As above, I have the Evohome but the basic remote access is the same (Evohome just takes it way further with zoning) and I sometimes have a bit of fun when I work evenings by turning the heating in the lounge right down on the app whilst at work and seeing how long it is before I get an irate phone call from the wife. Pathetic, I know <3

Or Netatmo.
Or Tado.
Or EvoHome.

Doubtless there are others as well.

I've got Netatmo myself. Along with the weather station. And Echo. Can't really get much more accurate for heating control once you integrate it with a local weather station. It learns how you house heats and cools and then uses the weather conditions in your garden to determine your heating needs. With IFTTT, stuff like geofencing can easily be added.

But if you need more granular zonal control, something like EvoHome may be a better option. (I looked at it, but decided it was overkill in a small flat like mine.)

A lot more out there than just Nest and Hive. Depends what you want and how much you want to spend.

*EDIT*

I got the Netatmo for well less than £100 on a deal. And installed it myself. It wasn't hard. But that depends on your boiler. Had it almost 2 years now and I don't think I've changed the batteries in the thermostat once yet. (e-ink screen so very efficient)

Maybe consider a resolution to learn some people skills while your at it mate.

#obtrude

I've decided to make a New Year's resolution where I will stop attempting to protect stupid people from themselves.

#unsubscribes.

Anyone know when the £149 offer ends?

What u want to change her name to "bitch"?

Does anyone know how to change the name in Alexa from receiver to hive?

I am having this (Hive 2) fitted for £99 as I type so it's always best to speak to the British Gas Engineer (who was round to service my boiler). Initially he quoted £149 which is what I was expecting so just asked him to knock some money off. He said to get £50 off the price, he would pretend he was replacing an existing unit or something along those lines. He made a call to the office and I paid £99 over the phone. Very happy and can't wait to use it with Alexa

Do I also need to purchase the hive hub seperately?

Bah humbug

Newer tech has already been out for some time, this is old design.

Still more advanced than a basic thermostat and will update as and when newer tech comes out. Not totally smart but it's a start

The Echo dot can't tell you whether a room is hot or cold though, can it? If the motion sensor sees you are in the Living Room, it won't stop the heat going to the bedroom though, will it?

All you've got is a single thermostat and a few remote controls.

Using Amazon Echo's and Echo Dots placed around the home to change thermostat plus the Echobee3 comes with motion sensors to see which rooms are actually occupied. Can also change settings on my mobile​

Just another thermostat replacement really, you're still controlling the whole house from one room.

I'm in Surrey area if you wanted to see how it works.

Just got the Echobee3, literally the bee's knees

Good stuff mate.

Thank you.

Got it all working in the end. Your advice did help in part, so thank you.

Sorry I dont really understand what your meaning. The 5 core cable coming out of old thermostat colours have no relevance. Its a 5 core 3ph N & E cable.

If you have been using the boiler timer and there is no ext controller or stat wired in you will need to start from scratch.

Best bet is to try and find the installation manual for your boiler where there will be a wiring diagram.

There will be a 2 wire connector inside boiler which you run back to the heating N/O and common on hive.

The terminals may not be set up as default, on some boilers you need to disconnect the onboard timer from PCB.

You also need 230v ac L N and earth to hive, if your boiler has common terminals run it from there.
If not you can put them in the supply terminals for your boiler or find where your boiler is supplied from, probably a fused spur then loop the load side into a new fused spur to supply hive.

Like I said, try find and installation manual and it will be much clearer.

Mine arrived today and thought be ok to wire in.

I have an old thermostat on the wall but its never worked. I now know why it was never wired into the boiler.

So i have 5 core coming out of the old thermostat and the 5 cables (brown, black, blue, grey and earth going nowhere into the boiler. We used the clock/timer on the boiler.

Looking online it seems straight forward. But the grey and black into the loop wire on the connector block, earth to earth block. But where would the L and N go?

We have an Ariston Mffi 28 boiler.

I understand i might have to get someone in, but as first go not 100% i have wired and installed rings etc and many things in before so not new to electrics.

Any tips?

Your joking right?
Im not asking him to adjust multiple rads or balance a system from scratch. Hes simply screwing out and counting turns to determine if it has been closed down too far during balancing. The fact there is a TRV in same location as stat makes me think its never been balanced right in the first place.

Maybe he should just not check and you can sell him Evohome. That would mask that problem.

@ro53ben
@callum84
Am in London suburbs. You guys are great offering all this info for me. Just the last few posts there's a lot to take in so mulling over what you've both pointed out.

I wouldn't recommend anybody adjust the return valves on radiators unless they know what they are doing and have a calibrated pipe thermometer or IR gun to hand.

@djnield - out of interest, where in the UK are you based?

Thats ideal then.
When you get Hive in the living room you can turn the TRV in hall right down.

On the radiator in living room on opposite side of TRV should be a lockshield v/v. These are used to adjust flow in/out and balance system so water flows evenly to all radiators. The idea is that radiators closest to boiler are restricted so there is enough flow going to furthest away rads. Symptoms of a poorly balanced system is radiators that heat up very quickly while one or 2 lag behind and never reach full temp.
Id check the one in living room has not been closed too much, open it up a bit and see if it makes a difference. Count the turns out you make incase you need to return.

You'll end up with a system that has a thermostat in every room of the house, instead of just the problematic hallway one.

If you move out, take the Evohome home TRVs with you.

See I really wish I knew more about this stuff. It sounds ideal. I know I'm renting, and I've been here over 10 years, but a £135 gadget sounded more reasonable than a few hundreds (I'm summising as I have no idea the cost).

My existing TRV's are replaced with Evohome headers and an Evohome controller replaces the hallway thermostat and I then have a more superior system to what I've got now (icluding a hive setup)?

You'd really benefit from an Evohome for this set-up. One of the main reasons I wanted it was because our downstairs cloakroom was ALWAYS cold. No matter how much I turned up the main house thermostat, the heating was never on long enough to get that room warm. With Evohome, the heating now stays on as long as required to heat that one room. Often the heating is ONLY supplying that one room to keep it warm, it works perfectly.

Evohome TRV headers simply screw onto your existing valves, an electric motor turns the valve open/closed to operate the radiators as required. The Evohome boiler controller would just wire in place of your existing hallway thermostat, two wires, done.

It's constantly on max autumn thru spring ;-)


I don't know how the setup should be. The property isn't modernised and I suspect there's many a thing that should be done differently but it'll never happen.

Actually we have the TRV set to frost mode. That's the lowest we can get without the rad switching off completely. Any higher and it's like a sauna....which confuses the stat hence the stat has to remain set really high so the lounge can get heat.

Just wish the lounge rad could be as powerful as the hall one :laughing:

Sure, I get that, but you're paying a lot for this convenience. If you heat the house expecting to be home and then arrive home 4 hours late, then you're wasting the cost of maintaining your home temperature for four hours. We are literally talking a cost of pennies - the whole house will need to be heated anyway when you get home, so you're only delaying that cost not eliminating it. You'll likely never see any return on investment whatsoever in a remote controlled heating system.


Sure, if you can get people excited enough to pay £250 for a device that may save them £100 then you're clearly winning. The customer isn't though.

It would only be a problem if it was set below the level of hives setpoint.
Hive would be firing boiler continously and would never get there as radiator would shut off.
Since your renting, screw to max and put a piece of tape over to stop anyone adjusting. You could remove the TRV head but if like me you will probably misplace it lol.

I would have thought the rad in hall with your existing stat wouldnt have had a TRV, i take it you leave it set at max currently?

Actually this is where I don't have the knowledge, nor opportunity to alter as it's a rented place, but every rad in the place has a TRV. I also think the room rad is whoefully inadequate, largest and coldest section of the house, on the far opposite wall to the 'wall of windows' but that's just my view.

Is the TRV in the living room a problem for the hive installation?

Few things mate id check while installing hive.
When you move the stat from the hall make sure there is no TRV in the living room where you are placing it.
Id also fit a TRV to hall to stop it becoming too warm.

It might also be worth checking that your living room radiator is large enough for the room and system is balanced (all rads heat at same time).

I completely get you. The way you and others have kindly pointed out the differences between these, and superior systems like the Evohome, just signifies how marketing can persuade the masses somethings better when it might not be.



In our place, large victorian, high ceilings, single glazed sash windows, the stat is in the smallest and warmest location of the house. The hallway....where there's no windows. We have to keep the stat set so high up in order for the coldest room of the house, the living room, to remain heated. A portable thermostat would in this instance most likely surfice but until I saw hives/nests with self install I figured messing with stats was firmly for the plumber.


This is the main thing I reckon I could get use of of one of these. Not to switch on enroute home but rather so we can switch off when we decide NOT to come home for a couple of days which happens to us quite often. I hate thinking that the heat and water is still going when we've decided to stay away for a few days.

Your only looking at your own circumstances.

People on the train may have jobs with abnormal hours. How can you set a timer when you dont know when you are going to be home.

Some days I finnish 4hrs later than expected, others a few hours earlier. Some weekends ill stay out out for the night after watching football and others head straight home.

Not everyones life is routine 9-5 and its those people who benefit from a product like this.

Its all very well voicing your opinion, but you need to look at the bigger picture and beyond your own circumstances.

Your right though about the savings when you have a routine life, these could be had with a standard programmer.

The thing is though that most people have no interest in programming their timers or choosing temperatures. Its these people who make savings when introduced to hive etc as they have a shiny new gadget to play with which engages their interest. I suppose you could say then that the product has succeded in its goal.

Incidentally, for anybody wanting a solid programmable centralised heating controller, I recommend this one:

http://www.screwfix.com/p/honeywell-cm901-room-thermostat/39124?kpid=KINASEKPID&cm_mmc=GoogleLocal-_-Datafeed-_-Heating%20and%20Plumbing&cm_mmc=Google-_-Product%20Listing%20Ads-_-Sales%20Tracking-_-sales%20tracking%20url&gclid=CPHR1cbDhdECFYccGwod3jcJiw

Optimum start/finish, TPI, holiday mode, summer/winter auto time changes etc. Yours for £69.

I really can't recommend any of the (cheap) internet enabled ones as any additional savings you might get will never outweigh the money you wasted on them.

Hive isn't much more than your old controller, it just has a bit of internet enablement in case you're one of these odd people who likes to change their heating when they aren't home. Ultimately, it's still like having one light switch for your whole home and doesn't really break any moulds.

Whilst plumbers have charged a fortune for years - and rightly so due to Gas/Electric legal restrictions - there isn't anything particularly complicated about central heating controllers. It's just an on/off switch controlled by room temperature or the time.

You have a central heating clock somewhere in your home, maybe in the airing cupboard or under the stairs. You set on there which hours the heating will be on and which hours it will be off. Nothing more complicated than a plug-in timer you might use for a table lamp.

Then you have a thermostat, usually in the coldest room such as the hallway. It measures the temperature in that room and, if it falls below the set temperature, the heating comes up. When the temperature goes above the set temperature, it turns off again. This part doesn't work particularly well as very few people live in their hallway, you tend to eat in the dining room, sleep in the bedroom and watch TV in the living room. The thermostat hasn't a clue whether those rooms are hot or cold, so they put the thermostat in the coldest room in the hope that the heating doesn't turn off before your other rooms have warmed up. In larger homes, especially town houses, this works particularly badly.

Programmable, intelligent thermostats have been around for many years which add a considerable amount of functionality. Instead of having to manually turn the heating up and down, they can be programmed to change the temperature based on the time of day or day of the week. If you have a fixed routine, leaving for work and arriving home at the same time of day, they can be used to optimise heating very effectively. I saved 30-40% on my heating bills purely by having such a programmable thermostat - it heated the house in the morning then lowered the temperature to a minimum when we went out. It then raised the temperature for when we got home and lowered it before bedtime.

The savings were significant, but mainly because the house was a lot cooler than before. It had functions like cold start, which could be connected to an external thermometer if required, to ensure it was at the set temperature ahead of the set time. If you wanted the house to be 20C at 7am, it would be regardless of the outside weather conditions. It came on early as required. These aren't new functions, they existed many years before internet connectivity, Nest, IFTTT, Hive etc. but the new products have great marketing and people who've never invested in a smart heating controller before seem to thing it's the best thing since sliced bread. Of course they're paying circa £200 for a heating controller that has functions an old £50 controller could do.

If you live alone in one room, then these new low end smart systems may work well for you. They can be configured to go off when you leave home and you can remotely control them to warm the house up for when you arrive home.

Personally, I've never wanted any of that. I have routine in my life so I can happily run a timer to knock the heating on and off at set times. If I'm planning to be out for an evening, or even a whole weekend, a programmable timer can cater for all of that without the need for any gimmicky apps and internet access.

I might see people on the train home quickly using their phone to turning their heating on so the house is warm when they get home. Personally, I'm watching TV as my heating is already configured to be on when I get there. Why would I want to manually turn it on each day? We invented timers to avoid the need for that. It's like buying a whole loaf of bread and sitting on the train slicing it so you can have a sandwich when you get home. We invented sliced bread to avoid that hassle.

I just want an easy life and I recommend products that work and work well. If you spend half your life fiddling with an app to turn on your heating or your lights, you're doing it wrong.

So to answer your question, there should be anything complicated about a Hive install - all it does it switch your heating on and off.

Okay think I can cope with that.
Wouldn't dream of removing the stat, just how to have the hive take over it.
Thanks for advice :laughing:

If its not your house id leave it in place.
Just bridge it out by putting both wires in same terminal. Isolate boiler first as it will be 230vac. If unsure and no way to test its dead switch off all power at your consumer unit main switch.

Edit - Sorry misread your last post as "afraid of wiring" hence the warning.

Brilliant if so, not afraid of wiring, just never would have thought of playing around with a boiler myself.
How to tackle the original room stat....leave it connected or disconnect?

No hive replaces your controller.

Your controller is a Drayton LP722 and uses the same universal base as the hive.
It might just be as simple as undoing the two screws under controller, lifting off and replacing with hive receiver.
Double check the wiring diagram on back of controller against hives.
Keep the old controller handy incase you move.

Thanks! No Evohome system for me though (rented place) but I can make the Hive work with the controller too?

I pay £40 a month. The £300 odd has accumulated over 2 years (I did mention it had been in for 2 years in my first post in this thread). But some of that will be electric. The smaller part. When I last checked, I think the split was roughly £220 gas credit, £80 electric. So lets call it around £100 a year saved. From a £480pa total gas payment. So around 20%?

Depends where you live and the type of building as well remember. I'm in Scotland. If you're in the southern part of England, big difference. I'm also in a 120 year old tenement building, so the insulation is not the best. I suspect knowing the weather conditions makes a big difference. Takes lot more effort for my heating to get the place to 20c if it's below freezing outside. So in winter, using the old stat, if I wanted the flat warm for getting home, I had to guess how long it would take to get there. Now I don't. It works it out for me. The app graphs all this out. It shows outdoor temp, indoor temp. and boiler activity. You can see it's doing it's job as if I want 20c indoors at a certain time, it will be. Clearly displayed on the graph.

And if there were dumb thermostats with learning algorithms, remote access, IFTTT/Alexa integration (despite these not existing until recently), and connections to external weather stations, then I must have missed them.

You have some serious hatred for anything that isn't EvoHome don't you? EvoHome or don't bother seems to be your mantra?

I already said, it's a better (more expensive) system. It's fully zoned. Of course it is! I'm one person living in a 2 bed flat. I don't need fully zoned.

But at the same time, do the newer/smarter systems like Nest/Hive/Netatmo et al, do a better job that older dumb thermostats? Yes. In in my experience, I completely agree that's the case.

Although, according to you, the old dumb stats could do everything they do .... so I'm not sure why they bothered coming up with them ....

That's just an old skool central heating timer. You'd either leave it in place, and set it to be on 24/7 with the Evohome taking over control, or remove it completely.

I left my old timer in place to save rewiring.

The Evohome Effect :smile:

Seriously. Im £550 for last 12 months.

2 bed semi detached.

To save the best part of 300 quid in gas In a 2 bedroom flat must mean you were incredibly profligate with your gas useage before Netatmo! I'm in a 2 bed bungalow and don't spend 300 quid on gas annually! What was your annual gas spend before installing Netatmo?

Happen to know if this system is compatible with this Lifestyle Controller?

Cheaper programmable thermostats do exactly that, I had one for many years.

I think we'll just agree to disagree on this one, sometimes it's not worth the effort.

No it wouldn't.

The Netatmo learns the heating and cooling characteristics of the building. Dumb thermostats don't do that. If I want my flat to be at 20c at a certain time, it will be. Whether it's +15 or -10 outside. (I live in Scotland. Both temps are perfectly possible. In the same day.)

I also have the advantage of having mine connected to the weather station (also Netatmo) in my back garden. It uses the data from the weather station, along with it's heating and cooling algorithms, to heat your house as efficiently as possible. Which it does. Without the weather station, it uses online forecasts for your area. But, obviously, readings from your own garden are about as accurate as it can get.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, I'm in credit for my gas supply now. Never was before I installed the Netatmo.

Plus IFTTT. Alexa integration. Remote access. Dumb thermostats couldn't do any of these things.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's the best system on the planet. I would say EvoHome is a better system. But in a smaller place, and for the cost, the Netatmo does a very good job. And, as far as I can tell, it's cheaper than the similar smaller systems like Nest & Hive.

No worries, happy to answer any other questions you (or anybody else) might have. I've had the system over a year now and, as you can probably tell, I'm rather impressed. Add on Alexa and IFTTT integration and it's pretty much perfect.

That was quite a read. What you say makes sense.

Thanks for taking the time to type that out.

Id been stuck in the mind frame of why spend the extra bucks when it wont make that much of a difference with my old boiler. Sometimes you just need to see it in black and white before it clicks.

Actually, any room with a sensor - it doesn't need to be a TRV. A number of sensors are available.

It's entirely relevant, as you don't seem to fully understand how Evohome works.

No, this simply isn't the case. A bypass is not required at all. Again, you're making up requirements that Evohome doesn't have.

I'm not, I entirely understand what you are trying to say. You're just incorrect.

Indeed, you are correct on that part.

Not true at all. To heat two rooms instead of four will use around half the energy.


I'm not going to claim that modulating boilers aren't more efficient, they are, but your mixing up kW (power output) with kWh (energy use). Using your example, let's say it takes one hour to heat up the room from cold to warm. So the total energy used by your modulating boiler might be 5kWh - it will output 5kW for one hour.

Compare that to your old 30kW boiler. If it ran for an hour it would output six times more than required. Instead it only needs to run for ten minutes of the hour. There will be a big initial burn whilst the boiler loop water heats from cold, this may take four or five minutes until the boiler return does indeed trip out the boiler. When this happens depends on the max water temperature you've set on the boiler. As you explained, the boiler will go off, the pump will keep circulating and the boiler will fire back up as required.

Whilst this is undoubtedly less efficient than the modulating boiler you describe, it's not entirely inefficient though. Most of the inefficiency takes place heating the boiler from cold. Once it's all warmed through it's at its most efficient, so re-firing will waste a bit of gas on ignition but then it will go straight back into a lean burn. Whatever this somewhat variable loss is, it's massively less than heating an extra room you don't need.


As we discussed earlier, total energy required to heat the room is the same regardless of the boiler. If it takes 5kWh to heat one room, then you'll only use the boiler for ten minutes. If you decide to heat a second room instead, it will take 10kWh - so the boiler will need to be on for twenty minutes. Make this all five rooms, at 5kWh each, you'll need 25kWh of energy. The boiler will need to be on for 50 minutes of the hour.

So effectively the Evohome means your 30kW boiler will only need to run for 10 minutes of the hour instead of 50. A big saving.

Like I said above, not going to argue that boiler cycling is efficient. It's not massively inefficient though and considerably less than heating rooms unnecessarily.

Evohome also has a number of tricks under its sleeve. Firstly, you can configure the "Cycle Rate". The Cycle Rate specifies how often the boiler will switch on and off in any given hour, measured as Cycles per hour. A typical Cycle rate is 6 cycles per hour giving a 10 minute Cycle length.

By controlling this cycle rate, you can prevent your old boiler from firing up too often and keep it more efficient. It would be silly to finish heating the Living Room and then one minute later fire the boiler up again to heat the kitchen. The cycle rate forces the kitchen to wait another ten minutes until the next cycle, during which time another room may also have gone cold and then your heating two rooms on one cycle for improved efficiency.

Secondly, the Evohome TRVs do opportunistic heating. Imagine you have your Living Room set to 21C but it's cold outside and the room temperature is falling. The TRV senses the fall to 20.9C then 20.8C etc. It hits 20.5C and it knows it's going to have to fire up soon but it doesn't ask the boiler to fire up just yet.

Instead, it opens the radiator valve. The boiler may already be on to heat another room. The pump may already be circulating hot water in the system. Opening the valve lets this hot water into the radiator without telling the boiler. We only need another half a degree, so simply warming up the radiator and closing the valve again is probably enough to maintain the room temperature. If it works, room temperature begins to rise. If not, it continues to fall and then it sends out a request to fire up the boiler. If the cycle time we mentioned above has elapsed, the boiler will then kick in and start heating this radiator. It will also warm any others that happen to have their valves open opportunistically. This makes Evohome considerably more efficient than it might be and reduces the number of cycles required per hour.


Since deploying Evohome, I've reduced the temperature on my boiler. Normally in Winter, I used to run it at the advised 85C. This meant the temperature of the water as it left the boiler was 85C, but very few radiators actually saw water at anything near this temperature as heat had been lost in so many rooms along the way. After Evohome I was in a position where I suddenly had the last radiator in my circuit running at almost boiler temperature, you could smell the heat as dust on the radiator got hotter than it had ever been. As a result, I found the water temperature was far too hot for my needs and could result in overshoot - where the radiator turned off at set temperature but the room continued to get hotter as the rad was still extremely hot. Turning boiler temperature down reduces losses and overshoot. I'm in a position where with boiler set to 65C my radiators are still running noticeably hotter than they used to when set to 85C without Evohome. End result, rooms heat up quicker, boiler doesn't need to be on as long, energy is saved.

Paired with ANY boiler the savings are there. A modulating boiler will improve the efficiency of most set-ups, but that's a different argument. Not having a modulating boiler doesn't mean you won't see the benefits of Evohome.


Heating fewer rooms uses less energy and saves fuel. Even with your old boiler you would save money. The sooner you start to save money, the sooner you can afford a more efficient boiler.

My old programmable thermostat would have done the same job for considerably less than that too.

+ kitchen. + hallway.

6 rads total. I got the price from the planner on the Honeywell site at the time. As I did the base thermostat only price yesterday. As the other guy said, probably cheaper elsewhere.

And as I said previously, great system in a larger property. Overkill in mine really.

In my smaller place, Netatmo is doing a fine job for less than £100 installed ....

Your right, I initially had my wires crossed refering to a wall stat and understand evo home will fire boiler with a heat call from any rooms with TRV.
Either way its not really relevant to the point I was making.

Even with evohome on older pumped boilers you should have a radiator without TRV to act as a bypass. Thats unless you have a bypass v/v fitted to your system. Its common to leave bathroom rad or towel rail without TRV to act as bypass.

I think your misundersranding me though. Im not in anway trying to negate Evohomes effectiveness in a modern system. Its a great product and in the modern age how things should be done.

What Im saying is that with an old non modulating boiler it will never reach its true potential as the difference in energy used to heat 2 and 4 rooms is not the massive difference it would be if modulating.

Heres an example.

4 rooms are at temperature and one below. Modulating 30kw boiler fires up and pushes hot water to radiator. Radiator extracts heat from the water but as only 1 radiator in circuit return water to boiler is high. Boiler reduces KW output to maintain steady temperature so in effect you are using say 5kw to heat that room.

4 rooms are at temperature and one below. Non modulating 30kw boiler fires up and pushes hot water to radiator. Radiator extracts heat from water and hot water is returned to boiler. Boiler only has 2 settings 0 or 30kw so you are heating single room with 30kw when you could be heating them all for same energy.
At some point boiler stat will kick in and burner will switch off but water will remain circulating untill temp drops and burner will re-ignite. This is the boiler cycling. Stopping and igniting repeatedly which is inefficient.
To stop this you increase boiler stat which uses more energy and if you decrease it boiler cycles and takes longer to heat.
Its a catch 22 and pitfall of older systems.

As for comfort, Evohome is second to none. Being able to set individual room temperatures which do not require waiting on main stat to drop is like night and day. This is where evohome really shines and when paired with a modern boiler you get great energy savings to go with it.

That was my point, that the energy savings did not justify the outlay with my old boiler. Had I a newer boiler or aiming purely for comfort, Evohhome would be my first choice.

Base Evohome system £204 then about £50 per radiator.

You can buy a full 8-zone system (Evohome controller, boiler controller, 8 TRV) for £586 , that's not cheap but amazing value for what you get and considerably less than your claim.

Your 2 bedroom flat, assuming you have a radiator in each bedroom, a living room and a bathroom, would cost under £400

Indeed, a single light switch is a perfect analogy for Nest/Hive.

People have wasted a lot of money over the years due to this legacy design flaw. We went from simple click on/off wall stats to programmable thermostats that allowed the temperature to be varied based on the time. However, we were simply telling the system we wanted the hallway to be cool at night and warm in the day - it didn't really help in other rooms.

So people went to those wireless portable thermostats. They took it with them wherever they went. So if you set it to 21 degrees and put it in the living room, your heating would warm the living room up to 21 degrees. Perfect...until you went to bed and the bedroom and bathroom were freezing as the heating had hardly been on all night.

TRVs helped by turning off the heating in rooms when they'd reached the set target temperature. Sadly it still meant radiators would come on in cool rooms, even if they weren't in use. You might use a dining room for an hour a day but heat it to 20 degrees all day just for that hour. A total waste.

Enter Evohome, total control in every room. I have my en-suite come on at 23C at 6am each day for when I get up. Downstairs the heating is still off, it's still 16C down there...bbrrrr.. But nobody is using those rooms, why heat them? When my kids come down at 7am to watch TV before school, the living room is already warm and the kitchen is warming up for breakfast at 07.30. The family bathroom is heating up at this point for them to get ready and by 08.30 the whole house goes off as they leave on the school run. If we're home in the day, the downstairs rooms can be on, but we don't need to heat the bedrooms at all - they won't be used until bedtime. Just before we go up to bed, at different times, a quick blast of heat from the radiator in each room makes them all cosy and then goes off until morning for a cool sleep - unless it gets particularly cold overnight and then it warms them up a bit.

People get excited about remote control of their heating but they mainly need that as they have poor local control. To use your analogy, they turn all their lights on half an hour before they get home as they don't want to arrive in the dark. With Evohome, the outside light and hallway are ready for you, but no need to light the kitchen if you aren't going to eat.

Have to say I also thought the poster was getting confused as to what Evohome actually does/how it works? Maybe he/she was getting mixed up with another Honeywell-made heating control? Who knows? IMO Evohome is the ultimate after-market, retro fit smart heating control system. IMO buying a Tado/Nest/Hive-type heating control is 'playing at it' as you are not addressing the inherent weakness in your existing system, i.e the fact that you have just the one switch for your heating - whole house on or whole house off. No-one would entertain using just the one light switch which turned on (or off) the whole property's light but, effectively, that;s what they are doing with their heating.

You said "If not the TRVs simply isolate the radiators but boiler is still firing full power until room stat is made by the rad with no trv."

This makes no sense whatsoever. With Evohome there is no room stat and there isn't a rad without a TRV. That's not how it works at all.

The beauty of Evohome is that you get rid of the wall stat. Instead of your whole home heating being dependent on whether one room is hot or cold, you have total control in every room.

Hive/Nest are dependent on wall stat measurements and therefore don't offer much advantage over a traditional programmable thermostat. Evohome gets away from that legacy 1960s design.

What bit do you not agree with?
I understand quite well how evohome works. I work with industrial automation and temp control daily so have half a clue.

I just think you wont get the full cost saving of evo home if you have a non modulating boiler.
For example a non modulating 30kw boiler will fire at full power to heat 1 radiator or 10 untill the boiler stat kicks in then continues to circulate hot water clicking the burner on and off to maintain temp. Constant cycling of boiler is inneficient.

A 30 kw modulating boiler however will vary the kw output to maintain the water temperature. So if you have 10 radiators calling for heat the output will decrease as each radiator shuts off and water temp increases on return.

Just my opinion.

That's it, in a nutshell.

I fear the main reason you chose Hive is that you clearly have no understanding of what Evohome does or how it works!

Buyers - ignore his response and take qualified advice.

I have no combi either.
The old wall stat will now be redundant and you can place hive thermostat anywhere you wish. Its battery operated so no restrictions due to cable runs.

Its best to place in living room and have no TRV in that room.

Ours isn't a combi system. The wall thermostat is in the smallest, warmest location of the house.

Is it possible with this hive system to override the wall thermostat with a mobile one that we can place in a cooler place?

Depends on what controller you have at the minute.
With my old drayton it was just a case of removing it from base and clipping on the hive receiver instead.
If your base is incompatible the wiring is simple, you just need to take time to identify whats what by looking at wiring diagram of existing controller and finding corresponding terminls on hive.

You can either turn your existing wired stat up to max, bridge it out at stat or bridge it at boiler JB.

What happens if your internet goes down. Would that only stop the app function?

Mine was as simple as wiring a plug. But that was a combi.

But generally, how easy, or not, it is is almost entirely dependent on your boiler...

Apologies. I originally posted someone at work had Tado and didn't like it. That was wrong. It's a HeatMeiser system he has. And he was about to start looking at writing his own control software for it using open source stuff, when he got an e-mail from them saying they are (finally) updating their software.

So he's holding off until he sees what the update is like.

How competent do you really need to be for a self install?

I would never normally go anywhere near the boiler except to turn it on or off.

No thats a multizone expansion.
Its basically just the thermostat, no hub or boiler receiver.

Is this the same for £99
http://www.screwfix.com/p/hive-hah2pmz-active-heating-multi-zone-thermostat/9625k

Evohome is great and can make a considerable saving if you have a modern modulating boiler.
If not the TRVs simply isolate the radiators but boiler is still firing full power until room stat is made by the rad with no trv. You may as well have them all on.
With radiators switched off the return water to boiler is warmer and may possibly kick in boiler stat and cause boiler to continually cycle on and off which is inefficiant and annoying.

Thats the main reason I chose hive over evohome. When I do get round to fitting a new boiler I would seriously consider evohome.

Evohome>Tado>Hive>Nest.

You get what you pay for, although Tado is strangely expensive for its basic functions.

Can anyone give me some idea how much can you really save on energy bills by using these "smart" thermostat? Or it's just a expensive toy? I have a normal programmable thermostat that allows me to set 6 temperature settings per day personally found it quite good. I like new techs but also on a budget, so I really need to be convinced before buying one of these.

Does either of them tell you when the kids/wife turn it up?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pwwx1cF8NQ

I think Nest is a bit better, but I have Hive and I'm very happy with it. And Google have a track record in dropping things they lose interest in, where British Gas are heavily invested in Hive so I can't see that happening.

Also, the new Hive 2 thermostat is lovely.

​Having left npower because they are just ****, I wouldn't contact them if they were giving it away because they would still charge you... Twice, then say... Nope that wasn't us... You're just an idiot... I love recording phone calls then sending it to BBC watchdog... The joy of their faces when my £1000 compensation come through the letterbox.. Absolutely useless company and I hope they all die a slow death.

I was swithering on Evohome, had Hive for last few years but just moved to a much larger house and need room-by-room control. Was looking at Evohome or a LightwareRF system but I think I'm gonna go for the Tado TRVs taking our various needs into consideration.

I had a new boiler installed by British Gas last Monday - complete with Hive and I also have an Echo Dot. I am really pleased how well it all works together.

It wasn't cheap but from the amount of work they did and 5 year boiler guarantee, I am pleased I chose BG.

The controller/thermo can be had from considerably less than 250 quid if you shop around. I accept Evohome is much more costly but the beauty of it is you can start with the basic single room approach and add to it at your leisure. Just a great feeling to be sat in the lounge toasty warm knowing that the bedroom won't be heated until bed time. It's crazy that in this day and age that the status quo for home heating is either the whole house on or off. It's not like any house has just the one light switch, is it?

Nah, i had Nest, it's a crock of &%@#

Had nothing but issues with it, and also had the infamous thermostat bug

Furthermore, don't want to further line the pockets of Google

Hive hasn't skipped a beat so far

A mate showed me his Heat Genius system - each room is a zone, each rad has a wireless controller, each room has a little wireless thermostat with a motion sensor, so if a room is unoccupied the rad gets turned off or if someone is in the room for more than 5 minutes the rad get turned on. And it's all schedule programmable too. My house was going to cost over £1000 after discount (he does a bit of installation for the firm)...

I liked the look of EvoHome. But it is an expensive option.

I just re-ran the planner on their site to check. For a single thermostat option - installed myself - which would basically be the same as my Netatmo (without the weather station - that's separate), it would still cost £250. More than double what the Netatmo cost me.

Granted, the ability to extend to independent zones is what makes it. But it also pushes the price even higher. To fully zone (aka - a controller on every radiator) in my 2 bedroom flat, would have cost (from memory) well over £600.

It does look like a really good system. And for larger homes where more granular controls definitely make more sense, I can totally see the benefits. But in a smaller, single zone, place .... I'd argue you don't really get much extra benefit for the extra spend ....

Hmmmmmm. Hive Or Nest? That's the question.

I got this for £119 last year and fitted it myself and am very pleased with it. I got to work this am and remembered that the house would be cooling down but the kids are off school, so I just changed the schedule for today and the rest of the week from my phone. (Yes, they are old enough to be home alone).
It takes 2 AA batteries. I put a couple of Eneloop rechargeable batteries in it a year ago, and they are still going strong. I can check the battery level in the app, and the icon is showing over 50% left. I don't know whether it uses very little power, or if the Eneloop is being charged up! (Which of course makes no sense).

Tempted but I think Ill just resort to manually turning the heating dial and put my £135.99 towards my heating bill for this year!

Just when I thought the world couldn't get any loopier, I find this thread. Is everyone becoming so reliant on technology that they've forgotten how to think for themselves? It's a good job breathing is an autonomic function otherwise people would have to buy themselves artificial lungs.

Ah well, worth a try :smiley:

Nest products are only available to existing npower customers.

"Sorry, this is an old account number. Please log in with a current account number or contact us on 0800 048 0575 ."

Had Hive for just over a year. Very happy with it. You can set a reminder to prompt you when you pass a certain distance away from your home to remind you to turn it off or on. Really handy being able to turn my heating on when i'm on my way home so the house is warm when I arrive.

Ah, that must have been a recent change then. I haven't been their customer for a couple of years now and I was able to buy one a few months ago.

Edit - I just checked their site and it does say new and existing customers: https://www.npower.com/home/home-and-heating/accessories/nest-learning-thermostat/nest-offer/

Bought from Amazon for £179 black Friday, not installed yet. Hope I can claim difference?

NPower customers can get the nest for £129, even old customer who have left, check if you can still log into your account, you can then place an order.

Just an FYI for those who wanted a Nest :stuck_out_tongue:

​Great info. Will look into them. Thanks.

As per callum84, you can achieve all of this with greater accuracy and options using Life360 hooked in to it.

Just to note, the Alexa integration isn't perfect yet, it works depending on what you want to achieve but I still find myself just going in to the app - first world problem.

I would have agreed before but now Hive has Ittt integration its possible to set up with more control via that.

​batteries last ages as well

Hive is great. I have 3 zones including ufh and it's a really stable system.

nest thermostats are nicer looking though. would have probably gone with nest originally by they didn't do separate hit water at the time.

can someone please let me know if the thermostat can run on batteries or does it require hard wiring?

Nest learns, Hive has different integration. Hive has plugs, bulbs and sensors. Nest has camera, smoke alarm etc. Nest may come into its own with Google Home. I've just had my Hive installed and love it. No point having a Nest as my wife works random shifts.

brilliant system. I have one in our home. Worth the money.

I think long term Nest is better and will have better support / hardware additions
e.g. Hive doesn't have a smoke alarm yet.
I went for the cheaper option of buying the hIve, and very pleased with it so far. Looking to buy Hive door / window sensors but reviews are mixed on those.

What does Nest do better than Hive?

Nest is better but Hive is much cheaper.
Also, depends if you want to add nest cam / smoke detectors later on

£174 with installation Amazon Warehouse deal

Is that good?

How much is installation? Roughly.

cheaper than I was offered by British gas the other day (150)