Hive or manufacture's control

FarsleyGuy

with nest (and probably hive) you can have seperate zones, but there are wireless controls for individual TRV's to.

Where nest can save money is by calculating the outside temp and adjusting the start time accordingly, with nest you don't say when the heating comes one, you say when you want a given temperature, so when its warmer than usual the heater comes on later. Also the autoway function reacts to changes in your schedule and turns off of when it detects no one is home, its infinitely programmable too, which you would need to buy a high end programmable thermostat to provide similar - not trying to sell nest, but there are advantages and it will save costs over the long run, but how much depends on your lifestyle, size of house, climate etc

r2015

To my mind hive/nest/tado are unnecessarily overengineered for what is still a rather clumsy way of controlling central heating - ie, one thermostat for the whole house.

So I should just go with the built in digital programmer without a room thermostat then and just use the radiator thermostat valves?

jhs14

r2015 wrote: »

So I should just go with the built in digital programmer without a room thermostat then and just use the radiator thermostat valves?

Well, what I mean is Hive etc try to be better than a normal thermostat by having smart algorithms etc that learn your routine etc etc. Which is all well and good but if I was going for something better than a normal thermostat, I'd go down the route of being able to control each room separately.

I'm looking at installing Evohome which does this, as well as the remote-access facility that Hive etc offer.

Personally I don't see the benefit of Hive/nest over a normal RF thermostat (I currently have Climapro 2), apart from the remote access.

jhs14

FarsleyGuy wrote: »

with nest (and probably hive) you can have seperate zones, but there are wireless controls for individual TRV's to.

Where nest can save money is by calculating the outside temp and adjusting the start time accordingly, with nest you don't say when the heating comes one, you say when you want a given temperature, so when its warmer than usual the heater comes on later. Also the autoway function reacts to changes in your schedule and turns off of when it detects no one is home, its infinitely programmable too, which you would need to buy a high end programmable thermostat to provide similar - not trying to sell nest, but there are advantages and it will save costs over the long run, but how much depends on your lifestyle, size of house, climate etc

Indeed - personal preference really. I considered hive/nest for a while but have now settled on Evohome which is a different concept - still has some of the same functionality though.

r2015

Evohome

Not a bit overkill for a 3 bed semi with 2 OAPs in it?

jhs14

r2015 wrote: »

Not a bit overkill for a 3 bed semi with 2 OAPs in it?

Probably. Evohome is good when you want different rooms being heated at different times. There's two of us here, both working in the day, and the house is poorly insulated and different rooms hold heat much better than others. So for us it makes sense to zone the house, with each room having its own thermostat and schedule - living rooms on in early evening, bedrooms on in late evening, etc etc. The house in general loses heat easily so it makes sense to heat individual rooms when needed rather than all rooms together.

Even then, admittedly half the reason is the gadget factor!

For 2 OAPs, likely to be at home during the day (without making assumptions!) and therefore wanting the temp to be constant throughout the day, the whole concept of heating controls becomes less important. The attraction of Hive etc is that it learns your movements and you can control it away from the home - if you're home a lot anyway, that might be a bit overkill. As might Evohome.

mavisangelica

jhs14 wrote: »

Probably. Evohome is good when you want different rooms being heated at different times. There's two of us here, both working in the day, and the house is poorly insulated and different rooms hold heat much better than others. So for us it makes sense to zone the house, with each room having its own thermostat and schedule - living rooms on in early evening, bedrooms on in late evening, etc etc. The house in general loses heat easily so it makes sense to heat individual rooms when needed rather than all rooms together.

Even then, admittedly half the reason is the gadget factor!

For 2 OAPs, likely to be at home during the day (without making assumptions!) and therefore wanting the temp to be constant throughout the day, the whole concept of heating controls becomes less important. The attraction of Hive etc is that it learns your movements and you can control it away from the home - if you're home a lot anyway, that might be a bit overkill. As might Evohome.

I second Evohome - and we just have a 2 bedroom bungalow. I was originally going to buy the Nest but after listening to people on here I decided to go the whole hog and have individual room control.
(I totally agree about the gadget factor though )

Evohome has the Optimisation where it learns how long it will take to reach a certain temp. So you set the temperature at 6am in the bathroom for 19 degrees so the heating will switch on earlier so that the room is 19 degrees at 6am. It also has an 'open window' function which switches that room's heating off if it senses the window open. (Ideal for the kitchen when the outside door is left open.)

For the real geek factor, if you get the internet gateway, you can link it to IFTTT and have the heating switch to Economy mode (or any other setting you desire) when you leave the house and then switch back on when you approach (geofencing.)

highguyuk

Have you considered the Worcester Wave controls?

benson1980

Re: the nest, Npower are giving them away for free with one of their tariffs. Naturally it isn't the cheapest tariff they do, but after I got my nest installed I just rung them up and changed it back to the cheapest (which they weren't overly happy about but confirmed they couldn't stop me doing it). I have to say we love ours, predominantly because of being able to change the temperature with our smart phones. Also the 'away' temperature settings and ability to see how much heating you are using on a daily basis are handy