Automated thermostat / heating

Chris_English

FaceHead said:

Not going to recommend the nest e to replace your setup. The UK version of the nest e needs to be plugged in and it then communicates wirelessly with the heatlink. The heatlink can either be put where your current thermostat is, or, more commonly it goes in the boiler cupboard.

If you want the thermostat to end up sitting on a piece of furniture then go for the nest e. If you want the thermostat(s) to end up  wall mounted, replacing your current ones, you'll need the original nest learning thermostat, which is much more expensive. 

I’d thought that they could be wired in on the wall as a direct replacement for the current analogue ones, is that not the case?

benson1980

We’ve installed 3 nest thermostats over the years in different houses. It’s the first thing we do to be honest when we have moved as they are so handy. I think average supply and install has typically been around £250 for us.

One more recent irritation though is getting the geofencing to work and it appears to me to be a conflict between the google home and nest app. Google have definitely done something about the issue as you now get a pop up on the nest app to prompt if you want that as your primary geofencing app. I just don’t get though why they don’t just transfer all of the nest app features to the home one.

May or may not be an issue I guess dependent on whether you use the google home app for anything else and have to have that installed.

They are good though for what you describe and the learning function works well for us in terms of habits and setting schedules.

FaceHead

Chris_English said:

FaceHead said:

Not going to recommend the nest e to replace your setup. The UK version of the nest e needs to be plugged in and it then communicates wirelessly with the heatlink. The heatlink can either be put where your current thermostat is, or, more commonly it goes in the boiler cupboard.

If you want the thermostat to end up sitting on a piece of furniture then go for the nest e. If you want the thermostat(s) to end up  wall mounted, replacing your current ones, you'll need the original nest learning thermostat, which is much more expensive. 

I’d thought that they could be wired in on the wall as a direct replacement for the current analogue ones, is that not the case?

The nest learning thermostat is intended to be wall mounted, but can be put on a desk stand (sold separately). It can take power from a microusb (usually when on a stand) or can take 12V DC through a wire back to it's heatlink (usual when wall mounted) 

The nest e is a sealed plastic unit with it's stand, that only takes power from a USB (or a mains to USB adapter).

Edit: the US version of the nest e can be wall mounted, so this does appear in a few videos

FreeBear

Chris_English said: and got a Raspberry Pi for Christmas, so I’m happy tinkering.

With the amount of data I was trying to log, SD cards were only lasting a few months. Pushing the data across to a NAS (with a proper hard drive) has got over that problem.

Chris_English

FaceHead said:

Chris_English said:

FaceHead said:

Not going to recommend the nest e to replace your setup. The UK version of the nest e needs to be plugged in and it then communicates wirelessly with the heatlink. The heatlink can either be put where your current thermostat is, or, more commonly it goes in the boiler cupboard.

If you want the thermostat to end up sitting on a piece of furniture then go for the nest e. If you want the thermostat(s) to end up  wall mounted, replacing your current ones, you'll need the original nest learning thermostat, which is much more expensive. 

I’d thought that they could be wired in on the wall as a direct replacement for the current analogue ones, is that not the case?

The nest learning thermostat is intended to be wall mounted, but can be put on a desk stand (sold separately). It can take power from a microusb (usually when on a stand) or can take 12V DC through a wire back to it's heatlink (usual when wall mounted) 

The nest e is a sealed plastic unit with it's stand, that only takes power from a USB (or a mains to USB adapter).

Edit: the US version of the nest e can be wall mounted, so this does appear in a few videos

That’s a shame, the US version looks to be pretty much what I need.

Ibrahim5

When we leave the house we turn off the heating and put the alarm on. A geofence would waste energy as it waited for us to leave the area. A geofence of 3 miles might work if we were walking home but would only be 5 minutes in the car. The house wouldn't heat up in 5 minutes. It's nice to have remote control but.geofence doesn't seem very clever to me unless I have missed something?

in_my_wellies

Going right back to basics, while I was waiting for permission to replace windows I used plastic film which cost about £5 a packet and did several windows. It made an amazing difference and fitted correctly could not be seen from the outside. OK, it didn't look the best on the inside but upstairs there was only me to see. I still have it one window which I couldn't decide about

daivid

Chris_English said:

I’d thought that they could be wired in on the wall as a direct replacement for the current analogue ones, is that not the case?

There are plenty that do, or do in part. I went for a Drayton Wiser, but whilst I'm more than happy with it I only put it yesterday so it is a bit soon for a real verdict. The hub takes the place of the programmer and is fixed in place, then the wireless thermostat can be put wherever you want - it has removable legs so can sit on a shelf/table and a bracket that can be used to wall mount it. In your case you would have 2 wireless thermostats, one for each zone. The good thing with a thermostat that is mobile is being able to move it to the room you really want to be at XoC as opposed to trying to judge what landing (where my old rotary thermostat was) temperature corresponded to a desired living room/bedroom… temperature.

Ibrahim5

The first one I got was a hive. That was totally incapable of maintaining a constant room temperature. Would stay on for ages until you were sweltering and then go off for ages until you were freezing. The IT bit was good though. So I sent it back and got the Honeywell which is fantastic at maintaing a constant temperature. It keeps turning the heating on and off. Made me wonder if you were better with a thermostat company that had gone into IT rather than an IT company branching out into thermostats.

getmore4less

Ibrahim5 said:

The first one I got was a hive. That was totally incapable of maintaining a constant room temperature. Would stay on for ages until you were sweltering and then go off for ages until you were freezing. The IT bit was good though. So I sent it back and got the Honeywell which is fantastic at maintaing a constant temperature. It keeps turning the heating on and off. Made me wonder if you were better with a thermostat company that had gone into IT rather than an IT company branching out into thermostats.

That's been one of my conclusion, heating companies have the history with heating and have caught up on the smart side.

A key feature is the system works when stand alone without needing any WiFi or external connections.

The main heating program needs to be in the heating system components not on the smart side.