What TRV to buy in 2025?

🌎 Around the World 🇪🇺 Europe
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Hello everyone,
I see lots of different TRVs available, both locally in Europe and through Aliexpress etc. I'm moving into a rental apartment soon and it has 5 radiators I'd like to control.

There are lots of posts but I couldn't find a definitive answer.

What is a good budget TRV I can buy? Ideally Zigbee but Matter could be ok as well.
In the budget contenders I have the Tuya TRV06, IMOU TRV1, Sonoff TRVZB.

Thanks!

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I have some Aquara E1 TRVs and some Sonoffs. The Sonoffs were reported to be quieter but I can't tell the difference. They're not loud but definitely audible.
The Sonoffs need 3xAA cells whereas the Aquaras only need 2. Only had them in service a few months, can't tell yet how long they last.
One of my Aquaras sulks, complains that the room temperature isn't doing what the valve's set at. After a while it stops playing, needs the batteries out and resetting. Only 1 out of 4 devices, thinking of binning it.
I'm here 'cos I wondered if there was anything better...

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Continuing the discussion from Can we have "Physical Thermostat Cool/Heat Setpoint" as a trigger for rules/automations?:

This auto-clsed topic is now relevant as the 2025 heating season has begun...

Could an administrator please unlock it?

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@moderators please see above.

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Done!

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I have found out how to stop the one Aquara E01 thermostat sulking and now it's behaving really well, its future is now safe.
I should admit here that I'm talking to it through the Aquara app, haven't yet moved it into Hubitat. Anyway, there's a setting called "Notification of valve test" which was on, now it's off and all is good.

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Is there a built in driver for the Sonoffs?
How do you find they preform

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I used the community driver recently updated in thread [RELEASE] Sonoff TRVZB driver - #45 by kkossev
I find them very good at temperature control but not as quiet as I would like for a bedroom. I don't mind hearing them opening up half an hour before getting-up time, as per schedule, but I can imagine a non-techy light sleeper might object.
Similar to the Aquara ones in all those aspects.

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This is my current TRVs dashboard :

image
image1916×916 166 KB

Apps and drivers used :

I have configured a complex setup for physical and virtual TRVs, which allows me to easily swap TRVs between different rooms for testing purposes. In each room, I am monitoring the TRV heating setpoint, the TRV temperature, and the temperature of the radiator, as I have placed a temperature and humidity sensor on top of the radiator.

There are many small details for improvement on my TODO list. However, all the different TRV models are functioning well, and the room temperature is accurately following the schedule set in the built-in Thermostat Scheduler app of the heating system.

There are two important improvements to be made:

  1. When the TRV heating setpoint is manually adjusted (usually increased), I want the Thermostat Scheduler to account for this adjustment for all scheduled setpoints until the end of the day.

  2. I need a reliable monitoring system for 'TRV malfunctions.' For me, a 'malfunction' occurs when the room temperature fails to follow the heating setpoint after a reasonable period of time.

I currently don't have solutions for these two major issues, but I have some ideas that I will try in the coming weeks.

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