Hive Heating Plus subscription

ChasingtheWelshdream

I have Hive mini controls and occasionally look at the graph to see temperature fluctuations and how long it takes to reach target temperature.

The graph tells me how long the heating has been on for, but offers more detail if I subscribe to Hive Heating Plus at £3.99 per month.

Does anyone find this is helpful? We don’t have a smart meter and ideally I would like to have a real-time cost of how much the heating is costing me. 

Can it tell that? Will it recognise each time boiler fires up whilst in heating mode (when modulating and cycling), so I can monitor how much it costs to maintain a set temperature?  Or does it simply show how long the heat has been programmed to be on?

Anyone pay for it and find it useful?

Neil_Jones

The Hive/Smart thermostat doesn't have anything to do with the meter.  Any measurements for time will be based on how long the thermostat has been "open" - that is how long it's asking for heat.  Once the required temperature is hit, it turns off/cancels the request. 

All the other details are just basically pretty graphs and a bunch of recommendations that you may or may nor be doing anyway.

Details on this are here:

https://www.hivehome.com/shop/smart-heating/hive-heating-plus

ChasingtheWelshdream

Thanks.

So if the thermostat reaches temperature and the boiler is then modulating itself to maintain it, but not firing continuously, would it show that? Or just that the thermostat is ‘on’.

cannugec5

I see this is an old thread, but I will post anyway! 

@ChasingtheWelshdream did you ever find the answer and did you subscribe? 

I too am sitting looking at a pretty daily graph and wondering if there is any added value in the Hive Plus subscription. 

I do like the idea of seeing weekly, monthly and seasonal trends but I’m not sure if it’s value for money . Will it give me any data that I can take action from and does it have the ability to convert the usage into ££ with input of electricity costs? I too don’t have an active smart meter to easily source this info. 

If there is no response to this post within a few days I might just go with the free trial and see where it takes me. But I’d really like to hear from others who have and use Hive Plus. 

matelodave

Get a smart meter and, with a programme like Bright, you can see how much you are using in half hour bites and you can get pretty graphs. 

Gas is easy as generally most people only have a gas cooker and a boiler so you can tell what's on, when and how much energy it used

Leccy is a bit more difficult as there's a lot more stuff in the house that uses it. However it doesn't take long before you can intuitively tell what is on, when its on and how much its using and you can get it for free rather than lashing out £48 a year to Hive until they decide they want to either cancel it or hike up the cost.

Or if you want even more detailed info get a CAD enabled inhouse display from Chameleon or Glow and you'll have real time info direct from your smart meter to your phone for the one off cost of the unit.

matt_drummer

cannugec5 said:

I see this is an old thread, but I will post anyway! 

@ChasingtheWelshdream did you ever find the answer and did you subscribe? 

I too am sitting looking at a pretty daily graph and wondering if there is any added value in the Hive Plus subscription. 

I do like the idea of seeing weekly, monthly and seasonal trends but I’m not sure if it’s value for money . Will it give me any data that I can take action from and does it have the ability to convert the usage into ££ with input of electricity costs? I too don’t have an active smart meter to easily source this info. 

If there is no response to this post within a few days I might just go with the free trial and see where it takes me. But I’d really like to hear from others who have and use Hive Plus. 

Your Hive system has now way of knowing how much energy you have consumed or how much heat you have produced as far as I am aware.

As you have an air source heat pump, your best source of data is the controller of your heat pump.

I think you you have a Grant heat pump, doesn't the controller tell you how much energy you have consumed and the heat produced?

MikeJXE

I'm about to purchase a Hive mini smart thermostat so I have more control of when its on/off

I don't need any graphs I know what I use and how much it costs by reading the meter weekly (dumb meters) and using a spreadsheet 

matt_drummer

MikeJXE said:

I'm about to purchase a Hive mini smart thermostat so I have more control of when its on/off

I don't need any graphs I know what I use and how much it costs by reading the meter weekly (dumb meters) and using a spreadsheet 

A smart thermostat has no way of knowing how much energy you consume, all of the ones I know about have no way of measuring this.

FreeBear

matt_drummer said:

MikeJXE said:

I'm about to purchase a Hive mini smart thermostat so I have more control of when its on/off

I don't need any graphs I know what I use and how much it costs by reading the meter weekly (dumb meters) and using a spreadsheet 

A smart thermostat has no way of knowing how much energy you consume, all of the ones I know about have no way of measuring this.

Ah, but if you know how long the flame is on, and the modulation level, you can do some rough calculations to get a reasonable estimate.

Or use something like Home Assistant, and you can not only have very fine control over time & temperature, you can log data from multiple sensors. With the Hildebrand Glow, you can feed the data in to H.A. and add it to your graphs.

The data is useful for visualising when/where your energy is being used and you can make an informed decision on what savings to make. The subsequent data is then handy for validating your choices.

matt_drummer

FreeBear said:

Ah, but if you know how long the flame is on, and the modulation level, you can do some rough calculations to get a reasonable estimate.

How would you get this information?

wild666

ChasingtheWelshdream said:

I have Hive mini controls and occasionally look at the graph to see temperature fluctuations and how long it takes to reach target temperature.

The graph tells me how long the heating has been on for, but offers more detail if I subscribe to Hive Heating Plus at £3.99 per month.

Does anyone find this is helpful? We don’t have a smart meter and ideally I would like to have a real-time cost of how much the heating is costing me. 

Can it tell that? Will it recognise each time boiler fires up whilst in heating mode (when modulating and cycling), so I can monitor how much it costs to maintain a set temperature?  Or does it simply show how long the heat has been programmed to be on?

Anyone pay for it and find it useful?

If I had that set up I wouldn't pay extra just for a bit of additional info each day, week, month it's just ripping people off IMHO.