[Feature Request] Support for Multiple Central Configurations

[Stepyon]

Context
I have a typical for my country new-build 2-storey house with a modern heat pump heating system.
The default heating configuration works as follows:

• The heat pump is connected to two heating loops via two motorized valves.
• Each valve is controlled by a thermostat:
  • Ground floor: thermostat in the living room
  • First floor: thermostat in the main bedroom
• Other rooms use manual TRV valves on radiators (not smart).
• The motorized valves are also connected to the heat pump, so it knows their state.
• When at least one motorized valve opens, the heat pump starts heating and circulating water.

Effectively, this setup has two independent heating loops.

What I changed
I upgraded the system to improve room-level temperature control:

• Replaced the manual TRVs with Sonoff TVZB smart TRVs
• Replaced the ground floor Heatmiser thermostat with a T3E Touch Screen Switch panel that is controlled from Home Assistant (it acts as a switch)

Using Versatile Thermostat, I configured the ground floor T3E Touch Screen Switch as a central configuration.
Now the behavior is:

• If any ground floor TRV calls for heat
• The T3E switch is turned on
• The ground floor motorized valve opens
• The heat pump starts circulating

This setup works perfectly.

The problem
I would like to implement the same setup for the first floor.

The idea is:

• Upstairs TRVs request heat
• The upstairs thermostat switch turns on
• The upstairs motorized valve opens
• The heat pump starts circulating

However, it seems that only one central configuration is currently supported.

Feature request
It would be very useful if the integration could support multiple central configurations, allowing separate groups of TRVs/thermostats to control different heating loops.

For example:

• Central config 1 → Ground floor TRVs → Ground floor valve
• Central config 2 → First floor TRVs → First floor valve

Thanks for the great integration!

[jmcollin78]

Hello, it is too hard to do that and too specific use case for being implemented. Sorry, but I will not do that.

[Stepyon]

Thanks for your reply.
I just wanted to clarify that this might not be such a niche use case. Many modern heat pump systems support two-zone control, which is commonly used for things like:

• separating ground floor and first floor heating
• separating underfloor heating and radiators

In fact, most new houses being built (at least here in Ireland) use two heating zones with heat pumps.

I completely understand that implementing this support may require significant changes, and I'm sure you have other higher-priority tasks.

If I find some free time in the future, I might try implementing this myself. If I manage to get it working, would you be open to reviewing and potentially accepting a pull request for this feature?

[jmcollin78]

Let's see if other users are interesting.

[Stepyon]

Maybe the term “multiple central configurations” is confusing. What I actually meant could possibly be implemented without duplicating the entire configuration.
Instead of multiple central configurations, it could remain a single central configuration instance, but allow support for multiple zones (switches).

For example:

• The central configuration could define 2 or more switches/zones.
• In the thermostat settings, under “Used by central boiler. Check if this VTherm should have control on the central boiler”, there could be a dropdown to select which zone/switch the thermostat should control.

This way, the overall configuration would remain the same, but thermostats/TRVs could be associated with different heating zones.

I hope this explanation makes the idea clearer.

[jmcollin78]

yes this is very clear. You need 2 zones in a central config or 2 central config. I guess it is the same work to do.

[youtux]

I have the same problem, it'd be awesome if Versatile Thermostat would support that!

[SuperMario86]

I would be super interested as I also have floor heating on ground floor and radiators with valve on the 1st floor.

I have to control a central valve (district heating) which enables warm water to flow into both heating, but I also have the floor heating pump that is specific to ground floor. At the moment, the ground floor pump starts even if a radiator valve request heat on the first floor.

It would be awesome if there could be a possibility to have multiple central configurations, or even just multiple instances of versatile thermostat.

[vidualnet]

me too, I have a dumb system i want to leave in place.

I have a shelly 4 channel relay that controls my motorized valves for hot water (0), upstairs rads (1) downstairs UFH (2) and then the boiler call (3) separately.

The problem i have with keeping the existing dumb system in place and overlaying the relays is I need to call the boiler under different scenarios, such as upstairs TRVs to the master zone upstairs relay (1) and the boiler (3), or/and the downstairs ufh actuators to the downstairs master zone relay (2) and the boiler (3).

I would need to either link all my downstairs Vtherms to a master configuration for downstairs and another master configuration for upstairs that can open the related valve and call via a single centralised boiler call on or off (probably best)

or!

2 central configurations that call the motorised valves and the boiler via a sequencing script, that i can allocate to up or down stair sub vtherms to.

open to other logics as well if anyone has any?

[smnp]

I also have a two zone heating system, in my case a traditional boiler heating system which in the UK would be the case for houses over a certain size floor area (and not that large) for quite some time. Its not a modern only feature for heat pumps.

Currently I use VTherm to call a service which turns on and off both floor zone valves which wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't for three towel rails in bathrooms on the upstairs floor not having smart TRVs just traditional TRVs as I've not been able to find suitable ones yet. This means at times we're trying to heat downstairs but end up warming the bathrooms upstairs.

I have been thinking of seeing if I can determine which VTherms are calling for heat and then adapt my turn on/off scripts accordingly. Having multiple central configurations would be ideal, but even an easy way to determine which VTherms are triggering the call for heating would enable me to handle the individual zone valves.

[smnp]

Think about this some more, and I can see some users wanting multiple central configurations so they can adjust other parameters if their zone types are different heating systems, but also users like me that just need some way to determine which zone(s) to trigger. The latter could be possibly be achieved with a zone attribute per VTherm and an optional parameter for the trigger action including which zones caused the trigger. Just wondering if that's something less complex to add?

[jmcollin78]

Hello,

I understand the interest for this feature but ...
Single central configuration is hard coded in VTherm's code. Ask your favorite AI to have an idea of the impacts if you want a factual report of this impact.

I will not do that. Sorry.

Edit: one way is maybe to add a plugin to do that. Not sure is it really more simple but it will lower the risk of regressions. See https://github.com/jmcollin78/vtherm_api for more info on plugin development.

[smnp]

I will not do that. Sorry.

That's fine. I currently work around this by monitoring what is calling for heat.

I saw this enhancement request is tagged 'Vote needed' and a more recent comment so thought it was still open to input despite the 'wontfix' tag.

[Kevinf63]

In Ireland it is common in modern homes to have a zoned heating system per floor that effectively means two or more "central configurations" in regards to this HA integration. Appreciate the effort made on this thermostat integration, being FOSS.

[smnp]

Having worked around this for my own home with scripting, I think in many cases the multiple zone use case could be more simply covered by:

1. Each VTherm having an optional zone tag. This could be provided as additional context to the existing central configuration call to turn on the boiler as a set of zone tags. The the same detail could alternatively be provided in an attribute (the existing devices active for boiler attribute is just a list of all the opening degree IDs)

2. Another trigger for when the triggering VTherms change while the boiler is already on to cover the case of zones changing.

This would simplify my workaround of having to work out which VTherms triggered the boiler initially and monitoring for changes. It would also be less complex/risky to implement than multiple central configurations given the current central configuration covers other settings that VTherms can use.

[bontiv]

Maybe they are a way to manage multi-zone with a plugin?

[Stepyon]

For me the working workaround is the following:
(I have a heat pump with 2 zones (floors) controls. I replaced both thermostats with 2 Zigbee smart switches and added Zigbee TRVs to every radiator in the house)

1. Remove the boiler control from VTherm
2. If you have 2 zones (or floors):
   Create 2 binary sensors:

binary_sensor "Heating Demand Zone 1":
-set it to "true" if at least one TRV valve in Zone 1 is opened.

binary_sensor "Heating Demand Zone 2":
-set it to "true" if at least one TRV valve in Zone 2 is opened.

So now you have the heating demand sensors for each zone.

3. Create an automation (or 2 automatons) to sync the binary sensors to the thermostat switches for each zone.

[jmcollin78]

Maybe they are a way to manage multi-zone with a plugin?

This was my proposal above. But that is really not easy and there is a lot of changes into the core because the central configuration is hardcoded now.