Smart heating controls Hive/Tado etc

[Sunflowergirl1]

Can anyone give advice on whether these are worth it?

Having new boiler fitted next month. Currently have normal heating controls that cover underfloor heating and normal radiators. As a result we would need the additional controller.

We are around during the day a fair amount. The controllers are simple and work ok. The only way I could see the smart controller adding value would be to also add in the thermostatic valves which would mean we could turn heat down in some rooms not used during the day such as bedrooms? However, I have seen some reports saying they are not very responsive and guzzle batteries at large cost.

We currently pay out about £1000 a year in has which will probably reduce slightly with the new boiler.

Any views or thoughts on whether they are worth it? A full set up would be circa £500

Also any views on preference for which system?

We have tado. However not on all radiators as a few of ours are ornate cast iron that are beautiful and the tado controls would run the look of them. They are responsive and work well on the rads we have them on. It's true they guzzle batteries though. Overall I can't say they massively enhance the system. We can switch rads off in rooms we're not using, but you can do that anyway with thermostatic controls. Occasionally it's convenient to control the heating via the app but it's not a huge gain in my opinion.

We have had a Hive thermostat for several years and that has been very useful. We extended our house a couple of years ago with 3 new rooms and fitted Terrier itemp trv's on the new radiators a couple of years ago. They had been useful but we bought a set of Hive trv's in their recent sale so we can have a mix of them throughout the house.

I've got 2 radiators still to change out to finalise the system the way we want, but I love being able to control rooms from my phone and just have my office being heated (apart from the radiator you have to have without a valve) during the day. This is only worthwhile if you have most of your radiators with programmable trv's.

I'm not sure how long it will take to pay back, but the convenience is worth it for me.

You can buy programmable trv's for about £10 each but they won't link into a central system controlled from an app - however they work well for bedrooms where you have a fairly standard schedule. I've seen refurbished Tado adverts but can't comment on that system.

As for batteries, we use Procell (rebranded from Duracell Industrial) and they've lasted for about 18 months on average with the Terriers. We bulk buy them from Battery Station.

Hi OP.
There’s been a slightly more efficient way to control boilers around for several years called OpenTherm.
Some smart controllers / thermostats have the feature, Google Nest for one, some don’t , Hive for example.
Some boiler manufacturers include OpenTherm control in their boilers , Ideal are one.
Thought it worth a mention.

I love our Nest. Wouldn’t be without it. I love being able to put the heating on with my phone to come home to a warm home without having the foresight to have programmed it before I left and I can holler at Alexa to put it on.

I really can't recommend Hive. I had it installed in a house when they first came out. It was a giant pain in the bum and spent all its time failing to connect to the internet so I could only ever use the manual controls. in the end I had it ripped out and replaced with a (perfectly behaved) 7 day timer.

I was talked into having Hive installed in my new house this year thinking it must be better now. No, exactly the same issues and spending lots of time following the reconnection tips on the bloody app (which take 7 minutes each time then don't work). My internet is excellent, super fast fibre and used every day for Teams calls but British Gas always claim it is my internet connection.

I have an appointment on 5th January for someone to rip it out!

We have Tado and really like it. Great to be able to turn the heating on or up/down via the app or by asking Alexa. Also great to be able to turn it on from the app when you are out so the house heats up by the time you get home.

We need to get our hot water tank replaced in the new year and will be adding the Tado controller for that so we can use it to control both heating and hot water.

Big fan of tado. Got it installed 2 years ago and it's a piece of cake. App is fantastic, and if you ever need to contact customer services they are very helpful.

I have Hive and I love it honestly. I wouldn't go back. It is easy, convenient, help control cost better. Very worthwhile purchase!

Thanks for all the advice. Really useful although a very mixed picture.

Sounds like Tado does beat HIve though

We have tado and trvs, super useful for not overheating the bedrooms in the day when we are just downstairs, they are programmed to come on just before we go to bed, tailored to each person's bedtime.

We've got the Honeywell Evohome. Total granular control over every radiator. Links to Alexa and if you give it it's head, it works out when to turn a radiator on to get a room to your target temperature at the required time. Installed it two years ago and it's been brilliant.

We have a nest that the boiler engineer fitted with the new boiler. Easy to work either on the nest or on our phones. Easy to schedule etc. It can learn your movements eg regular going to work and coming home times under a setting and schedule itself, but I work shifts so it’s no good for us.

We don’t have anything to control the TRVs though. To be honest our year dual usage is under £800. So we use energy efficiently anyway. Only two of us.

We've got the Honeywell evohome one and have had it it for a good few years now
It cost us about £1000 and had paid for itself in 18mths - there wasn't much choice when we fitted it for larger properties so it was the only one that did what we wanted.
They work best (you see the biggest savings) in bigger homes with variable use for example we have 19 radiators in our house split into 12zones.
We hear different spaces differently throughout the day/week depending on use & people which has been particularly helpful when wfh/ homeschooling this year.

Heat not hear

I have a basic Hive. It was only around £125 & I'd say it's worth it. Smart stuff aside, which I don't use aside from turning off heating when on holiday, it seems to maintain the temperature much better than the old regular thermostat.

We have Nest and it's brilliant. It turns the heating off when you leave and back on when you come home, it has an accurate thermostat so the heating is never on longer than it needs to be. It's also nice that you can preheat your house when you've been out so it's warm when you get home.