Nest or Hive

thickasabrick

If you can't make up your mind then a "special" offer might just swing the decision.

Just seen an offer posted on Hotukeals today 5th April 2019.

Hive Active Heating and Hot Water Thermostat with Professional Installation for £149

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hive-active-heating-hot-water-thermostat-with-professional-installation-works-with-amazon-alexa-14999-amazon-3209259

Links through to this page on Amazon
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B011B3J6F4

iammumtoone

Just had to make the decision Nest or Hive.


Personally I prefer the Nest, it looks much nicer and the controls/app look more user friendly. BUT I have gone for Hive purely as it is battery controlled. I don't have many sockets in the house and would rather put the thermostat where I want it, rather than where it has to go in relation to a socket. Replacing a wall thermostat with nest is not an option as currently I don't have any thermostats.


Plus the nest is cheaper, that wasn't my deciding factor but its helpful.

bouicca21

Price was part of the deciding factor, plus I didn’t want a thermostat that could be moved about. I like having it on the wall and given the layout of my flat there was no advantage in adding to portable clutter. I have a Nest.

robatwork

Just to chime in (ho ho).

The 2 market leading doorbells are Nest (Google) Home and Ring.

The Nest one is winning all the reviews and imho looks much nicer too.
If you're going to get the Nest doorbell it makes sense to get the Nest thermostats too.

Niv

As a beekeeper I am drawn to Hive.


P.S I have used neither so I am going purely on name!

Kim_kim

Takmon wrote: »

What's the reason you want to move the Hive around the house? that just seems like extra hassle you don't need.

I have the Nest in a fixed location, it looks good and it's constantly learning how long it takes to warm the house to a certain temperature and what temperature i like at certain times. So i don't even need to touch it hardly at all now because it's always at the right temperature. If i was moving it about to different rooms it wouldn't be able to do that very well at all.

My house has never been so comfortable (heat wise) since I got a nest.
Even if you don’t use the learning part - the knowing if you’re home or away and turning the heating off if you’re out is brilliant.

ashe

We have Nest (Thermostat, 2 outdoor cameras, 2 smoke alarms) and will be adding more over time. We used to have a Hive system and far prefer Nest - I turn all the learning stuff off as found it was costing us a lot bringing the heating on whenever it fancied.

The one thing I don't like about nest is the absence of a native "boost" feature - apparently this isn't really used in the states hence why it's not there. You can do this in a third party fashion.

The cameras are great, we use them constantly. Two way comms; we had the option of getting the doorbell but the electrical work required to install it was significant - massive ball dropped by Nest here - however looking at the product, we much prefer having a camera covering our drive which comes down our house, and a camera pointing down from above our front door - this has better quality than the doorbell, and doesn't suffer from the same issues with installation as the doorbell.

Operation of the thermostat is better on Nest than Hive - things like adjusting if the sun is falling on the thermostat, timing so the house is at the temp you want at the time you want and learning how long it takes your heating to heat your house and things like that. Plus just prefer the thermostat.

robatwork

ashe wrote: »

The cameras are great, we use them constantly. Two way comms; we had the option of getting the doorbell but the electrical work required to install it was significant - massive ball dropped by Nest here - however looking at the product, we much prefer having a camera covering our drive which comes down our house, and a camera pointing down from above our front door - this has better quality than the doorbell, and doesn't suffer from the same issues with installation as the doorbell.

Agree that Nest completely ignored UK/Europe with the doorbell as it's standardised to the US. However it was really easy getting it wired in, albeit I didn't have a doorbell at all. Just bought a 24V transformer on Amazon, wired that into a mains circuit on the fuse board, and ran the low voltage cable to the door. 2 connectors later and it's installed.

Of course this means I don't have a chime itself although they can be added. I just rely on the sound of the bell itself and 2 phones ringing (and I can make a google home ring too if I ever get one)

Takmon

ashe wrote: »

The cameras are great, we use them constantly. Two way comms; we had the option of getting the doorbell but the electrical work required to install it was significant - massive ball dropped by Nest here - however looking at the product, we much prefer having a camera covering our drive which comes down our house, and a camera pointing down from above our front door - this has better quality than the doorbell, and doesn't suffer from the same issues with installation as the doorbell.

How is the electrical work significant? Don't you already have a doorbell?

A standard UK doorbell will have a button on the outside of the house and you connect the Nest Doorbell here. You then go to the chime box and find the other end of these wires. This will already have a 230 V input so you install a transformer to reduce it to 12V replacing the one already there and connect it to the wires going to the doorbell. Then wire up the chime and job done.
Yes the chime is designed for 8V but still works fine with 12V.

It's not particularly complicated.

ashe

Takmon wrote: »

How is the electrical work significant? Don't you already have a doorbell?

A standard UK doorbell will have a button on the outside of the house and you connect the Nest Doorbell here. You then go to the chime box and find the other end of these wires. This will already have a 230 V input so you install a transformer to reduce it to 12V replacing the one already there and connect it to the wires going to the doorbell. Then wire up the chime and job done.
Yes the chime is designed for 8V but still works fine with 12V.

It's not particularly complicated.

You might want to go on nest community forums or the Nest subreddit and tell everyone then. I had 3 nest pros come over and was quoted over £300 by all of them. No, we don’t have a doorbell, lots of people don’t, but even if you do it isn’t compatible with all equipment either and for many people it’s a bit of a bodge job, no shying away from that. I can post you dozens of links if you fancy where people can’t get it working, it was a very badly thought out launch. No way to just power it from a socket and have a wireless chime like ring do. I followed the product launch closely and it was a trainwreck - live chat and pros were given very little info and the nest community itself did most of the figuring out. https://www.nest-community.com/s/question/0D51W00005cBzHVSA0/list-of-compatible-chimes-that-are-available-in-the-uk 440 replies there and that’s just one post of countless ones on the nest support forums.

Inferior camera to the nest iq by far and more control over angles to avoid getting people walking past the house or cars driving by, both sides of the conversion recorded (unless they fixed that already), our doorbell isn’t huge and black and we have control over the chime as it’s not linked to the camera. We’d have a camera out front anyway so avoids double alerts, so ended up being the best solution for us. Nest also cheaped out on the launch in the uk - no free google home minibar launch and the theft prevention insurance they offer in the USA where they replace a stolen device is not applicable in the UK.