Viewing 29 posts - 1 through 29 (of 29 total)
  • Nest/Hive Opinions
  • Crag
    Free Member

    Got the boiler serviced yesterday and the plumber suggested getting a Nest thermostat.

    A quick Google shows they can be had for just less than 200 quid.

    Anyone got any experience of these smart thermostats be it good or bad? Money well spent or a white elephant?

    andybrad
    Full Member

    got a nest,

    firstly it replaced an old bimetallic strip one. for that alone its paid for its self.

    timmys
    Full Member

    There’s a quite a few old threads on smart thermostats.

    Personally I prefer Tado over the options you mention, and others prefer Honeywell, so make sure you have a look at all the options.

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    Flaperon
    Full Member

    I’d have Nest over Hive. Once it’s in, Nest is pretty bulletproof. Hive, on the other hand, is not the most reliable in the world with multiple wireless connections required to make it work.

    Also, if you move house, the incoming buyer loses all the smart capabilities of the system unless they buy another hub, which seems a bit evil. Then again, it is British Gas.

    Honeywell Evohome worked well for me, but again can be prone to wireless issues if not installed correctly. The basic thermostats work OK but the apps aren’t great.

    Not tried Tado but heard good things, and of course it can be paired with the radiator valves.

    nickjb
    Free Member

    Happy with our Nest. Its pretty good at turning the heating off when we go out. The timer and app work pretty well. I reckon it has saved us a decent amount of money

    woodlikesbikes
    Free Member

    We have a hive. It’s fine but does occasionally lose WiFi connection. Being able to turn the heating off when you’re halfway to holiday is handy. As it’s setting the heating schedule on your phone. Other than that in not sure. It cost the same as a normal thermostat so we went for it.

    I’m not sure I’d want anything where Google knows even more about me than it already does

    toby1
    Full Member

    I stuck a Hive in in place of my ancient heating controller.

    Things I like:
    1) easy to install myself
    2) I can finally have a schedule for the week and the weekend (old controller was too crap to allow this)
    3) controlled from my phone, been away for a few days and it’s a bit cold, whack the heating on when you are an hour from home
    4) Wife can’t argue that it’s ‘cold’ as you can see the actual temperature

    Things that aren’t as good.
    1) It may have been my install, but I can control the heating, not the hot water (likely this is more to do with the system itself than hive).
    2) UI for scheduling is a bit confusing
    3) only way to stop the schedule if you feel warm enough is to reduce the target temp, rather than having an option to pause or cancel the pattern temporarily
    4) the lights on the controller are stupidly bright green – as it sits in the kitchen it often catches my eye

    Aside from that it’s doing what I wanted it to, it’s been in about 6 months and not had any connection problems despite a shonky BT Wifi connection.

    TheFlyingOx
    Full Member

    Stuck a Nest in at ours after a few years of a shonky Honeywell RF thermostat/programmer. Wired it up to take advantage of the OpenTherm connections on our boiler. I reckon we’re easily 10% down on gas usage, probably more, and the thermostat/app itself has been faultless.

    Managed to snag it for £145 on eBay, for a new 3rd gen, which was nice.

    iainc
    Full Member

    We have both, a Hive at home and a Nest in my Mum’s. The Nest is better in every way for our needs, and good linkage into smoke and CO2 alarms for peace of mind.

    B.A.Nana
    Free Member

    There’s a quite a few old threads on smart thermostats.

    Personally I prefer Tado over the options you mention, and others prefer Honeywell, so make sure you have a look at all the options.

    There are loads, but I think timmys ref to Tado/Honeywell threads will be where the chat has been around full zoning systems i.e. smart control and scheduling down to individual radiator level or zones (grouped radiators).
    Hive/Nest are more of an upgrade to a trad thermostat and more than suitable in most cases. Tado and Honeywell systems can be used in that more simple manner as well as zoning, but in the case of Honeywell, if you had no designs on zoning, you’d be looking at Honeywell Lyric rather than Evohome.

    Honeywell Evohome worked well for me……..The basic thermostats work OK but the apps aren’t great.

    I can report that the Evohome app is much improved since they moved onto new hamsters. There is also chat of a new fancy pants global app.

    northernmatt
    Full Member

    Nest here, replaced a Drayton RF which had gained a mind of it’s own. I can’t say that I keep a track of gas usage but it’s never gone wrong and once it learns your routine it just looks after itself.

    Echo what Banana said above though, if you want to go down the route of zoning individual rooms go for Honeywell Evohome. It can end up being pretty expensive though, iirc 4x TRV heads are around the £200 mark and that’s before you start adding the control unit, hub etc.

    tintim
    Full Member

    Have a Hive, never had a problem. Once its on schedule rarely need to change.
    All smart thermostats/heaters are really good, a lot of choice out there! Our decision was based on the discounts by British Gas.

    timmys
    Full Member

    I started out with a simple Tado system (just a wall thermostat) and over the course of a year or two added to it whenever I saw deals on TRV’s/thermostats to build out a fully zoned system. I now have 7 thermostats and 10 radiator valves.

    dooosuk
    Free Member

    @toby1

    1) It may have been my install, but I can control the heating, not the hot water (likely this is more to do with the system itself than hive).

    Have you bought the right one? There’s two types…one for CH + HW and another for combi. The receivers are different. I’ve had both Hives and they both worked fine.

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    I’m going around this at the moment and they all seem to be much of a muchness and converging on the same features, functions and abilities so ultimately it probably doesn’t really matter which one you go for. I’m leaning towards Nest for no other reason that they look nicer than the alternatives.

    Got friends and family that have a few options and they’re all pretty good. Not heard about Hive dropping out – maybe something to do with individual installations.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Do these things ever pay back cost in saved gas?

    I’m looking at £500+ for an install.

    Current gas bill is under £800 annually.

    Biggest difference we noticed was fitting external temp sensor (often required by regulations on the continent) immediately smoothed out the heating and reduced use by 10% or so.

    FuzzyWuzzy
    Full Member

    Happy with my v3 Nest however I don’t use most of the features. I turned off the smart learning stuff as it was just a PITA as if I didn’t stick to a routine I’d never know whether the heating was going to be on or off so I ended up just reverting to normal time-based scheduling.

    I like that it learns how long the room it’s in takes to get up to temperature and turns the heating on based on that.

    The only other thing is it’s linked into Alexa so handy just to shout at her to raise or lower the room temp if needed, not exactly life-changing though :p

    nickjb
    Free Member

    I’m looking at £500+ for an install.

    I paid £150 for our nest. Took about half an hour to fit. Depending on your boiler and current configuration it can be an easy DIY.

    timmys
    Full Member

    Do these things ever pay back cost in saved gas?

    Quite possibly not. Most people’s schedules are pretty predictable so any decent programmable timer will get you 80% of the way there. For me the biggest benefit is that the rooms I do need heating in heat up quicker as it’s specifically only trying to heat that room not the whole house.

    Biggest difference we noticed was fitting external temp sensor (often required by regulations on the continent) immediately smoothed out the heating and reduced use by 10% or so.

    I don’t know about the others, but Tado approximates this by getting the reported prevailing temp via the internet (and also makes decisions based on the upcoming forecast).

    Happy with my v3 Nest however I don’t use most of the features. I turned off the smart learning stuff as it was just a PITA as if I didn’t stick to a routine I’d never know whether the heating was going to be on or off so I ended up just reverting to normal time-based scheduling.

    That’s what I never understood about Nest when they launched. Why try to learn peoples routines rather than just use geo-location and see where people actually are? Obviously they added geo-location later, but just seemed a totally flawed concept at the start.

    towzer
    Full Member

    Hive, seems fine, no probs with it (bought as old wired thermostat knackered and it came with a Sainsbury voucher and money off as hive was newish when we bought), just does heating, plugs and lights as on a combo boiler

    Like the schedule, holiday mode, remote on off etc
    The sunset actions are handy for lights, plugs etc.
    Integrates with Alexa

    retrorick
    Full Member

    I have a Netatmo thermostat. Been using it for over 2 years and I have had no big issues with it. Phone and web apps are user friendly. Simple 2 wire connection to the boiler for the relay and 2aa or aaa batteries for the remote stat that last for a few years. I paid £90 for it and have bought another 2 for other members of the family. It doesn’t control any water storage heating. Google home integration also with simple on/off and temp adjustments.

    B.A.Nana
    Free Member

    Biggest difference we noticed was fitting external temp sensor (often required by regulations on the continent) immediately smoothed out the heating and reduced use by 10% or so.

    Hmmm…Am I right in thinking that’s something you add onto the boiler, rather than an add on to a fancy 3rd party control system?. I might need to look into that if it’s worth it.

    how does it work? Does it adjust the temp of the water in the radiators?

    I don’t know about the others, but Tado approximates this by getting the reported prevailing temp via the internet (and also makes decisions based on the upcoming forecast).

    That’s what I thought Evohome did (there’s even a weather data section on the app), but a recent comment from Honeywell about firmware updates coming in Q2 made me wonder if that was the case.

    Crag
    Free Member

    Thanks for the responses.
    Generally seems that experiences are pretty positive of smart meters.
    I’ll do a bit more research on some of the brand’s mentioned above.

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    Got a Hive. Turning the hot water on for a bath while sitting shivering on a train covered in shite today was a nice thing to have.

    Also shouting at Google Assistant to turn the bloody temperature up saves me getting up and walking about five yards.

    We needed a new thermostat anyway, and installing it was a doddle.

    swedishmatt
    Free Member

    First off, anyone who installed a Nest thermostat themselves have my deepest and utmost respect.

    I have two: one for downstairs (also controls the hot water and one for upstairs only. Needs two to manage the two zones plus hot water.

    Well worth the money from a “simple to change the heating schedule” and turn on off remotely.

    SuperScale20
    Free Member

    We have Hive with dual zone heating, lights in all rooms and a few plugs – I really cant fault the system and the app in my opinion is excellent. My kids love it and the integration with Alexa, If we was to purchase another home I would certainly install hive again. I think being a British gas product also convinced us to go Hive the installation was pain free by BG and they even setup system how we needed it.

    I honestly cant think of anything they could do better with Hive.

    toby1
    Full Member

    @dooosuk I suspect it’s the system (an ancient back boiler and an immersion heater). I have the dual hive, but have only ever (even before the hive) to have heating and hot water, or hot water only via a manual switch in the airing cupboard. It’s possible hive can bypass this, I just don’t know how to engineer it without paying someone. To be honest, it’s not a big enough problem to worry about 🙂

    phil5556
    Full Member

    I’d get one just because we’re rubbish at remembering to turn heating off when we go out, which is nice to come in to a toasty house but probably not the best for the environment or our bank balance.

    There’s list of about 10 boilers not compatible with a smart thermostat, ours is one of them obviously 🙄

    boombang
    Free Member

    Got a Hive, it’s a total **** of a system.

    If I set the time it resets itself 10 mins out, every time.
    The reading on the unit has been known to disagree with my infa red thermometer by a couple of degrees – it has felt noticeably colder then too.
    It looses connection every now and then and needs to be reset.

    From what I read online it seems an older batch of them went rogue after an update, guess I have one of those. Others I know have been totally happy.

Viewing 29 posts - 1 through 29 (of 29 total)

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