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Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

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Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#2
I guess your toolbox really shapes your solution space thinking; as I read through this, being completely lost in the whole world of RF whatnot, my mind jumped straight to an alternative attack that better fit my own tooling: could you encase the thermostat in a box that you can mechanically control the temperature of?

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#3

I guess your toolbox really shapes your solution space thinking; as I read through this, being completely lost in the whole world of RF whatnot, my mind jumped straight to an alternative attack that better fit my own tooling: could you encase the thermostat in a box that you can mechanically control the temperature of?

Or attach an ESP32 to the boiler's control board that closes a dry contact circuit...?

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#4
post #3

I guess your toolbox really shapes your solution space thinking; as I read through this, being completely lost in the whole world of RF whatnot, my mind jumped straight to an alternative attack that better fit my own tooling: could you encase the thermostat in a box that you can mechanically control the temperature of?

Or attach an ESP32 to the boiler's control board that closes a dry contact circuit...?

That was my first thought on how I would approach it as well.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#5

I guess your toolbox really shapes your solution space thinking; as I read through this, being completely lost in the whole world of RF whatnot, my mind jumped straight to an alternative attack that better fit my own tooling: could you encase the thermostat in a box that you can mechanically control the temperature of?

This sounds good, except that cooling a box is problematic. He needs the temperature sensor to read low so that it turns on the heat.

That said, if he has access to the interior of the thermostat, I'm sure it won't be difficult to replace the temperature sensor with a circuit to cause it to read either really high or really low on demand.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#6

I guess your toolbox really shapes your solution space thinking; as I read through this, being completely lost in the whole world of RF whatnot, my mind jumped straight to an alternative attack that better fit my own tooling: could you encase the thermostat in a box that you can mechanically control the temperature of?

Or, assuming they have physical access to the combi boiler, removing the receiver unit and replacing it with a more Home Assistant friendly combi boiler thermostat.

Probably a 30 minute job if you’ve never done it before and easily reversible with a little bit of double sided sticky tape, which all Brits should be familiar with if they ever made a Tracy Island. There is a real risk of electrocution which could be completely militated against by turning off the power to the boiler.

Still, a fun hack, and nicely executed!

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#7
post #5

I guess your toolbox really shapes your solution space thinking; as I read through this, being completely lost in the whole world of RF whatnot, my mind jumped straight to an alternative attack that better fit my own tooling: could you encase the thermostat in a box that you can mechanically control the temperature of?

This sounds good, except that cooling a box is problematic. He needs the temperature sensor to read low so that it turns on the heat. That said, if he has access to the interior of the thermostat, I'm sure it won't be difficult to replace the temperature sensor with a circuit to cause it to read either really high or really low on demand.

> This sounds good, except that cooling a box is problematic. He needs the temperature sensor to read low so that it turns on the heat.

Ice pack and desiccant?

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#8

I guess your toolbox really shapes your solution space thinking; as I read through this, being completely lost in the whole world of RF whatnot, my mind jumped straight to an alternative attack that better fit my own tooling: could you encase the thermostat in a box that you can mechanically control the temperature of?

I removed the thermistor from inside my wall controller and wired in a digital pot instead. Achieves the same thing without physically heating and cooling the sensor

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#10
If OP ever shows up here, you probably could have just replaced the thermostat with one that is compatible with your boiler for less money and headache. The boiler market is fairly open to competition as evidenced by the fact that you could find a Honeywell signal in a random OSS project that also worked.

Good luck with your future apartment customizations!

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