I saw on another thread an STWer (towzer) who had this installed. With the £150 offer and “free installation” I am serious thinking about getting this mainly for the remote control aspects.

Any other experiences ?

In the battle for control of the Thermostat – Hive is Dad’s secret weapon..

🙂

but if you live in a family size house – it’s a bit crap I think – as it’s just a single (expensive) thermostat.

Most houses have a ‘set point’ inertia – so the idea of ‘just in time’ heating (when it knows your near) is a bit flawed – if you don’t live in a Scandinavian Eco lodge.

Honeywell Evohome systems are about set point (climate control!) schedules per room/zone. It has app control as well. It’s a better, but pricier system which isn’t just lipstick..

@bonchance, I want it so I can turn the heating up/hot water on before I get there. It will be used for a property which is unoccupied for periods of time. Also as a 3 bedroomed flat I don’t care about zones. Saves turning up to a cold house after a longish drive and able to have a shower.

sounds perfect then – what’s the concern?

Just looking for feedback don’t want to spend £150 if its rubbish and have to pay to put the original controller back. That’s money I could spend on the bikes otherwise ! Thanks for your comments though

Great for those with one zone heating and irregular hours.

Not so great for multi zone heating and if you are in regularly.

I fall into the second camp so its not much use to me..

There is a tremendous amount of heating wasted in the UK, I lead the research that came up with the £150 saving that HIVE claims it can deliver.

Thanks @djg. It won’t save me money as heating is left on very low and water off but that’s the problem when I do turn up as the place takes a while to warm up

I have it. Was persuaded to buy with ‘free fitting’ when I had an engineer out to fix the boiler. At the time my system didn’t have a thermostat so it seemed like a good idea.

Not sure I’d recommend it.

The hive system currently only has 4 time periods that can be set with target temperatures. This is limited by the thermostat hardware.

There is also no ‘boost’ function. You can advance to the next period but cannot stick the heating on for, say, an extra hour.

The boost function was requested over a year ago when the system was introduced and there is no sign of it being rolled out.

For anyone wondering why a super-dooper thermostatically controlled system needs a boost, consider this scenario.

You have the heating ‘on’ until from 5pm to 11pm in the evening, with the overnight target temperature set to something low (so it is effectively off). You go out the pub or a club and get back during the overnight period. The house is a bit chilly so you’d like the heating on.

With hive, the lack of a ‘boost’ means you need to stick it on manual. You’ll likely fall asleep/pass out before remembering to turn it back to auto/schedule. You’ll be heating the house to 22+ degrees until breakfast time.

The hive system currently only has 4 time periods that can be set with target temperatures.

I didnt realise it was that limited. That is pretty poor for a premium product.

There is also no ‘boost’ function. You can advance to the next period but cannot stick the heating on for, say, an extra hour.

We never ever use that function on our Honeywell system.

John Lewis had an offer on a Nest wireless system for £150, might still be on offer. I dont know how it compares though..

Having been on similar threads previously talking the Hive system up I have recently had some experiences that have me thinking twice.
In terms of the way it functions it is fine, it’s not actually as clever as some of the other ‘smart’ systems as mentioned above. They had an outage of their servers for almost 2 days that rendered the whole thing pretty pointless, thermostat functioned as a regular wireless thermo, none of the apps worked or any of the associated features (geofencing etc.)
I have just had to replace my boiler as the (very) old one went pop. The new one is a modern combi that has on demand hot water. Have been told by the Hive people that to continue using it I need to replace my 2 channel receiver with a 1 channel one at a cost of £99.
I also recently discovered that contrary to what most people believe you cannot take the Hive bits with you if you move or sell it on as when it is registered it is fixed to the property. BG will reinstall the hardware at your new property for a single charge of £199 otherwise known as a new install… not happy.
Lookin at switching to Tado

bought a netatmo smart thermostat in the amazon flash sale a couple of weeks ago. impressed so far. easy to program, app/website is good. seems to adapting well to how long the house takes to heat.

You can manually over-ride as well either on the app, website or thermostat. How long those over-rides last as default is settable in the app or online.

Thanks so far

jam bo for netatmo looking at it I can use it turn temperature up but not water on/off from app remotely ?

I guess not, mine is combi-boiler that does hot water on demand.

the base station just closes a relay to turn on the C/H demand.

ok thanks, hive looking good for what I want

I also recently discovered that contrary to what most people believe you cannot take the Hive bits with you if you move or sell it on as when it is registered it is fixed to the property. BG will reinstall the hardware at your new property for a single charge of £199 otherwise known as a new install… not happy.

They will reset the thing for free if you ask nicely so you can flog it on / use it somewhere else. If you move in to a house where it’s fitted you’ll have to pay again, which is a bit crap.

I had one (now back in its box in the garage – offers?) but replaced it with Honeywell Evohome in October.