Does anyone control their central heating with a smartphone app?

[TheGMF]

Are you living the dream, or did it turn out to be a PITA?

Our 'new' house has a really basic thermostat - it's just a dial. I want to change for a digital 7-day programmable one but now wondering if I should be 'future-proofing' with a fancy smartphone controlled one.

Would like to hear from anyone who has one - how it's worked out for them.

Does the thermostat have to be wireless as we had a wireless thermostat in our last house and that WAS a PITA imo.

Also is mobile phone reception a factor, because our house seems to be in a bit of a 'notspot'.

TIA.

[specialsubject]

yes, mobile phone reception is a factor, and mobile networks are not reliable. (My parents have just had the sales pitch on this, they also live in a dead spot and the reaction from the salesman when asked this question was 'um').

Do get something more programmable of course, but don't add extra layers of possible failure.

[PigletJohn]

Honeywell CM907 is a very good wired programmable thermostat.

I think Honeywell has the edge on other brands for the moment.

[Gozogozo]

Digital CH requires wireless TRVs I think - currently c. £50 each but will likely get cheaper and more reliable over next couple of years.

There's a new cheaper one by Lightwave RF which is about £35 but has only been on the market for a couple of months, so not sure about possible glitches.

[PigletJohn]

why do you think it needs wireless TRVs?

[Glittertwins]

We have the Hive app / set up and it works well for us.

[Slowdownsally]

I like the look of //www.nest.com as they learn your needs and times at home etc and adapt when to come on.

Wonder if it will save energy.

[burnishedsilver]

My sister has nest. She hates it. She can't figure out how to work it. Shes always cold. Her husband is a gadget man and likes the idea of it but I'm not sure he's using it right either.

[Spindelina]

I love ours, but it's a few years old and my DH wrote the app. So it's very customised to our house / setup.

[SugarPlumTree]

We have Hive. It was very dodgy at first and something kept going wrong. They picked this up without us complaining and sent us a plug thingy.

It is better now but sometimes it won't let me log in even though I have a signal. It's only been in since the Spring and not sure at this point I would choose it again.

[Glittertwins]

SugarPlum, is your router a long way away from the receiver unit? Our router is in our loft but the boiler and receiver unit are on the ground floor. Because of the distance between them we also kept losing signal. We were sent the booster plug without a quibble too but we had already managed to fix the problem by using plug in power lines. Not had a problem since.

[Gozogozo]

Apologies; misunderstood what you are looking for.

[Otottolollabot]

We have Heatmiser and it is absolutely brilliant. We are never cold and our bills have more than halved. I was a bit miffed at first because I wanted the Nest but it's really really good, even though it doesn't look as marvellous, sniff. The zoning works really well, particularly, which is good for us because DH always wants his office to be boiling and I can't stand it.

We have (wired) thermostats on the wall, that you can alter just by pressing the buttons if you like, but you can also phone it, use an app on the phone/tablet, or log in to a website hosted on the LAN, so if any one thing goes down there are multiple fall backs. We went with this cause we're moderately rural and the broadband goes down sometimes and the phone reception is shocking.

[MrsJamin]

We have the tado app which is fab. We don't have a very set time of being in or out so something that turns the heating on when one of us gets home us very useful. The only bugbear is heating the house when I know we're just about to leave the house, it annoys me that it's a waste of heat. This is especially in the morning when we're rushing round before the school run, don't really need the heat on and it can feel really hot as we're on the move. Sometimes I just switch it off in that scenario but I need to remember to switch it back on again. Also you need to make sure you remember to override the app when you have a babysitter otherwise it gets cold!

[summersoft]

You can change your old dial style room thermostat for a wired programable room thermostat. Drayton and Honeywell both do them. As for using apps, Hive will allow you to control your heating and hot water(if you have a hot water cylinder). Includes a 7 day programable room stat. Nest on allows you to control heating. Not your hot water cylinder. When your in your home, it will use your wifi to control it from your phone/tablet. It only uses mobile phone signal when your out and about.

[boobyooby]

Another vote for Tado here

[Pippidoeswhatshewants]

I find it all a bit creepy www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jun/27/-sp-the-nest-google-technology-future-homes

[Otottolollabot]

Hmm, MaryShelley, I'm not sure? The thermostats on the wall are the Slimline ones, but there's extra stuff downstairs and it's also wired into our house computer and can be given IFTTT triggers. We don't have radiators, it's zoned water underfloor heating, which is how come I couldn't have Nest, apparently.

[QuintsBombWithAWiew]

Oh, I love my smart-meter and thermostat phone app. The Hive.

I can turn up the heating when coming home from holiday (or shopping).
I can monitor the heating and the temperature in the house when I am away.
The phone alerts me of unusual temperature changes, like the kids turning the thermostat up to 25 degrees....


I would not be without it now!

[MrsJamin]

I don't get why you'd want to have to think about your heating though, with tado it's a lot more intelligent, knows when I'm home or when I'm returning back home so hardly ever need to think about the heating. Hive seems like marketing style over substance.

[PurpleWithRed]

I'm looking at Tado but DH only has a Windows phone which he loves . Any of the others have a Windows app?

[MrsJamin]

According to a quick Google, tado are working on a Windows phone app, and should be released by Christmas, so I would wait for it rather getting something else.

[BikeRunSki]

We got a new boiler 10 days aho and decided against Hive or similar. I have a 3 year old, my life is not that spontaneous!! I asked for a price for retro-fitting it. It was the same. We can always add it later if we feel the need.

[SunnyUpNorth]

This is very timely as I was going to start a similar thread.

I've been looking at the movable Honeywell thermostat but there are quite a lot of reviews on Amazon saying the digital display fails after a couple of years.

Have only just heard about Hive, Nest etc. Not heard of Tado so will check that out.

I'd like something that I can program for weekdays and weekends and also override to switch it on for an hour or so if it's chilly but not scheduled to come on.

I'm not sure I like the sound of the Nest predicting when I want heat on, seems a bit wierd?

I would also like to be able to program it separately for night and day, eg only come on if it has dropped below a certain temp during the day and then a lower temp for during the night. Any ideas which might suit?

[PigletJohn]

Honeywell CM907

I currently have a Danfoss which is not as good. Annoyingly mine has internal stand-by batteries which last several years but are not replaceable; so if it loses power from the boiler, it loses its settings.