HIGHLIGHTS: Tom, Floor and Koen radiator and underfloor heating button

Tom is our radiator knob and ensures that enough heat is released at the right time to bring the room up to temperature. Tom cannot do this alone and therefore communicates with Anna, Lisa or Jip and Adam. You can add multiple Toms in a room so that all radiators are connected and can work together in the room. You can see the layout of a room in the Plugwise Home app, so you know exactly which Tom is where. Check whether a Tom is open and how far a Tom is open. If it is not necessary for Tom to run at full speed, Tom will, for example, only let 50% heat through. More about Tom:

• Tom works modulating, which means that Tom will constantly anticipate the heat demand and the current temperature in the room. This may be when the room is almost at temperature and only needs to heat at half power, or when there is also a demand for heat in another room and heating must be increased here. The boiler temperature is therefore higher than necessary and Tom can anticipate this by, for example, opening only 30% and thus modulating the heat output.

• Tom can be connected to both adapter and battery. It may of course be the case that there is no power point nearby or that it is simply not desired. However, it is recommended to connect a number of devices to an adapter within the zone control. As soon as a device is connected via an adapter, this device becomes a so-called router and the Zigbee signal is retransmitted from this point. This creates a mesh network which makes for a stronger network. This gives the system a larger and stronger range.

• Tom also has his own temperature sensor. In smaller rooms, it is therefore possible to choose not to place a separate thermostat or temperature sensor. Of course, this is not advised in all areas. Tom’s temperature reading is not that accurate because Tom is right next to the heat source. Rooms up to 15 square meter could be controlled with a Tom. It is important that Tom is not placed behind a curtain or open window, the temperature measurement is affected by this. In that case, however, you can also use an Anna, Lisa or Jip as a room thermostat for accurate temperature measurement.

Floor is used for the underfloor heating. Floor can be placed on any valve of an underfloor heating distributor to control all underfloor heating loops. Adam will constantly tell Floor whether there is a heat demand in a room or not and ensure the right amount of heat is released. This makes it possible to provide various rooms with heat and to achieve the right temperature in each room. There are some minor differences and similarities between Tom and Floor:

• Floor does not run on batteries but can only be powered through an adapter. This makes Floor a lot narrowerand can therefore be placed next to each other on a floor distributor on the various valves. Each valve that is equipped with a Floor can be added in another room in the zone control. You can even control the underfloor heating per zone.

• Floor works modulating, just like Tom. This is mainly used for underfloor heating when several rooms require heat. A room that needs to be heated faster or a larger room that needs to be heated, next to a smaller room such as an office, a higher supply temperature is required from the boiler more quickly. A smaller room will then not be opened completely to prevent a higher temperature than requested from being reached here.

• Floor fits on almost every floor heating distributor. Floor can always be installed as soon as the valve is equipped with an M28, M30 or Danfoss connection. So you do not have to incur extra costs for replacing the underfloor heating distributor.

• Because Floor is connected with an adapter, the device always works as a router and amplifies the Zigbee signal. Do you have underfloor heating on both floors?

Koen is also a product that is used for underfloor heating. Koen works slightly differently from Floor and is therefore also interesting as a possibility. Koen consists of a Plug to which 2 to 8 motors are connected. This allows Koen to open or close several valves at once. This makes Koen cheaper than Floor. Discover Koen’s options:

• Koen has several options, namely the number of motors that are connected. For example, Koen-3 has 3 motors, so 3 valves can be connected. These are switched simultaneously. This is convenient if several valves are connected in the same zone. Does the living room have 3 loops/valves? Then Koen automatically opens or closes them at the same time.

• Koen can switch up to 8 valves simultaneously. Koen-8 has 8 motors that are connected to 1 device. For example, do you have 5 valves for the living room, 2 for the kitchen and 2 in the office? Then you are done with 3 Koen variants (Koen-5, Koen-2 and Koen-2)!

• Koen does not work modulating like Floor and Tom, but can only open or close. This means that Koen cannot open partially to more accurately control how much water goes to the different rooms. An advantage of underfloor heating is that the heat release is slow and you do not notice the difference as quickly as with radiators.

• Koen is cheaperthan Floor if you have multiple loops going to the same zone. For example, do 4 loops go to the living room? Then a Koen-4 is cheaper than 4x Floor.