I have written at quite some length on here about my use of MAX equipment for running my heating system. It has worked extremely well and I have been very happy with the excellent quality of the kit and the low prices.
I found I needed an extra thermostat, but on looking around the usual sources they were nowhere to be found. A bit more digging and my worst fears were realised – the range has now been discontinued by the manufacturer (ELV). The UK has always been a minor market for this stuff with Germany and other European countries seeming far more interested. The press release which puts the final nail in the coffin is here:
Or courtesy of Google Translate for those whose German isn’t up to it:
Whilst they are dressing it all up as a good news story, for me at least it feels like bad news. They have always had a range of different product lines, and the HomeMatic line have always been nice but much more expensive, and also more complicated to control if you step outside their ecosystem. I never made any use of the cloud offering so that’s not an issue to me.
I don’t see HomeMatic IP as a viable solution really partly because of the cost, but also because it will be much more difficult to incorporate into my control system. Fortunately for me I don’t need much more, probably one will be enough, but it is still a bit sad that the options are becoming more limited. If I was starting again now I’m not really sure what I’d do. There are some options out there but I don’t think any are easy.
ELV are offering a like-for-like exchange of MAX for HomeMatic IP thermostats… but sadly the Ts&Cs only apply to a number of European countries which does not include the UK. I’m not really surprised by this, they never really seem to have engaged with the UK as a market and I tended to buy mine from European retailers like Conrad or even direct from ELV.
https://de.elv.com/max-wechselangebot
It does mean that I am now going to try and hoard as many as I can find, there are one or two job lots that go on eBay but not very often. So if you have any of these lying around… please let me know! I’d also be very interested to hear if anyone has had success with other similar systems especially when coupled with FHEM or some other computer controlled system. Fibaro are doing some very expensive Z-Wave heads:
https://www.fibaro.com/en/products/the-heat-controller/
All the other options are similarly expensive and not as easy to integrate.
I’m not planning to change anything and hopefully my existing installation will continue to work fine for a long time to come. However it does leave a real gap in the market, and in the UK at least I am not optimistic about it being filed.
Universal Discovery Methodology 