Smart thermostats

[Caffeinequeen91]

any recommendations for Hive, Nest or something else?

currently have one wireless thermostat for main house and one wired thermostat for underfloor heating in an extension. No hot water tank. Combi boiler.

We have the Nest one. Combi boiler here. It's easy to set up and works well for us. Never had any issues.

I have heatmiser for underfloor heating and hive for the upstairs radiators.
Hive is a lot easier to operate and programme. Heatmiser is a nightmare to programme.

@Meadowflower2023 did you need a professional installer?

@Tulipsroses thanks for the one to avoid!

I inherited Nest when I moved into my new home. The previous owner kindly popped round once we’d moved in and helped set it up as I was clueless! It’s very intuitive and easy to operate.

I have a Nest one and my parents have recently had a Hive installed (which I have access to as they are elderly and struggle with it). There's pros and cons for both, but on balance I think that the Hive app is better, it's easier to set a schedule, and there's a useful graph which tells you the temperature history over a 24 hour period. The only thing I've found that Hive doesn't do is turn the heating off automatically when you leave the house, I do find that useful with Nest.

Me too.

I hate both of them but I hate heatmeister or whatever it's called the most. With a unit on the wall 9f every downstairs room. I miss my old style thermostat with the button you could press for an hour boost if it was cold.

I have a Nest. Easy to install and use, but everything Google has gone really rubbish lately. Doesn't appear to have affected the thermostat yet, but it's worth thinking about.

P.S. I bought mine when I could use the Nest app. I believe you have to use the Google home app now which is one of the things that had become worse with every 'upgrade' recently. I wouldn't have anything google again but am stuck with it having invested in the ecosystem.

We have Hive and it is easy to use and control from iPhone. I’m constantly adjusting the temperature in the house and like that it will come on automatically when we are away over Christmas if it gets too cold.

I've just been advised to get the Hive from our electrician who installs both regularly. I'm going for the Mini as it does everything we need and is a lot cheaper.

We have Tado. It's been great.

We also have Tado. Have had around a year now and it’s been great. Just installed them ourselves.

Regardless of what you get, I really recommend looking at thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs). You don't have to install them all at once. We just have one to prevent a box room from overheating, but we'll probably start adding them room-by-room soon. (We use Hive)

Tado user for many years, brilliant for us as we have very changeable schedules (it switches off by itself when everyone’s out and detects you coming home and switches on again). Also ah e some of their thermostatic radiator valves and will be getting more soon.

Great things about Tado and I had never heard of it before. I can’t figure out if it’s going to be easy to install because we have to replace a wired and a wireless one that we have now with the two zones. I’m not entirely sure which is wired to where!

Had Hive for many years, also works with Apple Home Kit, so can be programmed and scheduled in Apple home and automatically set the heating off when the house is empty etc.

If you have two zones, it's likely you'll need two thermostats. One for each zone.

@HappiestSleeping thank you. I’ve figured out how the main wireless one works and what it is connected to (I think) but not where the wired one goes to. Think I need a professional!

@Caffeinequeen91 - we only use the Tado thermostats on each radiator, no wall mounted wired version. It’s controlled via thermostat or our phones (we set all schedules and control via phone, but guests can override manually).
We have several areas as have main house and separate annexe.

You only need one of these kits to start if you don’t want a wall set up. Then add as many start thermostats as needed (we run 16 off it)
https://uk.shop.tado.com/products/smart-radiator-thermostat-starter-kit-v3

There is usually a wiring centre somewhere. It will look like a big oblong plastic box with loads of wires going into it. It's likely that your programmer will go into that wiring centre, along with the wires from the wired thermostat, and the wires from the wireless thermostat receiver.

It is worth having a look to see, and find out if you can trace the wires. Make sure the power is off before opening it, and take photos before removing any wires.

It's actually quite simple. Since you have a combi boiler you don't have to worry about hot water as that is on demand, so you just have the programmer saying what time you want the heating to go on and off which essentially sends a voltage down a wire to the boiler to say "turn on". This wire is then interrupted by the thermostats which essentially say "programmer says to turn on, but it's already warm enough, so no need", or vice versa.

If you have two zones, then the wiring centre will have wires to a zone valve to open (the zone valves are a physical valve allowing heating water into the relevant zone).

Look on YouTube at John Ward's channel. He explains it really well in a video about heating controllers and wiring in thermostats.

We have Hive in current house and it's excellent- the app is so easy to use.

We're about to move and will get it fitted in the new house.

@Caffeinequeen91 Our plumber fitted our Nest when he did a service, it didn't take long at all. I don't trust DH with stuff like that. I love the easy set up schedule. If we've been out all day I use the app to make sure it's toasty when we get home. I can't fault it personally but it does sound like there's others on the market now that are equally good if not better.

Thanks everybody. I really appreciate all of your replies. I’ve ordered so we will see how it goes. @HappiestSleeping I am hoping I simply need to change the wired one like for like. And change the wireless controller like for like too. Hoping not to destroy the electrics or heating!

can anyone explain simply how the room thermostats work in conjunction with radiator ones? If the room one says it’s cold then all the radiators come on at the moment. But with radiator thermostats would those radiators only turn on if that room was too cold?

Do you remember logic from school? For a room with a radiator thermostat to work, the temperature in that room needs to be lower than the valve is set, and the temperature in the room with the thermostat needs to be lower than the thermostat is set to.

So, let's say the radiator valve is set to 18 degrees, and the room where it is is actually 19 degrees (dining room for example). The room with the thermostat (let's say the hall) in is set to 20 degrees but is also 19 degrees. The thermostat will demand heat, and will fire up the boiler, however the radiator valve will remain shut so that radiator will not warm up, but any other radiator set to above the actual temperature will warm up.

Does that make sense?