MPC Calibration Feedback

[DesertRec]

Hi,

Only on my third day with the Sonoff TRVZB and the new MPC calibration and I am very happy what I see and hear from the radiators my system is small 2 zones with 2 TRV's each and different sized radiators, the temperature clamps to the target with a tolerance set to 0.3ºC.
Looking at the graph from yesterday it looks spot on, what I wish could be improved is the orange heating state to be on when it heats, the graph shows only heating at the very beginning not all the small heatings to keep the temp to the target and all the day it shows idle when it clearly heats it would just be nice if you were not in doubt about the state.

And a question about the outdoor temperature setting I was looking for it in the state attributes but could not see it, have it been remove in the latest beta 4 I would have added it to my climate card? This is the one in the screenshot.

I'm tagging you @wtom (MPC)

[wtom]

Could you add also the open percentage graph, that helps me to see how the algorithm works for you.

[DesertRec]

Is it these you mean, almost exactly on top of each other despite different sized radiators, good or bad I don't know.

[wtom]

Looks good. Not yet implemented that the heaters may have different power. I have no clue how to do it other than with the internal temperature.

[DesertRec]

Ok I don't know if its even needed, I'm very satisfied with how works now.

[DesertRec]

MPC Beta 5, it keeps the valves open most of the time but only little under 10%, from what I have seen the overshoot is improved from before beta 5 it hovers around 0.1-0.2ºC above target where before it was more like 0.3-0.6ºC, so very impressive. @wtom I just wanted to give some feedback again now that you made some more MPC changes, overall very happy camper here👍

[wtom]

#1793
Can you test my pull request. I've added an eco penalty and lowered the horizon from 60min to 15min.

[DesertRec]

Super, but can't you just release a beta 8 with the changes and I happily keep track of it and report back?

[wtom]

Super, but can't you just release a beta 8 with the changes and I happily keep track of it and report back?

Not before next week. I will also try to fix the PID stuff.

[DesertRec]

OK will do it in the morning, do I just replace with those 2 files?

[wtom]

Yes.

[idcmucch]

Here is some more in depth information for mpc in the different versions:

Beta 1:

So far my favorite implementation. This screenshot shows around 2 weeks "training" heating up the room initially was slow but after that, it kept the temperature very stable. I remember it only took around 2 Days to be stable after first installing the beta.

Beta 5:

For me completely unusable. I had the Beta for around 5 days, so it had it fair share of training but after 5 days it still overshot sometimes almost 2C.

Beta 7 with #1793 changes:

Seems better than Beta 5 so far, not a lot of training data yet (unless it saved them from the previous version?) so the first heating up was way to much. But after that, it seems smoother, still overshoots 0.5C but maybe it'll get better the next few days. I'll keep you updated.

[wtom]

In the mpc.py change the MPC_HORIZON_STEP to 6. Should get you better results. After the change you need to restart HA.

[idcmucch]

Still overshoots a lot, if the temperature is over 0,2-0,3 below target. Had the setting on since Monday. I feel like BT doesn’t take into account that my radiator needs time to heat up and stays warm quite a while once the valve is closed. It only changes valve openings when it detects heat changes but by then, the radiator is to hot already and overshoots.

(Ignore the spike Monday evening)

[wtom]

The algorithm learns for every target temperature the heating algorithm, so the more you change, the longer it takes to learn.

Can you also plot the virtual temperature of BT? Maybe just the stable target temperature part after Wednesday.

[DesertRec]

Thanks for Beta 9 heating again.
3 questions about Beta 9, the new Direct Valve Based is that preferred for Sonoff TRVZB of course combined with (AI) MPC Predictive? I have chosen this for now in Beta 9 sounds correct.

Now this is set by default setting up a new entry for the Sonoff TRVZB which i'm pretty sure don't need that option I have disabled it for now.

Sun Intensity Heatup is new also mine is at 41.5% with pitch black and -4ºC outside?

@KartoffelToby @wtom

[KartoffelToby]

@DesertRec yes i test some Default configs, to make it for beginners as easy as possible, so if you have better results without the overheat Option, let me know.

We want also to make the calibration mode as simple as possible.

By Default, if you create a new BT entity the best Options for your device are picked.

The Part with the sun prediction is that BT use the weather entity and the forcast to check for any UV Index ratings, and calculate the Impact
Can you tell me what weather entity service do you use?

[nicobgr]

@KartoffelToby @DesertRec should I use tolerance with these settings? From my understanding it's pointless in this mode?

[DesertRec]

@KartoffelToby I would think that overheat protection should not be needed for trv's that can be controlled by valves that can be set to 0% open it doesn't get more closed than this or do I miss the point, I do have on average 0.5C overshoot on my Zone 1 BT entity but that's not what I call extreme and would not enable for that.

About the forecast I'm using the default met.to, but I do see now after a couple of hours running it's down to 5% but there are absolutely zero help heating from the outside here in Denmark right now.

Just to make sure is the new Direct Valve Based the go to for MPC?

@ABoldOne i'm pretty sure that tolerance is not in use for MPC at the moment it could be implemented on a later date, but I set it to 0,3C regardless as always.

[wtom]

Yes - Overheat Protection with MPC is not needed, since the algorithm should learn it itself, when to close the valve.
Tolerance has is not yet implemented on MPC, PID or TPI. But i might do it later on. When we are out of beta. :)
I'm also not sure about the solar forecast. I will see some days how it plays into it.

[baltic-nomster]

Hi, I‘m using MPC with Beta 7 for about a week now and love it so far. I have five Sonoff trv‘s which I integrated via ZHA and I’m really happy that the valve values are finally being utilized. Now, I’m running into problems with Beta 9 though. Once I updated, I adjusted my thermostat settings according to discussion above: no overheating protection, no tolerance and (AI) MPC Predictive mode. One caveat: I could not find the „direct valve based“ calibration type mentioned above, as only offset based and target temperature based are displayed. So I chose offset based.

With that setup the diagnostic entities keep adjusting values for gain and loss but the valve values stay at the levels pre update to Beta 9, causing over- or underheating. Something that didn’t happen with Beta 7. @wtom do you maybe have an idea why the direct valve based option doesn’t show up and the vales don’t seem to be changed at all anymore?

[wtom]

There is an open PR to fix that in beta9. It's now an own calibration method. But the detection seems not working for ZHA.

Stay with beta7 for now until the next beta comes out.

[DesertRec]

@wtom are you happy with beta9 MPC calibration? I think it works the best so far, but I can't stop thinking about how it would be to make a hybrid between beta9 and beta5 you now the one that had the valves constantly open because it was also nice and precise, beta5 was not alive very long time so I could be misjudging it for the better, but curious to test something like that again, @Kai9555 was also a fan of it.

[Kai9555]

In the meantime, I’ve become a huge fan of Beta 9 as well. I didn’t realize that training was happening in the background, so I was patient for a few days. Yesterday’s results are truly impressive. From what I can tell, the valves are now being controlled slightly differently from one another, which makes a lot of sense in my case. With Beta 5, all valves were set to the same position, and as a result one radiator almost always stayed cool.

For context: I have a large living/dining area (50 m²) with four radiators and a single central temperature sensor. If all radiators were set to a valve opening of 18%, one radiator wouldn’t heat up at all, because it only allows sufficient flow starting at around 22%.

I might be imagining it, but it seems that with Beta 9 the temperature measured at the radiator’s own thermostat is also being taken into account, leading to slightly different control behavior.

In general, I really like the idea of the valves not constantly closing again (like Beta5), but instead holding a position based on external factors to keep the room temperature stable. However, someone else mentioned that they doesn’t like this approach, because their radiators are quite noisy when water is flowing through them. It will probably be hard to make everyone happy.

The work you’re doing here is really impressive — thank you very much for it.

[DesertRec]

Great that it's work so good, I'm also happy with it, it was also more of a thought if any changes are in the horizon where the next tweak could be if any😉

[wtom]

I'm currently working on a performance curve per TRV and target temperature. With that, we might be able to do an even better prediction which valve position is the best.

[robbyevans-rocko]

I’ve recently installed Better Thermostat to test it on my system.
I’m using Sonoff TRVZB valves on all my radiators. I previously tried BETA9, but it didn’t seem to work properly with my setup.
I’ve now switched to the latest master build, and it’s a big improvement — I’m using Valve Control with MPC.
My question is about central boiler activation. On my system, the boiler seems to run almost constantly. Are there any tweaks to reduce how often it fires? The tolerance setting doesn’t seem to have any effect, so the boiler keeps switching on.
Would using a threshold based on total valve demand help, and would MPC still adapt correctly, or would that cause issues?
I also feel like HVAC “heating” should only be active when the central boiler is actually running in my setup. Is that possible?
Thanks in advance for any advice!