[Shipped] - W600 in Matter over Thread installation review

[jm_collin_78]

Hello,

Thanks to the give away program, I receive my W600 TRV. Here is my installation review.

Unboxing

Some photos of the unboxing.

The device looks rock solid, heavy and nice.
Accessories are very complete and should be compatible with all kind of valve.

Documentation

Documentation is light and hardware installation will be not easy to follow for newby. For my case, I only need to screw a ring around the valve and install the device into the ring. Hardware installation is done. Very easy when you finally find what combinaison is needed.

Hardware installation

Screw this ring into the valve:

Screw the TRV into the ring. The result should be:

Then remove the yellow tape to connect the battery.

The W600 is now in pairing mode.

Pairing

Once the tape is removed, the thread pairing starts automatically on the mobile phone (installed with Home Assistant companion) and the device display the F1 message.

Follow the screen, select Home Assistant application

A few second later, the device is connected.
Then you must create the matter device:

During the pairing journey, the W600 switch to F2 state. You will then have to click 3 time quickly on the button:

This journey is very simple, works as a charm. This is the magic of the Thread / Matter pairing method.

Entities available in Home Assistant

Go to home assistant, search for the Matter integration and find your W600 TRV. You will find these entities:

The entities contains a climate and the internal temperature sensor value:

And that is all for control entities. This is very deceptive. Modern TRV have direct valve opening degrees control, offset calibration, external temperature sensor, timers, schedule, …

I wonder if this limitation is due to the TRV itself or to the matter over thread protocole.

Other entities contains the temperature unit, the batterie status and informations.

Sadly, I cannot switch to Zigbee because I don’t find how to do that. For other Aqara device, we need a Aqara Hub to do that. But I don’t have one and I don’t intend to buy one. Liberty have a price.

I don’t have the capacity to test in real conditions on a real water heater.

Turning the button or clicking is responsive. Setpoing updates within 2 sec in the HA climate entity.

Noise

One very good point is the noise when the TRV turns. This TRV is the most silent TRV i have seen. At first glance, I think it was not working. But it is working and very silently. This is a very good news for people who sleeps near the heater. Some TRV are banned from bedroom due to the noise. This one will do the job.

Conclusion

In conclusion we have a very promising TRV. The good points are:

1. look rock solid and elegant,
2. accessories are complete and should be compatible with all valve,
3. pairing is very easy and seamless thanks to matter/thead procedure,
4. device is responsive
5. the most silent TRV i have seen !

The only bad point is the control entities which are available in Home Assistant. I don’t know if this is due to matter or thread or the device itself but this is a deceptive point.

If someone has more info about Zigbee connexion or connexion through an Aqara hub, it could be helpfull.

EDIT: @AqaraOfficial , I wonder if the Developer Hub is the right category for this message. I cannot move it to the Aqara product one. Can you do it for me ?

[gafich10]

Hello, thanks for the excellent description of the W600.
Zigbee is also easy to install. During the first installation (or reinstallation of the W600), you need to select the Zigbee protocol. It will take some time to switch to it. Then everything is as when adding Aqara devices (name, room, location…) intuitive and fast.
Yes, Zigbee has additional options as you wrote plus a smart temperature schedule.

[Sugar]

It’s because matter still has limitations; it’s the same for locks, it’s not possible to expose some things

[Caroline_Zzz]

hi there, thanks for your thoughtful review!