Do I want HIVE or Nest?

[TreeSunset]

For the central heating, to be controlled by Alexa, do I want HIVE or Nest? In the future I want to add on lighting and possible door cameras, alarms etc

We have a Hive and it's been fabulous so far. We also have Ring doorbells and cameras, Hue lights and an Alexa that controls them all. Couldn't be more chuffed that in winter I can put the heating and lights on before I get home so that the house looks lovely and welcoming.

Neither. You want tado. With tado YouCan manage individual radiator thermostats. For example, we set the bathroom one to come on for half an hour in the morning, our bedroom am & pm, the lounge and hall for when we get home from work, the kids bedroom for half an hour before bed time.

With nest and hive, it's either on or it's off so you either have to go around turning individual radiators off or on as needed or you heat rooms you aren't using.

We have nest. It's ok, but only just.

Yes, it's nice to be able to control the heating etc remotely.

But.

It's supposed to know when you are out (by knowing that your phone has left your house, and by the thermostat and smoke alarms not registering any movements) and switch your heating off. This is really glitchy and never ever works properly - it often thinks people are at home despite the house being empty of both people and phones.

We have hue lightbulbs. When nest realises we are out it's meant to turn lights on and off randomly. It doesn't. It just turns on every single light in the house and then leaves them all on until about 11pm (whilst leaving the heating on )

Would I buy it again? To be honest, I'd probably look at other systems first.

I have the Tado system as well and love it :-)

Tado!

Thanks, hadn’t heard of Tado, will go and look. Is t more expensive as I guess the boiler is always firing even if one radiator is falling for heat?

If I’ve got 2 thermostats already, one for downstairs and one for upstairs rafiators so already some kind of separate control, would I be okay with HIVE or would you still go for the more expensive Tado for individual control, as I have a lot of radiators and it would stack up
If you needed valves for each?

I'd still go for tado. We have it on 11 radiators (you should always have 1 radiator with no valve). The initial outlay (£900 including installation) has almost been made up in savings over the 18months we've had it. It'll have paid for itself in 2 and half years.

We put it on all radiators bar 1 immediately but you could just do a few to start off with.

We have Hive and it's good. Easy to use and the thermostats look good.

However, I recently discovered they have a bit of a money making scam going on because you can't sell the Hub or thermostats secondhand. Once they are registered to a person, that's it. They cannot be used again. If you move house, you are meant to leave the system for the new owner who has to buy a new hub (£80) and you can "repurchase" Hive at a reduced cost of £150 for your new property.

I only found this out as I wanted to sell my Nano Hub as we upgraded to their new 360 Hub. Turns out I can't sell my Nano Hub and it's now essentially a brick as no one else can ever use it - apparently it's hidden in their T&C's.

So whilst Hive is good, I would probably go for Nest next time around.

Hive have just released individual thermostats for radiators so you can control each room individually now. We're going to order our first couple next month.

I have Nest and don't have any of the difficulties mentioned above. I like it.

Nest definitely

Hive. You can set the lights on a timer, we have our landing light coming on as it gets dark, (can set it to sunset so you don’t have to change the time all the time) and the hallway as we get through the door if it’s dark. I love it and wouldn’t have anything else. We have the sensors, plugs etc. We did register our hub but we took it when we moved, which you can do. You just replace with a thermostat and take the smart one with you.

I have & like Hive. Great to heat the house remotely half an hour before home. Even better to be able to heat hot water so I can have a shower as soon as I like back from holiday.

Just got Alexa and planning to add other bits soon!

We love our smart lights too, they are separate from tado but linked up with Google, so I can say to my phone "Google I'm on my way home" and it'll turn on a preset combination of lights and radiators will come on. Or we set them to come on at certain times etc. Love it.

Hmm, I have 16 radiators/towel rails so tado is going to be quite expensive I think!

You don’t have to do the individual radiator thing for all your radiators with Tado. We have a wall thermostat in our coldest room and do it that way

Ah thanks, will add it back into consideration now don’t need one on every radiator!

We’ve used Hive and Nest.

I prefer Nest. The app is better, and (as they’re a bigger company) its compatible with more systems. We’re very happy with it.

What have you gone for in the end? I moved to the house with hive thermostat and was happy with its functions. Then ive bought their TRV for multizone control and find it super unreliable!