Should I get a smart thermostat?

[Spacecudet]

We bought our house a couple of years ago. There is no thermostat so heating is on or off, no control for temperature. We want to put a thermostat in, but not sure whether to get a wired in thermostat or a smart one. What would people recommend?

We have a Hive. It’s great. I would get a smart one. We replaced a wired in one that, although new, never seemed to work. The Hive has been superior in every way.

Yes! We got hive too. So good.

Hive!

Thanks for the recommendations. Went away for the weekend a couple of weeks ago, and my DH pressed the wrong button on the boiler. The heating was left on constant the entire time we were away. It was like a sauna when we got back. Definitely need a thermostat pronto!

We had nest in our last house and having it installed in our new house!!

I hate my Nest! Maybe I just need to be shown how to use it properly

We have a Nest thermostat and doorbell and they're linked on the same app.
I love it.

Had hive, utterly hated it and once removed beat it to death with a hammer.
Have a hard wired time clock & thermostat. Simple to use and little to wrong and has no batteries.
Down side is the need to consider where your wiring would go when placing the thermostat.

We're in the process of installing a new heating system as part of major renovations. We are on oil and have combination of radiators, wet UFH, and electric UFH. We were advised by the electricians to install a Heatmiser Neo system with hub which is fuly controlled by programmable thermostats. All linked to the Hub, which can then be controlled by mobile phone.

It is not all properly up and running yet, but so far I am immensely pleased. Previously, the heating was either "On" or "Off" and the house was either too hot or too cold and we were using ENORMOUS amounts of oil. Now, I can maintain the general temp at around 18 degrees while we are in and, as the system has geolocation functionality, if our routine changes and we are out, it automatically switches the heating down to frost protection mode.

App is super simple to use.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE

how old is the boiler?

Who services it?

How close is it to your main living room?

Don't know age. It is a Baxi combi boiler. The boiler is in a smallish bedroom upstairs, which gets nice and warm, the living room is downstairs in the opposite corner of the house and takes a while to heat.

changing the relative speed of heating the rooms can be done by balancing the radiators, which you could do yourself. You might (now or later) want to fit thermostatic radiator valves, and one should not be used in the room with the roomstat as they mat get into contention.

With a modern combi, wiring a smart stat should be quite simple, but have it professionally done, preferably by the person who services your boiler. Many DIYers have terrible problems getting their Nest to work.

It's not essential, but I favour having the boiler receiver wired through a wiring centre outside the boiler case. It's just a small plastic box for the connections. It means that if repair replacement is needed, the boiler case doesn't have to be opened and re-sealed, which needs a Gas Safe qualified person.

When wireless or smart controls go wrong, they can often be fixed by fitting new batteries.

I love my Nest! It switches the heating off automatically when I leave the house, and turns it back on when I get home. You can set it for different temperatures at different times of day, and it works with Alexa so I can just tell her to turn the heating up or down as necessary.

We are thinking of a new boiler, I am pretty unsure of a smart control so have gone for a wireless system.

As tempting as it is to be able to switch all the heating off when I am at work and dh is at home, I am not sure I really need to do this. The system we were talked through (tado) also can have smart radiator thermostats which means you can individually control each room.

I LOVE my Nest! So easy to use and great for use remotely

We have Nest. It’s great and easy to use. But then it broke with no warning and had to get an emergency call out because we couldn’t turn the a/c on the middle of a heat wave. We inherited it from the previous occupant but in future I’d stick to simple and get a basic no frills thermostat.

We moved into a house with a hive thermostat, and I fucking hate it with a fiery passion. We seem to have to change the batteries every couple of weeks, and it disconnects constantly leaving us freezing or sweltering (depending on what the heating is doing as it disconnects as that is what it gets stuck on)

We were wondering whether to go with something like this.

We had neo thermostats that we had to manually set. After struggling a bit I bought a neo hub and set it all up myself. Really straightforward and simple to do. Can control from my phone or ipad so if we're going to be out late I can simply change the programme or if its really cold get the heating to come on a bit earlier.

@Spacecudet that's just a wireless thermostat though isn't it? Rather than a smart one

We were in a similar situation to you OP - combi boiler which could be programmed with times etc but no thermostat. We had the heating on morning and evening (both out all day) but poor DH had to become a weatherman and keep an eye on temp changes so he could adjust the output of the boiler accordingly. A cold snap meant a shivery morning!

DH fitted a thermostat like the one in your pic, we've got the 520. It was easy for him to do and has been fab - house heated to consistent temps day and night. Easy to put on holiday mode and set running for an extra couple of hours if we're up late.

I can see how a smart thermometer would be useful if your lifestyle is unpredictable, but with a one year old we're very much in a routine and this solution works really well for us.

We have the Nest and also love it. It's connected to Alexa and it's so good to be sat upstairs in the office working, feel a bit chilly so just tell Alexa to turn the heat up.

I have the Salus that the OP pasted upthread. It isn't a smart thermostat in the same way as Hive or Nest and you can't control individual rooms from it. It does however, have an app for my phone so if I am delayed or away I can change the settings remotely. I love it

I like this thread! I don’t think we exactly need a smart system in the sense of knowing if we’re in or out, but what we would like is multiple thermostats with different timing/temp settings. Does that exist?
Eg we need to heat our cold kitchen all evening which currently means upstairs gets roasting when it doesn’t need heating at all. And I’d like to heat the duvet-refusing DC room all night in midwinter without wasting heat downstairs.

You can have the heating zoned.

Often the upstairs and downstairs of a house are zoned so they can be heated at different times and to different temperatures. You could zone the kitchen separately if if it a big room and not open-plan.

Both the piping and the wiring need to be designed or altered for this.