Can anyone explain smart thermostats?

chamelious

I'm not sure how i understand how they work/what the point is.

From what i can tell, there are only 2 components, a thermo and the device that attaches to your boiler to turn it on or off. If this is the case, what possible use is this? How can a system like this be of use without a thermo attached to each radiator within the house? Perhaps i've misunderstood how they work, can anyone help?

silvercar

chamelious wrote: »

I'm not sure how i understand how they work/what the point is.

From what i can tell, there are only 2 components, a thermo and the device that attaches to your boiler to turn it on or off. If this is the case, what possible use is this? How can a system like this be of use without a thermo attached to each radiator within the house? Perhaps i've misunderstood how they work, can anyone help?

You mean like nest or hive?

Assuming you do, they are smart because they can be controlled remotely and even programmed to activate without human intervention.

Eg they can detect that no one is home and turn the heating down, or conversely realise that you are travelling home so turn the heating on. You can also programme them remotely.

getmore4less

it is easier to understand if you break down the system.

a basic system will have a thermostat and an on/off timer.

there may be multiple thermostats if the system is zoned.

on top of that you can have separate radiator stats that control the room they are in but just the temp.

The typical first change is to a programmable thermostat that combines the temp and time into a single unit, where you can have different temperature at different times.

the smart bit comes from adding connectivity to allow control of temp and time via connected devices usually this is through a gateway.

There are systems that have programmable radiator stats so each room can have it own temp/time profile.

once you have that you can add all sort of other features like using GPS and a phone to decide if you are out of the house and turn the heating off.

have a read of the manuals for a few systems to see what they can do.

Emoji

There are a few little things that although not massive help smart systems save you on heating.
1. They learn . so if you want the house at 22 degrees at 7:00 am and it takes 12 minutes to reach that temp. Then eventually your smart thermostat will learn that so won't keep turning on at 6:30 ,but it will also learn about how the outside temp affects the boilers ability to reach the desired temp.
2. That time you ~ Stay over an extra night with mates ~ stay out for dinner or work late. You can either set it as away from your phone or it will more than likely know from your phone that you are away .
3. And this might be just me ~ it seems to be more accurate . It fixes the temperature within about half a degree.I feel about right more often.
I use a nest thermostat with a combi boiler.

coffeehound

Emoji wrote: »

but it will also learn about how the outside temp affects the boilers ability to reach the desired temp.

Can I ask, do they get the outside temperature from the internet or is it a separate sensor?

I_have_spoken

From t'internet

Strider590

The more I look at them, the more I believe that the only benefit to them is they stop people constantly turning the thermostat up/down, because there are too many people out there who don't understant how a thermostat works (like my parents), they turn it to 30c when they're cold, they turn it down to 10c and open the windows when the temperature gets too hot (30c remember), then it's rinse/repeat all day long, AND then they complain their heating is crap and their bills are too high.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/10/nation-buffoons-thermostats-central-heating


They act as plain old thermostat, everything else they claim to do is just gimmicky nonsense, they heat the house until a set temp, they stop heating the house, simples........

I_have_spoken

I find a 5:2 day programmable thermostat with 4-point temp profiles and holiday button fine for my use (Drayton digistat). It still senses the rate of heating/cooling due to outside temp and modulates the call for heat as needed.

Gloomendoom

Strider590 wrote: »

TThey act as plain old thermostat, everything else they claim to do is just gimmicky nonsense, they heat the house until a set temp, they stop heating the house, simples........

I'd agree that if you live your life to a fixed schedule, a smart thermostat has little advantage over a standard "dumb" thermostat and timer.

If you work irregular hours, sometimes at home, and/or frequently spend periods away from home (particularly if you don't know exactly how long you will be away), their extra functionality is extremely useful.

We have a Hive and wish we had fitted one sooner.

silvercar

Gloomendoom wrote: »

I'd agree that if you live your life to a fixed schedule, a smart thermostat has little advantage over a standard "dumb" thermostat and timer.

If you work irregular hours, sometimes at home, and/or frequently spend periods away from home (particularly if you don't know exactly how long you will be away), their extra functionality is extremely useful.

We have a Hive and wish we had fitted one sooner.

Totally agree. We often go out for the evening and then remember we have left the heating on, so use the app on the phone to turn the heating off for a few hours. Before we had hive the heating would have stayed on as it was too much faff to change it before going out/ or we hadn't thought about it before leaving the house.

Or we go away for a few days and turn the heating off, knowing we can turn it back on an hour before arriving home.

System

I got one installed and it's handy - not particularly necessary, but useful.
It's good at figuring when you're out the house which means one less thing to remember to switch off when you're trying to get out the door with a toddler! Also very handy if you've been away you can tell it to come back on before you're home