Heating control

Trebormint

Hi

I am looking for the best option I have for home heating control controlled by an app, simple to use but very effective

Any advise much appreciated.

Cheers.

ballyblack

what heating gas or oil boiler???

techquest

Nest, Hive, Tado, Honeywell - the list of potential solutions is quite substantial so it depends how much you want to spend and what you want the system to do.

arciere

A vote for Nest, installed it last year, couldn't be happier.

alan_d

I have experience with both Owl Intuition and Honeywell Ecohome. Both have app control.
Owl = basic whole-house on/off and not much more, unless you have multiple zones plumbed (which most houses don't). Nice temperature graphs though.
Ecohome = individual radiator control allowing per-room schedules and temperatures.
As I work from home it allows just 1 room to be heated during day until kids come home, and then only heat the rooms they use, when they use them.
Hard to know how much energy it's saved as I also changed the boiler when I fitted it, but IIRC various reviews suggested 10-15% saving based on more efficient heating control.
App is pretty good also. I'd certainly recommend it.

mgfvvc

We swapped from a user hostile Vaillant thermostat to Hive.

The App isn't hard to use, although the previous version was better. Importantly the thermostat itself is fairly easy to use, so elderly relatives and other technophobes can run it from the thermostat if they want to.

I've found two major limitations:


1. The "ready by" function is supposed to learn your house's heating characteristics and turn the heating on at the right time to get the house up to temperature just when you want it. It will not start the heating more than an hour before the scheduled time, which is nowhere near long enough to get my house warm in winter.
2. Only 6 slots in the time schedule.

A feature I particularly like is the "boost" function, which allows you to put the heating on/turn it up for a multiple of half an hour. I think you can be more precise than half an hour, but I'm not sure.

nickcc

We had a Viessmann boiler fitted and found it impossible to work out how to use the remote control. Changed to Hive through BG, bought outright, and find that Hive and its App are so simple even I can use it.

RumRat

mgfvvc wrote: »

We swapped from a user hostile Vaillant thermostat to Hive.

The App isn't hard to use, although the previous version was better. Importantly the thermostat itself is fairly easy to use, so elderly relatives and other technophobes can run it from the thermostat if they want to.

I've found two major limitations:


1. The "ready by" function is supposed to learn your house's heating characteristics and turn the heating on at the right time to get the house up to temperature just when you want it. It will not start the heating more than an hour before the scheduled time, which is nowhere near long enough to get my house warm in winter.
2. Only 6 slots in the time schedule.

A feature I particularly like is the "boost" function, which allows you to put the heating on/turn it up for a multiple of half an hour. I think you can be more precise than half an hour, but I'm not sure.

We have a Vaillant boiler and use their vSmart thermostat and app. We find it very simple to use and it's working well. .

Nebulous2

I've two houses both using hive. We don't tax the features, but if we're going to our holiday house for the weekend it's great to switch it on in advance and then switch off the other house before we leave.

We're also obliged by our insurance to heat it to 5degrees from 1st October to 31st March, so we leave it on a frost setting at 7 degrees.

Deals can be had. There are occasional 20% off sales and if you get any work done on your heating by British Gas they may offer a deal.

ifstar

Nebulous2 wrote: »

I've two houses both using hive. We don't tax the features, but if we're going to our holiday house for the weekend it's great to switch it on in advance and then switch off the other house before we leave.

We're also obliged by our insurance to heat it to 5degrees from 1st October to 31st March, so we leave it on a frost setting at 7 degrees.

Deals can be had. There are occasional 20% off sales and if you get any work done on your heating by British Gas they may offer a deal.

Pretty sure there is a deal on just now.

fifeken

Salus IT500 for me for a few years now. Boiler controller, room control device and internet thingy bought from eBay for just over £100 (new).

It's pretty basic but it does what I want and the app works fine. Using the website on a mobile to control it was poor on a Windows phone but now I'm Android I've no issues.