HIVE or Nest for heating?

[DILevil]

Wanting to get some smart heating, do we want Hive or Nest and why? Or nothing much in it really? We currently have gas boiler and 2 thermostats.

What do you want to achieve? We've got Honeywell Evo Home which allows each radiator to be set to different temperatures at different times and controlled through a home hub and an app.

Nest doesn't do that, it just replaces your main thermostat.

I’ve not heard of that one so will have a look. I’m looking to be able to turn the heating on and off remotely and different each day and not have to crawl under the boiler on the worktop to try and do it. We have different heating for up and downstairs so I’m not too bothered about sending heat to different radiators, happy with either downstairs say on or off. Surely having the boiler firing all the time sending heat to different radiators throughout the day uses more energy that having all the heating on downstairs for one hour? Boiler is firing less?

We have HIVE and like it just fine, does everything I want it to. You can heat individual radiators but that requires extra equipment (HIVE radiator valves).

I have nest and really like it, i do have ir set to a schedule but it will automatically adjust if I adjust the temps manually. It also switches off when no activity is sensed in the house and back on when you arrive home

Any difference between hive and nest? Do you use the boiler more or less if heating different radiators at different times?

@DILevil no, it's using less gas than the old system. I only had one main thermostat before though, so if anyone was in during the day the whole house was being heated rather than the one room being used. Why call for heat for 6 radiators if you only need heat for 1?

Admittedly since Covid started, there is always at least one person at home, so it made more sense to get this system than previously when the whole house was empty 8am - 4pm then full the rest of the time.

We have Drayton wiser system and its been great - can control everything from your phone and we have the radiator thermostats so each room can be set at different temperatures

Thanks, I will have a look at both. We’re a fairly small open plannish new build, so well insulated and heating on or off downstairs and up seems to do the trick. Can’t see which ones I would have on and off separately downstairs and wouldn’t make much difference so happy with all on or off downstairs. Genuinely interested in the cost effectiveness of saying having 6 radiators on for 1 hour and then 1 radiator on for 6 hours. Does the boiler firing for longer use more even though it’s heating less? As it still needs to be on?

Making it difficult that we didn’t start out with one system and stick with it, have a ring door bell, a random Phillips light and then other independent working bulbs with our Alexa.

We have Nest and it's fine, we keep it off in summer and have a winter schedule but turn it on or off as needed. It's particularly useful for turning on the heating from in bed, or before we get home, or turning it off when we've gone away and forgotten to. One thing it's useless at is understanding that my phone being "away" doesn't mean the house is empty, so DH and DS are more likely to get cold when I'm out without them because DH turns it on but it just turns itself off again. I have to try to remember in winter to flip it back to "home" mode while I'm out if I've put my location on. It would be much better if it could easily manage multiple phones (perhaps it can and we haven't set it up properly but we've never seen how to do this).

I have a TADO. It's great - links to your smartphone and knows when you are all out, so even if it's a 'heating on' time it switches the heating off, and when you're on the way home it detects you and switches it on again. Or you can manage it from the app. Also connects to Alexa etc. Can fit the thermostat yourself.

www.tado.com/gb-en

You can get individual tados for rooms/radiators with separate schedules.

Also TADO links to as many smartphones as you want, so it knows if I'm out but if DH and DD are home it should leave the heating on.

@MRex

We have Nest and it's fine, we keep it off in summer and have a winter schedule but turn it on or off as needed. It's particularly useful for turning on the heating from in bed, or before we get home, or turning it off when we've gone away and forgotten to. One thing it's useless at is understanding that my phone being "away" doesn't mean the house is empty, so DH and DS are more likely to get cold when I'm out without them because DH turns it on but it just turns itself off again. I have to try to remember in winter to flip it back to "home" mode while I'm out if I've put my location on. It would be much better if it could easily manage multiple phones (perhaps it can and we haven't set it up properly but we've never seen how to do this).

All you need to do is to get your husband (and perhaps son) to set up their own Nest account & add your thermostat to it. It’s easy to do once you download the app.

I fancy the evohome.
I think Nest / Hive are probably only really advantageous for people who work shifts, ie coming home at different times each week. I doubt they'll be much savings for people who are doing the same hours going out coming home at the same time. A normal thermostat/ timer will manage that.

@Porridgeislife - sorry, should have said a bit more detail, we did set up DH's account, but the thermostat wouldn't connect to it. The "help" ended up saying it was a fault and sending us a new thermostat, which took effort to set back up and post the old one, and then it still didn't connect so we just gave up as we'd spent so much time on it by then that we couldn't face any more. DS is too little to try.

I wouldn't have had the whole house heated for just one hour though, it wouldn't heat up due to the stairs being in the living room with the old thermostat. Until that whole area reached a steady temperature it was calling for heat. Stupidly inefficient if the room I actually wanted heating was a bedroom! No-one complains of being cold now and we're using less gas so I'm really happy with it.

Sounds like your needs are different though, which is why I asked what you wanted to achieve from it.

@MRex i haven’t found this to be a problem; it does trip to away once my phone had been gone for a while and no activity it detected in the house but as soon as someone goes near it it fires back on again

[quote AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii]@MRex i haven’t found this to be a problem; it does trip to away once my phone had been gone for a while and no activity it detected in the house but as soon as someone goes near it it fires back on again[/quote]
It's usually night-time so they'll be upstairs in the bedroom or lounge and the Nest is in the kitchen, so I guess nobody walks by. By the time DH comes down, he can manually put it on anyway.

We have 2 thermostats and the hot water tank atm, I can’t seem to find that hive will run off two? Or does nest?