Intelligent Thermostat

mavisangelica

Does anyone have any experience of the new 'intelligent' thermostats?

We have just moved house and have a newish condensing boiler and an old style thermostat dial in the sitting room. The timer is on the boiler itself but the whole setup does not work very well so need to change it.

I have seen the Nest advertised and like the idea of controlling the heating out of the house (eg, switching the heating on half an hour before you get home or delaying it if you are going to be late, etc.)

So far I have seen three - Tado, Nest and Hive and wondered if anyone has actually had one installed and used one for a reasonable length of time.

billett05

As they haven;t been around for too long there probably aren't going to be too many people yet with them. I'm currently looking at the Nest for my new house as I need to replace the boiler and it would go nicely along with the installation.

I like the fact that you can also get a smoke/carbon monoxide detector to accompany it I think is the winner for me.

In the realms of savings I think you would need to see after another 6 months or so for anyone that has had it to confirm if it's worth the investment. I'll let you know once I have mine installed.

there is a good comparison between Hive and Nest on trusted reviews

trustedreviews.com/opinions/nest-vs-hive

giraffe69

I use Hive. Have had it four months. Does a good job and was not expensive (£199 including installation). It is not for you if you have a complicated system with several different zones of heating although it might catch up and offer this in due course. For us we can set the heating on when we are an hour from home and we can turn it off if we have forgotten.

I_have_spoken

I've installed programmable roomstats (Drayton Digitat +3RF) in my last two houses, the 5 day/2 day weekend with 5 temp targets per day is enough for me. It's 'intelligent' in that it's always checking how fast the room is cooling due to cold weather and adjusts the next burn of the combi accordingly to keep at temp.

A friend has just had Nest installed, obviously there's the 'wow factor' of controlling it remotely from iPhone and it checks the weather forecast for outside temp in your area.

My time away from the house at work is pretty standard 9-5, I guess if you had very variable hours then remotely flipping the heating on 30 mins before you were due home would be useful. IIRC the smartphone app will use GPS to detect when you're getting close to home and auto-fire the heating so it's toasty.

giraffe69

IIRC the smartphone app will use GPS to detect when you're getting close to home and auto-fire the heating so it's toasty.

Starting only last week Hive has added that to the armoury.

mavisangelica

billett05 wrote: »

As they haven;t been around for too long there probably aren't going to be too many people yet with them. I'm currently looking at the Nest for my new house as I need to replace the boiler and it would go nicely along with the installation.

I like the fact that you can also get a smoke/carbon monoxide detector to accompany it I think is the winner for me.

In the realms of savings I think you would need to see after another 6 months or so for anyone that has had it to confirm if it's worth the investment. I'll let you know once I have mine installed.

there is a good comparison between Hive and Nest on trusted reviews

trustedreviews.com/opinions/nest-vs-hive

Thanks for this link - interesting review and comments.

I am leaning towards the Nest as we don't have a hot water tank but will wait a while to read more.

I have also thought of another use for it - hubby is at home all day and has a tendency to crank the heating up - I will be able to keep turning the heating down without him knowing :rotfl:

mavisangelica

giraffe69 wrote: »

Starting only last week Hive has added that to the armoury.

By the sounds of it there could well be a 'tech war' with each adding new features - I presume that because they appear to be techy that new features will be added in the future to existing installed ones.

southcoastrgi

go careful with choosing your installer for Nest all you have to do is a 15 min online questionaire to become an authorised installer

katejo

mavisangelica wrote: »

Thanks for this link - interesting review and comments.

I am leaning towards the Nest as we don't have a hot water tank but will wait a while to read more.

I have also thought of another use for it - hubby is at home all day and has a tendency to crank the heating up - I will be able to keep turning the heating down without him knowing :rotfl:

Won't hubby then just turn it up again?

mandm65

Take a look at https://www.Evohome.info, it might beyond what you are looking for but certainly a step forward towards the home automation.

billett05

mandm65 wrote: »

Take a look at www.Evohome.info, it might beyond what you are looking for but certainly a step forward towards the home automation.

I just got an estimate for the single zone version, came in at double the price of the Nest.