Smart home options

Ibrahim5

I think the subscription puts most people off the Tado thermostat.

collinsca

Ibrahim5 said:

I think the subscription puts most people off the Tado thermostat.

Ohh I missed that entirely- didn’t see there was a subscription 

ashe

Ibrahim5 said:

When we leave the house we always turn off the heating and put the alarm on so a geofence would waste energy as it would leave the heating on for longer when we weren't in. We would then keep checking that the geofence had worked. When you are on the way home where do you set the geofence? If you are driving and it's freezing say 3 miles the house would still be freezing when you arrived home. Best just to manually turn it on when you think it's necessary.

But if you've turned it off, you've already turned it off. If you didn't manually turn it off, its there as a backup. if you're going to manually distrust it every time then yes there is no point to it. If we are driving home we will often put the heating on if we are mindful to do so, otherwise having it come on as we get near home saves us the job and the house will be warmer faster than it would if we werent 3 miles away from home, or whatever distance it checks at. 

collinsca said:

ashe said:

I've had Nest and Hive and of the two I would take Nest. The smoke alarms are good peace of mind for when you arent home as well, but not cheap. We dont use the smart stuff in nest in terms of the learning thermostat - we are better placed to decide if we want to be warmer or not, especially with current bills! we mostly just use it to pop the heating on remotely when we are about to head home, or to make sure its not on while we are away. 

We do use geofencing to turn the heating off if we have left the house

things like doorbells, house alarms, locks etc imo the tech is too early to be reliable so I keep an eye on it but don't use it yet. 

For home automation I have found alexa far more customisable than google home. Alexa is frustrating for some things but just so much more you can do with it. 

We have the nest video cameras as well. not perfect, but in the same app as smoke alarms and thermostat. they have facial recognition so we know if its the postman or one of our parents at the door etc. 

we have hue lights in every fitting, and have a harmony remote although we dont use the physical remote, just use it's hub to control everything. e.g if we want to watch the TV it will turn on the receiver, set it to the right input, turn on the TV, set to default channel and set the standard volume setting we use. If its after sunset it will turn on the living room lights and set them to our preferred settings.

We don't use light switches although they are there for decoration/emergency use. everything controlled by routine, motion sensor or voice assistant. 

Do you have any experience of Tado?
I like the simplistic design of Tado and im keen to get the Tado thermostats - which i do appreciate i wont necessarily need the Tado thermostat for.

re Nest - the self learning feature looks to me to be the biggest difference... as you dont use that feature, what is it you prefer Nest over Hive for?

Hue really interests me - how complex is it to install? 


thanks!

I've seen Tado but not used it - it sounds decent for the TRVs but they're expensive at about £50 a pop, we have 12 rads with TRV's on so that is costly, plus have read of some issues with battery life being poor. you cant use rechargeable batteries so they would eat through a lot of batteries

The hive engineer screwed our system up and they washed their hands of it, so that soured it, but I like that nest can learn your heating system's warmup time so if you say you want it to be 20c at 7:30am, it comes on to make it that temp at that time, instead of coming on at 7:30. maybe hive have added that? Plus it was the larger ecosystem of devices that nest offered, I can see they've added to it since but when they did cameras they were ones you could just pick up and there was no facial recognition on them. 

Hue is incredibly simple you just get a starter pack and away you go, it links in to loads of smart home systems. they're not the cheapest but they a have a huge range of bulbs and fittings, indoor and out, and it is very stable. I wouldn't trust smart lighting to cheap wifi bulbs etc

benson1980

We have the nest thermostat, and ring home alarm system. Google currently have a dual app solution for the nest which has caused us a few issues with getting geolocation settings working (two apps conflicting- won't be an issue if you just use the nest app and don't have other products that rely on the google home app). That said, we've had nest thermostats in three different houses over the years and overall they have been reliable, and recently it seems to have sorted itself out.

A big bonus in my opinion is that the nest has a motion sensor and 'wakes' when you walk past it to display the temperature and whether it is heating etc. This is very handy and I'd really miss this feature with the hive, now we have got used to it. We use geolocation plus the learning function and I have to say that again both have been useful and work well.

The Ring alarm system is decent as well. We replaced an ERA alarm and the ring system is light years ahead.

BUFF

collinsca said:

BUFF said:

what is the current heating system & controls in your "new" house?

What sort of interconnectivity are you looking for between the 2? Switching on/off by geolocation?
Hive also have alarms so you would only need 1 app. for both. afaik many of theses systems are controllable by Alexa/Google Assistant

Not sure what the system and controls are - they are standard for a new build - not smart.

interconnectivity - i guess im asking what there is... and whether it is worth having... so my requirements are blank canvas at this point.

cheers

Can you find out? It may be a decent setup albeit not "smart" & perhaps you don't really need it to be "smart".
Ideally you would have specified what you wanted pre-build.

I have a mix of Hue & Lifx bulbs but not in all rooms. Of the 2, if you don't want to use a hub I prefer the Lifx, albeit they aren't cheap (but if you wait until a sale they become reasonable imo) as the automations via the Hue bluetooth app are more limited & of course you haven't paid for a hub. If you use a hub the Hue is probably the better.

You will find quite a few people on here with negative views of the Nest thermostat & it doesn't support smart TRVs.

The Tado thermostat (& TRVs) will work without a subscription. The subscription adds automation to a few features (geofencing & open window) rather than just push notification plus adds a couple of minor features. https://www.tado.com/gb-en/auto-assist

collinsca

BUFF said:

collinsca said:

BUFF said:

what is the current heating system & controls in your "new" house?

What sort of interconnectivity are you looking for between the 2? Switching on/off by geolocation?
Hive also have alarms so you would only need 1 app. for both. afaik many of theses systems are controllable by Alexa/Google Assistant

Not sure what the system and controls are - they are standard for a new build - not smart.

interconnectivity - i guess im asking what there is... and whether it is worth having... so my requirements are blank canvas at this point.

cheers

Can you find out? It may be a decent setup albeit not "smart" & perhaps you don't really need it to be "smart".
Ideally you would have specified what you wanted pre-build.

I have a mix of Hue & Lifx bulbs but not in all rooms. Of the 2, if you don't want to use a hub I prefer the Lifx, albeit they aren't cheap (but if you wait until a sale they become reasonable imo) as the automations via the Hue bluetooth app are more limited & of ourse you haven't paid for a hub. If you use a hub the Hue is probably the better.

You will find quite a few people on here with negative views of the Nest thermostat & it doesn't support smart TRVs.

The Tado thermostat (& TRVs) will work without a subscription. The subscription adds automation to a few features (geofencing & open window) rather than just push notification plus adds a couple of minor features. https://www.tado.com/gb-en/auto-assist

We are moving into a new build that is a few years old, so not brand new.  we will be doing another visit at some point so yes i'll find out and update.

Did not know Nest doesn't support smart TRVs... but i can just download the tado app to control tado TRVs... right?

Ah understood - thanks.

ashe

I've no experience with LifX bulbs but I've had a lot of experience with their LifX Beam's and they were incredibly frustrating. I eventually returned them and got the Govee versions and they were half the price and far more stable.

I'm not totally sold on smart TRVs - you need a TRV in place first I believe? then the tado on top to control the valve. Whilst it does afford additional control, I feel like you would take a long time to recoup those savings. 

BUFF

collinsca said:

Did not know Nest doesn't support smart TRVs... but i can just download the tado app to control tado TRVs... right?

Please take a note of both the boiler make/model & similarly controls.

collinsca said:

Did not know Nest doesn't support smart TRVs... but i can just download the tado app to control tado TRVs... right?

You also need the bridge. Tado do starter kits for just TRVs https://www.tado.com/all-en/smart-radiator-thermostat or it also comes with the smart thermostat starter kit (or you can often find them on ebay where people have split from starter kits etc.)

BUFF

ashe said:

I've no experience with LifX bulbs but I've had a lot of experience with their LifX Beam's and they were incredibly frustrating. I eventually returned them and got the Govee versions and they were half the price and far more stable.

I have no experience of Lifx Beams but the bulbs that I have have been fine over several years

ashe said:

I'm not totally sold on smart TRVs - you need a TRV in place first I believe? then the tado on top to control the valve. Whilst it does afford additional control, I feel like you would take a long time to recoup those savings. 

Yes, like the other smart TRV options they are replacement sensor heads so need existing  (or replacement) valves.
Savings will depend upon what your existing controls & energy use are but it's also about comfort & convenience.
Some people find smart TRVs noisy when they operate & they will need battery replacement every so often.

Ibrahim5

ashe said:

Ibrahim5 said:

When we leave the house we always turn off the heating and put the alarm on so a geofence would waste energy as it would leave the heating on for longer when we weren't in. We would then keep checking that the geofence had worked. When you are on the way home where do you set the geofence? If you are driving and it's freezing say 3 miles the house would still be freezing when you arrived home. Best just to manually turn it on when you think it's necessary.

But if you've turned it off, you've already turned it off. If you didn't manually turn it off, its there as a backup. if you're going to manually distrust it every time then yes there is no point to it. If we are driving home we will often put the heating on if we are mindful to do so, otherwise having it come on as we get near home saves us the job and the house will be warmer faster than it would if we werent 3 miles away from home, or whatever distance it checks at. 

collinsca said:

ashe said:

I've had Nest and Hive and of the two I would take Nest. The smoke alarms are good peace of mind for when you arent home as well, but not cheap. We dont use the smart stuff in nest in terms of the learning thermostat - we are better placed to decide if we want to be warmer or not, especially with current bills! we mostly just use it to pop the heating on remotely when we are about to head home, or to make sure its not on while we are away. 

We do use geofencing to turn the heating off if we have left the house

things like doorbells, house alarms, locks etc imo the tech is too early to be reliable so I keep an eye on it but don't use it yet. 

For home automation I have found alexa far more customisable than google home. Alexa is frustrating for some things but just so much more you can do with it. 

We have the nest video cameras as well. not perfect, but in the same app as smoke alarms and thermostat. they have facial recognition so we know if its the postman or one of our parents at the door etc. 

we have hue lights in every fitting, and have a harmony remote although we dont use the physical remote, just use it's hub to control everything. e.g if we want to watch the TV it will turn on the receiver, set it to the right input, turn on the TV, set to default channel and set the standard volume setting we use. If its after sunset it will turn on the living room lights and set them to our preferred settings.

We don't use light switches although they are there for decoration/emergency use. everything controlled by routine, motion sensor or voice assistant. 

Do you have any experience of Tado?
I like the simplistic design of Tado and im keen to get the Tado thermostats - which i do appreciate i wont necessarily need the Tado thermostat for.

re Nest - the self learning feature looks to me to be the biggest difference... as you dont use that feature, what is it you prefer Nest over Hive for?

Hue really interests me - how complex is it to install? 


thanks

Hue is incredibly simple you just get a starter pack and away you go, it links in to loads of smart home systems. they're not the cheapest but they a have a huge range of bulbs and fittings, indoor and out, and it is very stable. I wouldn't trust smart lighting to cheap wifi bulbs etc

I was reading an article recently about the similarities between the Hue fanboy and the Apple fanboy. Both very expensive systems that can be bought for much less elsewhere. WiFi is perfectly capable of transmitting the signal needed for a lightbulb. Nothing wrong with the Hue but nothing wrong with WiFi lightbulbs either.