannot help you with that".

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Confirmation

Note that each time EvoControl sends commands to the TCC cloud it looks for a confirmation message from Resideo. If that confirmation is missing because e.g. the TCC service is temporarily offline, you'll be told to verify things on your Evotouch. If you launch the skill while TCC is offline you'll be told so and a link will be shown on your Echo's display to a Resideo page to check for when it returns to service.

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Undo

The Undo command is context-sensitive and can:

• Undo a switchpoint-insertion when editing schedules by voice. If you say e.g. "Alexa, make it 20° in the Kitchen at 5 PM" and realise you meant the Bathroom and not the Kitchen, say "Alexa, undo" (and then of course issue the correct command).
• Revert things after a TemporaryOverride command. If you say e.g. "Alexa, set the Office to 20° until 5 PM" and realise you meant the Kitchen and not the Office, say "Alexa, undo" (and then of course issue the correct command). This also works for multiple zones or Groups.
• Revert things after incorrect scene/activity activation. If you say e.g. "Alexa, activate WatchTV" and realise you really meant to activate "GoodNight", say "Alexa, undo" (and then of course issue the correct command).
• Undo a schedule-shift delay/advance.

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Zone Name Matching

EvoControl uses fuzzy-matching to match your zone names as spelled for TCC against Alexa's expected spelling thereof. If you have a TCC zone called 'Master Bedrm' or 'Mstr Bedrm', Alexa will hear 'Master Bedroom' when you wish to address it by voice. Thanks to the fuzzy matching, the correct zone will still be addressed (it does depend to some extent on how 'close' your other zone names are). There should therefore be no need to rename your TCC zones to work with EvoControl.

If any of your zones have blank names (e.g. from a bound but spare HR-92) then they will be skipped over during discovery. The skill refers to these as ghost zones. If you cannot identify the source of your ghosts, the issue is probably an anomaly that incidentally occurs on Resideo's end. Login to your TCC account, select your location and delete it. Then re-add it and the ghosts should be gone.

Sometimes, after making a call to Resideo technical support (for whatever reason), Resideo will completely reset your TCC account. This has the side-effect of reassigning your SystemID and/or ZoneIDs which unfortunately invalidates the oauth token you were assigned when you first linked the skill. If this happens, the skill will recognise the change and inform you that a re-auth from your Account Dashboard will need to be performed.

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Alexa Routines

If you wish to have the skill automatically revert to baseline every day at (say) just after midnight, you can create a custom routine via the Alexa app to do something like this:

Just open the Alexa app and go to routines. Then hit to create a new routine. Under WHEN hit the for Add an Event, choosing Schedule and subsequently At Time. Choose the time of day at which the routine should run. Next, under ALEXA WILL hit the for Add an Action and choose  Customised. Under Enter what you would ask Alexa, type ask smart heat to revert to baseline. Then hit Next and finally, Save. You can choose any of your Echos or the mobile device on which you have the Alexa app as the device from which Alexa will respond.

Just be mindful that any schedule-shifting applying to 'tomorrow' will be negated by this routine. If you regularly specify tomorrow-shifts, perhaps run this routine only on Sundays e.g. at 8PM to clean things up for the upcoming week yet still allow you to shift Monday morning if you'd like to.

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Round Connected Thermostat

EvoControl additionally supports the Round Connected thermostat, which like Evohome makes use of Resideo's TCC behind the scenes for smartphone control and schedule setup. When you first link the skill, if a Round is discovered then things will auto-configure accordingly (for example, the Round only supports 4 system modes instead of 7).

You may wonder what the point of EvoControl is for a thermostat with only a single zone, but the Multiple Schedules, Schedule Shifting, Graphing/Charting and Constrained Overrides in EvoControl all work perfectly well and are extremely useful enhancements.

The Activities/Scenes and Groups paradigms are disabled for the Round as they are not appropriate in the absence of multiple zones.

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Backup & Restore

Note that you can backup and restore the skill configuration from your smartskills Account Dashboard. This facilitates keeping a library of subtly different settings and swapping them out at will. The how-to is here.