Important discovery about TS0601 behavior - looking for feedback!

[auanasgheps]

I discovered how to eliminate the weird behavior of this valve, that sometimes does not react as it should do to manual commands. To be honest seems there's a (stupid) "auto" mode that still tries to control the TRV behavior, not providing a true manual mode.

These are the issues I encounter daily:

• slow valve aperture at 5%, only later ramping up extremely slowly. (but only above 15% there's heat coming out, I believe this varies based on your radiators)
• does not close the valve when the temperature is reached, completely closed only about 1°C higher.
• and other crap

On TS0601 there's a menu to control some options. Some of these are exposed in Z2M, but the most important is NOT!
The way this menu works is not the same on every TS0601.

This is my model MOES HY368 - if yours looks similar, you can follow these instructions.

• Press Home button for 3-5 seconds, the displayed items will change
• Press + to see the number 4, then press Home again to confirm
• Press Home until you see the letter A, after the number 9.
• Press + to change the big 0 to 1
• Press Home
• Wait until the LED turn off, it saves and goes back to the main menu.

It's unclear what this option exactly does:
The manual of my valve, says

Control Type of Valve - 0: PID 1: ON/OFF

I have also found this reference on HA forum, where a user mentions the TS0601 valve, which is from another manufacturer but at the end of the day it's the same device.

The manual explains that the valve has its own algorithm and you can disable it by setting it to 1.

Either way, by doing this procedure the valve opens at 100% when it's needed and turns off when instructed by BT when reaching the temperature!

It's not only ON or OFF. Sure, it's more aggressive, but in fact does intermediate steps:

FEEDBACK IS WANTED!

• Please let me know if you have this option on your valve and what the manual tells about it
• If you have observed the same strange behavior, please let me know if this fixes your problems. I suggest to also use the Target Temperature Calibration for the BT config since it's more effective than Offset Based
• If you have the original Tuya gateway, please let me know if this option is available in the original app. If it does, we might be able to bring it to Z2M, and eventually could be adjusted automatically by BT

[ovizii]

I'll give this a try but most probably only able to do so on Monday.

Still, here's a question: is this settign really used?
I thought BT overrides taht via Z2M?
Isn't BT deciding how much, and how fast to open the valve?

[ovizii]

btw. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller

[auanasgheps]

This option is not available in Z2M (at least on my TRV) so there's no way BT can override it.
It changes the behavior of my valves, so it's working.

Isn't BT deciding how much, and how fast to open the valve?

No, BT only makes temperature adjustments on the TRV. It observers how temperature changes and trains the algorithm/AI to adjust these adjustments over time.

[auanasgheps]

So what's the purpose of a PID controller on a TRV? Properly adjust the valve/temperature over time?

Either way, these valves are buggy as hell, so I don't mind losing their stupidity.. ehm intelligence

[Nuuki9]

You can find some discussion on the potential implementation of a PID controller in BT in #806

[richsimpson]

My valves have different buttons, none seem to do a lot. I do see that when I first install there is a number comes up P1 I think, you can turn the dial between 1-8 for that. It is likely connected to some general mode but no idea what they are....

[auanasgheps]

This is my valve
https://moeshouse.com/products/smart-thermostatic-trv

Check yours for the manual so you can get to the settings menu too

[richsimpson]

Aha, found the original paper instructions. be warned this one is hard to control!

My valve are these:

They show up as this in Z2M:

The manual is here:

To get into the menu its the weird button on left, for a few seconds then press it again, yo then have to press it a few more times until it has SET flashing. That is also program 6 in the top right corner of display.

Press the BOOST button in bottom centre, you are then already in menu 1. press BOOST again and you are in menu 2 (two dashes for window open), repeat until menu 8 for the PID. I had some on 0 (PID Mode ON) and some on 1 (On/Off Mode).

Two of my valves get to menu 9 which is the reset or leave (00 reset or 88 retain), then go to another menu which shows as A instead of 9. with a binary 0 or 1 option. No idea what it is for but both that have it are set as 1.

Hope this helps . All mine are now set to menu 8 - 1 (On/Off Mode instead of PID ON).
Lets see if it makes any difference at all.

Reloaded all BT integrations and HASS,

[auanasgheps]

Alright! Good to know that yours are on option 8. I will adjust the first post.
Please let me know if you get improvements!
Mine are working fantastic!

[freeDom-]

I got the same and for me I needed to change A setting to 1 to make it work. A could be 2 possible options:

1. Disable algorithm of Thermostat, which has programmed some default parameters for windows and room sizes and using then to adjust temperature
2. Enable 100% of the valve. Otherwise the valve is limited to ~60%-80%.

I am using PID, because otherwise there is only full on and full of for the valve, which is not what I want from a thermostat. Unfortunately there is no way to control the position manually, but for me one automation was enough to make it work as expected:

When I turn on my HVAC to auto mode I check whether temp is smaller than target temp. If yes I set my thermostat to boost. This will put the position to 100 right away without starting so ridiculously slow as usual.

One could do another automation shutting it off when temp is reached and turning it on again after a short delay. This will quickly reset the valve position, but atm it is OK for me if it overshoots by 1°C and tries to find the right position to hold the temp using that PID. I think "normal thermostats" do it the same here...

Anyways, it would be great if there were an option to not turn it off, but adjust the PIDs values manually..

[auanasgheps]

When I disabled PID/Algorithm with the option A, I get the following states: 0 - 25 - 50 - 75 -100 %, which is good enough. No ON/OFF.
After changing this option, you don't have anymore the ridiculous slow start.

Also, consider that Better Thermostat has is own learning/algorithm that learn from the room size. Since I trust BT, it makes sense to disable other algorithms/control that could interfere.

[freeDom-]

Thanks for the response, but your model is a different one. I have the same as richsimpson (it really should have a different name than MOES!). PID setting is on 8 for mine as stated in the manual above. I am pretty sure that disabling it just allows 100% and 0% values, but I am going to try it out again!
It would be awesome to have 0 - 25 - 50 - 75 - 100 values, because that would be enough anyways!

I might try out BT one day, but atm I am pretty happy with my setup.

[a8ree]

Thanks for this @auanasgheps
I have finally managed to get BT working with one of the bedrooms. Whilst it is early days, it looks like this has sorted the over heating issue.

I tried it in my kitchen with four radiators all with the TS0601

When I configured it, I selected the radiators, them set them all the same.

Strangely though, only one radiator valve opened. I then went back to confirm the settings and saw the following

Notice that the device names for the TRVs are not shown

And each of these screens is indistinguishable from the other.

It appears that it isn't working correctly when there are multiple TRVs on a thermostat. Is everyone else seeing the same?

[auanasgheps]

Sorry, can you please elaborate the problem?

[richsimpson]

Since changing the settings in my valves and then later removing all BT devices and re-entering them fresh, I have better behaviour on my Tuya valves.

Still early days but feels positive!

[auanasgheps]

Great to know. I wish I discovered this at the beginning of the winter season lol

[arough007]

Is also have TRVs that say they are TS0601, but the Model says GS361A-H04 and looks completely different.
Does anyone have any idea how to change the same setting on these?

[auanasgheps]

That's a tough one. Then you should find the manual in the box or online.
But be assured that there's a way to get to such menu, because it also contains advertised features such as Open Window detection.

[richsimpson]

Yes with only one button it is going to be some odd series of presses and twists to get to the menus. Hopefully you can locate a manual either at your place or online. Try searching for the various product names that are all the same unit and ".pdf" you might get lucky. I located mine on the amazon advert for a similar model in the description, more easy to find on a computer webpage than using the app.

Good luck!

[arough007]

I have the physical manual and also found it online.
But it only shows how to switch between modes and using child lock on the device itself.
For window and valve detection it says to use their app. No other features are mentioned there.
I can control both of these via Z2M, but nothing else shows up and as far as I can tell from the various threads in the Z2M repo nothing else can be controlled via ZigBee.

When pressing the encoder for 6 seconds there is a menu going from F1-F4. Only F4 seems to be doing something (the valve reset mentioned in the docs).
The other three just close the menu and don't do anything as far as I can tell. Maybe I just misconfigured my device by doing this. We'll see :D

[auanasgheps]

It's a bummer to see that your valve does not expose many options with the physical controls.

Would be great to have the original gateway to use the original app and verify if the PID option is available there. If yes, we could sniff the traffic and the configuration to Z2M. It would be a great change for everyone.

[auanasgheps]

Update: Looks like PID option is not available in the original app.
Here's a screenshot from this video.
All of these settings are already available in Z2M.
"Valve Setting" is Force Open, force Close, normal

So we have to find the the proper setting for each model and change it manually.

[theremotheman]

After disabling PID everything started to work as expected. IMO - Better Thermostat needs additional wiki page for known good device configuration(or at least this post pinned), as for ex. my GTZ04 is almost useless with PID enabled and ‘offset based calibration’ (it’s capped at -9 min to 9 max so it don’t play nicely with big rooms/old radiators).

To sum it up: GTZ04 (same as OP) with PID disabled, Target Temperature Calibration, AI Time Based calibration mode and swapped auto/heat is everything needed for my valve to work almost flawlessly.

On the side note - GTZ04 doesn’t have its own maintenance mode and without it, after some time in one position, valve pin can go ‘stuck’. I’m using BT setting to mitigate that (at the cost of shorter battery life).

[theremotheman]

By the way, how do I know if my TRV has Maintenance mode?

It hides under valve_detection in Z2M, but as described in this issue: Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt#7270 - it does different things depending on manufacturer, I can confirm that (at least mine) is not working.

I have one TRV that sometimes reports it closed the valve, but it's still half open, causing overheatin

It may be that gears are stripped or there is calc on valve and motor doesn’t have enough torque to close it (skipping steps? Bad batteries?) - maybe swap valves and see if this problem persists? Alternatively: open it and check if there is something fishy with gears. There is this little indicator:
that can help You check if all of Your TRVs have same torque (or if force required to fully close valve is equal across all of your radiators). From my experience with 4 different TRVs in my house - it’s either batteries, stripped gears or thermostat head is not secured in place and sometimes moves slightly when pressure is applied (after all - that nut used to secure head to valve is made out of plastic, and plastic threads tends to skip).

[auanasgheps]

It hides under valve_detection in Z2M, but as described in this issue: Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt#7270 - it does different things depending on manufacturer, I can confirm that (at least mine) is not working.

Allright, mine has the question mark, so probably it's not working for me too!

It may be that gears are stripped or there is calc on valve and motor doesn’t have enough torque to close it (skipping steps? Bad batteries?) - maybe swap valves and see if this problem persists? Alternatively: open it and check if there is something fishy with gears. There is this little indicator: that can help You check if all of Your TRVs have same torque (or if force required to fully close valve is equal across all of your radiators). From my experience with 4 different TRVs in my house - it’s either batteries, stripped gears or thermostat head is not secured in place and sometimes moves slightly when pressure is applied (after all - that nut used to secure head to valve is made out of plastic, and plastic threads tends to skip).

I will check the valve itself, but what do you mean as "calc on valve"?
The TRV head is installed correctly, however today it reported that the batteries are low, so it's time to change them.

Thanks for the information, though!

[ovizii]

I will check the valve itself, but what do you mean as "calc on valve"? The TRV head is installed correctly, however today it reported that the batteries are low, so it's time to change them.

He means your valves might be calcified. Kalk (German) should be calcium carbonate (English) if I am not entirely wrong.

[auanasgheps]

I will check the valve itself, but what do you mean as "calc on valve"? The TRV head is installed correctly, however today it reported that the batteries are low, so it's time to change them.

He means your valves might be calcified. Kalk (German) should be calcium carbonate (English) if I am not entirely wrong.

Nice! In English is called Limescale. I'm Italian and the word is similar - Calcare - so I had a lead but I wasn't sure.

[theremotheman]

I will check the valve itself, but what do you mean as "calc on valve"? The TRV head is installed correctly, however today it reported that the batteries are low, so it's time to change them.

He means your valves might be calcified. Kalk (German) should be calcium carbonate (English) if I am not entirely wrong.

That’s correct, I was looking for a proper English word and found ‘anti calc valve’ in manual for my steam iron, oh well - I should’ve checked in the dictionary (BTW - Google translate proposed ‘stoned valve’ as a direct translation ;) ).