General > General Technical Chat
British Gas disabling HIVE devices claiming they are not efficient enough?
MrMobodies:
Fortunately there maybe some hope for them with Homeassistant:
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/can-i-integrate-hive-active-heating-into-ha-without-the-hive-hub/246728/19
--- Quote ---Can I integrate Hive Active Heating into HA without the Hive Hub?
Third party integrations zigbee
jampez77 Jamie Nandhra-Pezone
Nov '20
I’m wondering if anyone here could help me. I’m looking to replace two old thermostats and the Hive Active Heating ones look like a good fit. The wiring is exactly the same as my existing set up.
Here: https://www.hivehome.com/products/hive-active-heating 89
I see that they are ZigBee devices and both the thermostat and receiver are listed as being compatible with HA.
Receiver: https://zigbee.blakadder.com/Hive_SLR1b.html 210
Thermostat: https://zigbee.blakadder.com/Hive_SLT3.html 163
Would I be able to install them with both local control via the thermostats and have control of them through HA? Do I need the Hive Hub or will my HA act as the hub?
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--- Quote ---vonChaps Dec '20
My understanding is that Hive devices use some bespoke subset of Zigbee such that a hub is required for full functionaliy. There are some reports of people getting a generic ZigBee receiver to work, eg here 211, but it’s not entirely clear. I certainly think there are some features of the HiveHome heating implementation that are not part of the thermostat so YMMV.
If you are going into the weeds like this, it may be better just to get a zigbee thermostat and connect a RPi to the boiler demand. After all, the Hive thermostat is nothing special without the backend stuff.
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--- Quote ---jampez77 Jamie Nandhra-Pezone Dec '20
Thanks for your reply. Since asking this question I’ve bought and installed two Hive Thermostats. It took a while to get everything paired and connected with HA.
Since then it’s been pretty solid. The only negative is that one of the thermostats disconnects/reconnects from the receiver pretty regularly. This itself doesn’t cause an issue most of the time but sometimes it will turn off the heating when it reconnects.
I think i’ll keep this set up for now and if it becomes unusable I’ll just get a hub.
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--- Quote ---HarvsG 4 Jun '21
Many thanks @jampez77
Writing up the procedure for others’ benefit
Remove the thermostat from the wall and remove a battery
Turn boiler off, then on again - this should cut power to the boiler receiver
Hold down central heating button on the boiler receiver until light turns pink then release
Hold down the central heating button again until the light turns amber with double flashing then release
Pair (the boiler receiver) with Home Assistant - I will be using ZHA’s ‘add device’ function
At this point the amber double flash may change to a single flash
Stop ZHA from searching for devices by pressing back
Replace the battery in the thermostat and allow to boot
Press and hold the menu and back buttons, a countdown should appear on the screen, allow the countdown to finish and release when you see ‘welcome’. After selecting a language, it will enter pairing mode.
On ZHA (or similar), select the boiler device you added earlier, now click “ADD DEVICES VIA THIS DEVICE” - the Thermostat must be connected to the ZigBee network via the boiler receiver we added earlier
The thermostat should now pair to the boiler receiver. The amber light on the boiler receiver should turn green.
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--- Quote ---clockworkant Alec Holmes Dec '21
I’ve recently purchased a hive v3 and I think I’ve successfully integrated it with zigbee2mqtt. I’ve just added some PR’s to the herdsman and the docs. Hopefully if I’ve submitted the updates correctly it’ll be rolled out soon!
github.com/blakadder/zigbee
Update Hive_SLT3.md 56
blakadder:master ← clockworkant:patch-2
opened Dec 10, 2021
clockworkant clockworkant
+17 -1
Added new steps to pair the thermostat and the receiver using the zigbee2mqtt we…
github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt.io
Adding Hive SLT3C to docs with image 38
Koenkk:master ← clockworkant:master
opened Dec 10, 2021
clockworkant clockworkant
+64 -0
--- End quote ---
What a nice alternative and it looks like BritishGas haven't locked them down fully.
AndyBeez:
--- Quote from: MrMobodies on August 18, 2023, 03:45:36 am ---What a nice alternative and it looks like BritishGas haven't locked them down fully.
--- End quote ---
:-// Maybe that's a problem?
IoT devices should be 100% black boxes that not even the most dedicated computer geek with a side channel 'spark machine' and a JTAG swim probe can attack. Even if it is just to upgrade those crappy flashing LED colours.
tom66:
--- Quote from: AndyBeez on August 17, 2023, 03:08:03 pm ---A heap of Hive products on eBay. This image suggests that some Hive smart thermostats may really be a rebadged Zigbee on the inside.
--- End quote ---
Hive does use Zigbee for most of their heating control stuff and some people have reverse engineered parts of the protocol, but Zigbee supports encryption so it's possible some of their devices will only pair with their hubs (unsure how their cameras would work for instance, the video likely needs to go to a central server).
The bigger problem is not everyone wants to mess around with Home Assistant or Zigbee2MQTT to support Hive -- they bought a system expecting it to work for a reasonable time and within 4 years, they've killed the entire product line off. Very bad.
themadhippy:
--- Quote ---What a nice alternative and it looks like BritishGas haven't locked them down fully.
--- End quote ---
yet,lets see what any final software update does.
AndyBeez:
A seven year old teardown of a Centrica Hive Hub controller here : https://datapoint.uk/2016/06/hive-nano-v2-hub-teardown/
Some possible ICSP/JTAG pin headers? The original authors did not have much luck cracking in. References on the PCB silks to 'AlertMe.com'.
--- Quote ---AlertMe was a UK smart Tech company that provides energy and home monitoring hardware and services. AlertMe produces hardware and software to enable users to monitor and control their home energy use. In 2015 the company was acquired by British Gas Trading Limited for £65 million. In April 2016 the limited company was renamed to Centrica Connected Home Limited.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlertMe
--- End quote ---
AlertMe.com Inc was dissolved in September 2021.
According to UK Companies House, the full accounts made up to 31st December 2021 reported that Centrica Connected Home Limited (aka HIVE) made a loss of £48M, compared to the previous year's £151M. In that year the company made a gross profit of £15M but was crushed by operating costs of £45M. The Homeshield product was scheduled for demolition. Net liabilities totalled £462M!
Referenced: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05782908/filing-history
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