Best Wifi enabled thermostat
Discussion
Just ordered the Lightwaverf system, to integrate with lighting and other automation tasks. Not as nice a thermostat design as others, and the app looks a little amateurish at the moment (but better than the awfulness pre the new 2015 release) but independent zones via wifi TRVs and connection to lights/plug sockets and other tasks at a good price sold it for me (Lutron et al pricier).
Shall report back once installed.
Shall report back once installed.
Edited by Harry Flashman on Sunday 4th January 17:39
Like a numpty, when ordering my Tado I claimed I had a wired thermostat when I meant I have a wired controller (a British Gas UT1, if it makes any difference to anything). Consequently, I don't have the extension box. As I intend to put the Thermostat where the controller currently is (which is in our open plan kitchen / living room) would this be a problem?
Cheers. And hello. I'm new here.
Cheers. And hello. I'm new here.
After the seeing the nest learning thermostat when it was released in the states and the hype that surrounded it I was quite keen on getting one but decided to wait until it was actually released over here to the UK.
A recent house move to a place with a newly installed combi-boiler and no thermostat was what got the nest back into mind and I ordered one direct from Nest and opted for the professional installation, the installation communication was nonexistent bar a call an hour prior to the guy turning up to install it, Its been in for a week now and the energy usage has gone up every day to just under 21 hours yesterday, the house temperature has been a guessing game, ranging from 13 to 20 degrees with little/no control over what the heating does, the radiators stay cold when the thermostat is turned up to max and today the system is constantly trying to find the heat link, tried resetting it and placing it closer and closer to the link but its not having any of it.
Just been onto nest and arranged for them to come and remove the thing, I can't recommend the nest learning thermostat at all, I'm not sure if any other of the intelligent systems are any better but they can't be worse than this, good god its terrible.
A recent house move to a place with a newly installed combi-boiler and no thermostat was what got the nest back into mind and I ordered one direct from Nest and opted for the professional installation, the installation communication was nonexistent bar a call an hour prior to the guy turning up to install it, Its been in for a week now and the energy usage has gone up every day to just under 21 hours yesterday, the house temperature has been a guessing game, ranging from 13 to 20 degrees with little/no control over what the heating does, the radiators stay cold when the thermostat is turned up to max and today the system is constantly trying to find the heat link, tried resetting it and placing it closer and closer to the link but its not having any of it.
Just been onto nest and arranged for them to come and remove the thing, I can't recommend the nest learning thermostat at all, I'm not sure if any other of the intelligent systems are any better but they can't be worse than this, good god its terrible.
TheBear said:
Targarama said:
If you don't want the fancy location based 'intelligent' system then I recommend a Salus. I have an iT500 and iT300 for a 2 zone system in my home. Works great. Never had any issues since installing. The real benefit is that I can turn the heating up/down from wherever I am in the house (I work from home, so from my desk). Of course monitoring and controlling from the iPhone app is great too for when we're away.
I don't want to turn on location services on my phone all the time as it kills the battery, therefore that kind of system won't work (and I can imagine it is equally a problem if you have a family/multiple people coming and going to/from the house). The heating not being on when you expect it to be is very annoying.
Would you mind answering a few questions if you can?I don't want to turn on location services on my phone all the time as it kills the battery, therefore that kind of system won't work (and I can imagine it is equally a problem if you have a family/multiple people coming and going to/from the house). The heating not being on when you expect it to be is very annoying.
Going to be moving to a detached house in the summer but am considering a fancy thermostat but not overly keen on one that's location service based.
With the Salus being two zone I presume that's upstairs and downstairs?
Can you get individual room ones?
I presume the advantage over a standard programmable thermostat is flexibility and being able to simply turn on/off the areas you want, when you want, even when you are not home and without having rigid programme times?
We (well, mostly my wife) installed our Tado yesterday. We've had easier DIY jobs but really the hardest bit was removing the old time controller on which one of the screws had jammed.
We cheated a little in that Tado's instructions claim that an Extension Box is required if you don't already own a thermostat. We applied the logic that a thermostat is a posh switch and a time controller is a posh switch so we could probably get away without the extra (and quite significant) expense.
Irritatingly, I made the mistake of giving the installation wizard the wrong model number and it then insisted I would need the Extension Box. There is No Going Back.
Unless, that is, you create a new Tado account. Which I did.
The instructions could have been easier to read: not in the sense that they were hard to understand but simply in the sense that we had to turn off the power for the whole house rather than just the boiler due to our house's wiring basically putting everything onto the one circuit. This meant that I could only access the internet-based installation instructions by relying on the recently improved mobile data coverage here. Three months ago I would have had to dash up the road with my laptop and mobile at the end of each installation stage.
All seemed to go well, however, except that we had one wire which wasn't keen to stay in place which added half an hour to the total time needed. We flicked the switch. Nothing (although my father-in-law did decide to use that exact moment to drop a heavy weight for comedy purposes. How we laughed.) A couple of minutes of panic before the realisation that we had a short wire left over. Putting that back where we had found it gave us a working system.
The house is now as cosy as it has ever been. The heating came on at four o'clock this morning to ensure the house was warm enough when we got out of bed. It turned off when the last of us left the house, having spent most of the time after we had got up just ticking over.
The house was mildly cool (18.5ºC) when I got home. I can see that the system had been on for a total of fifteen separate minutes while we were out.
The app claims we have saved 70p today. We'll see when we next pay the gas bill whether that has actually happened.
We cheated a little in that Tado's instructions claim that an Extension Box is required if you don't already own a thermostat. We applied the logic that a thermostat is a posh switch and a time controller is a posh switch so we could probably get away without the extra (and quite significant) expense.
Irritatingly, I made the mistake of giving the installation wizard the wrong model number and it then insisted I would need the Extension Box. There is No Going Back.
Unless, that is, you create a new Tado account. Which I did.
The instructions could have been easier to read: not in the sense that they were hard to understand but simply in the sense that we had to turn off the power for the whole house rather than just the boiler due to our house's wiring basically putting everything onto the one circuit. This meant that I could only access the internet-based installation instructions by relying on the recently improved mobile data coverage here. Three months ago I would have had to dash up the road with my laptop and mobile at the end of each installation stage.
All seemed to go well, however, except that we had one wire which wasn't keen to stay in place which added half an hour to the total time needed. We flicked the switch. Nothing (although my father-in-law did decide to use that exact moment to drop a heavy weight for comedy purposes. How we laughed.) A couple of minutes of panic before the realisation that we had a short wire left over. Putting that back where we had found it gave us a working system.
The house is now as cosy as it has ever been. The heating came on at four o'clock this morning to ensure the house was warm enough when we got out of bed. It turned off when the last of us left the house, having spent most of the time after we had got up just ticking over.
The house was mildly cool (18.5ºC) when I got home. I can see that the system had been on for a total of fifteen separate minutes while we were out.
The app claims we have saved 70p today. We'll see when we next pay the gas bill whether that has actually happened.
SkinnyPete said:
To those who use the remote heating function, do you not air your house out while you're away?
I leave all the upstairs windows open and the fresh air filters down. This does chill the house for my arrival home but its better than the air going stale.
I just leave a couple of windows locked ajar all the time.I leave all the upstairs windows open and the fresh air filters down. This does chill the house for my arrival home but its better than the air going stale.
longwayround said:
We (well, mostly my wife) installed our Tado yesterday. We've had easier DIY jobs but really the hardest bit was removing the old time controller on which one of the screws had jammed.
We cheated a little in that Tado's instructions claim that an Extension Box is required if you don't already own a thermostat. We applied the logic that a thermostat is a posh switch and a time controller is a posh switch so we could probably get away without the extra (and quite significant) expense.
Irritatingly, I made the mistake of giving the installation wizard the wrong model number and it then insisted I would need the Extension Box. There is No Going Back.
Unless, that is, you create a new Tado account. Which I did.
The instructions could have been easier to read: not in the sense that they were hard to understand but simply in the sense that we had to turn off the power for the whole house rather than just the boiler due to our house's wiring basically putting everything onto the one circuit. This meant that I could only access the internet-based installation instructions by relying on the recently improved mobile data coverage here. Three months ago I would have had to dash up the road with my laptop and mobile at the end of each installation stage.
All seemed to go well, however, except that we had one wire which wasn't keen to stay in place which added half an hour to the total time needed. We flicked the switch. Nothing (although my father-in-law did decide to use that exact moment to drop a heavy weight for comedy purposes. How we laughed.) A couple of minutes of panic before the realisation that we had a short wire left over. Putting that back where we had found it gave us a working system.
The house is now as cosy as it has ever been. The heating came on at four o'clock this morning to ensure the house was warm enough when we got out of bed. It turned off when the last of us left the house, having spent most of the time after we had got up just ticking over.
The house was mildly cool (18.5ºC) when I got home. I can see that the system had been on for a total of fifteen separate minutes while we were out.
The app claims we have saved 70p today. We'll see when we next pay the gas bill whether that has actually happened.
Was the timer doing hot water control? If so, if you have removed it, that would be the problem.We cheated a little in that Tado's instructions claim that an Extension Box is required if you don't already own a thermostat. We applied the logic that a thermostat is a posh switch and a time controller is a posh switch so we could probably get away without the extra (and quite significant) expense.
Irritatingly, I made the mistake of giving the installation wizard the wrong model number and it then insisted I would need the Extension Box. There is No Going Back.
Unless, that is, you create a new Tado account. Which I did.
The instructions could have been easier to read: not in the sense that they were hard to understand but simply in the sense that we had to turn off the power for the whole house rather than just the boiler due to our house's wiring basically putting everything onto the one circuit. This meant that I could only access the internet-based installation instructions by relying on the recently improved mobile data coverage here. Three months ago I would have had to dash up the road with my laptop and mobile at the end of each installation stage.
All seemed to go well, however, except that we had one wire which wasn't keen to stay in place which added half an hour to the total time needed. We flicked the switch. Nothing (although my father-in-law did decide to use that exact moment to drop a heavy weight for comedy purposes. How we laughed.) A couple of minutes of panic before the realisation that we had a short wire left over. Putting that back where we had found it gave us a working system.
The house is now as cosy as it has ever been. The heating came on at four o'clock this morning to ensure the house was warm enough when we got out of bed. It turned off when the last of us left the house, having spent most of the time after we had got up just ticking over.
The house was mildly cool (18.5ºC) when I got home. I can see that the system had been on for a total of fifteen separate minutes while we were out.
The app claims we have saved 70p today. We'll see when we next pay the gas bill whether that has actually happened.
If you have a combi or a different setup, then yes, you only need the smart thermostat
kapiteinlangzaam said:
Has anyone else on here plumped for the Worcester Wave?
From what I can tell I seem to be the only one... and continue to be nothing but impressed with it.
I spec'd it for daughter's house.From what I can tell I seem to be the only one... and continue to be nothing but impressed with it.
Works perfectly for remote control. Not sure about the presence detection.
Although I'm disappointed by the way weather compensation works, in that it runs the pump 24/7 (although there is a setting to turn it off at night). Could be that's how WC is supposed to work, but seems odd to e to be circulating cold water.
Generally, there's little documentation about how it works and what it's doing.
kapiteinlangzaam said:
I dont use the presence detection or weather compensation features on mine. I just have a very detailed set of timed agendas for the CH, and flick it remotely on/off as and when I need to.
That's what my daughter is doing. She was using the Optimisation feature but disabled it as it was turning on way too early.She hasn't had any wifi connections issues - as far as I know it's remained connected for several months now. The wall stat / receiver is hard wired to the boiler, which was easy in her house but I suppose could be a limiting factor in some installations.
The unique thing Wave does with compatible WB boilers if using weather comp is it takes over the boiler 'stat setting and works to keep the flow temp lower so running the boiler in condensing mode as much as possible.
Edited by Sheepshanks on Tuesday 20th January 20:54
Targarama said:
My house was already set up as 2 zones (new house but the builder installed thermostats and controllers were a pain to use) and yes they are upstairs and downstairs. I don't think Salus can do room by room. However you could possibly use some kind of radiator controllers in conjunction with the Salus. I'm not really up to date on the options available. I just love the ability to control my upstairs or downstairs from wherever I am and that it just works..
I really don't like the salus.It can do two zones ie upstairs and downstairs heating (which I have), or single zone heating and hot water. The control box is not simple to use. To put the heating on you have to press the 'on' button to light the display (which only stays lit about 3 seconds), then press the tick and cog buttons together which means you have to use two hands if you've not got the controller mounted on a wall, then press the down arrow to toggle between auto and off then press the tick. Its awful. The phone app you have to go to the login page, click that, then you get onto the devices page - invariably there is only the one device, click that, then you get into the heating menu.
Not simple to use.
I wish I'd waited and got the new Honeywell as that does two zone heating and hot water, looks easy to use too.
Vron said:
Targarama said:
My house was already set up as 2 zones (new house but the builder installed thermostats and controllers were a pain to use) and yes they are upstairs and downstairs. I don't think Salus can do room by room. However you could possibly use some kind of radiator controllers in conjunction with the Salus. I'm not really up to date on the options available. I just love the ability to control my upstairs or downstairs from wherever I am and that it just works..
I really don't like the salus.It can do two zones ie upstairs and downstairs heating (which I have), or single zone heating and hot water. The control box is not simple to use. To put the heating on you have to press the 'on' button to light the display (which only stays lit about 3 seconds), then press the tick and cog buttons together which means you have to use two hands if you've not got the controller mounted on a wall, then press the down arrow to toggle between auto and off then press the tick. Its awful. The phone app you have to go to the login page, click that, then you get onto the devices page - invariably there is only the one device, click that, then you get into the heating menu.
Not simple to use.
I wish I'd waited and got the new Honeywell as that does two zone heating and hot water, looks easy to use too.
kapiteinlangzaam said:
Has anyone else on here plumped for the Worcester Wave?
From what I can tell I seem to be the only one... and continue to be nothing but impressed with it.
Yes, it works very well, though there is more to come. A self-learning feature is said to be coming soon, plus the ability to notify you if a boiler error occurs when you are not at home. These features would be made available by an automatic update to the Wave and the app.From what I can tell I seem to be the only one... and continue to be nothing but impressed with it.
The device, being made by Bosch Thermotronic rather than Worcester, is available across Europe under different names. In NL, for example, it is the Nefit Moduline Easy. And no surprise that some of the non-UK sites have more information about it than we get in the UK.
The fix I want to see relates to the home presence detection. It's quite nice to have the heating come on automatically if you enter the house at an unexpected time, but it then stays on as long as you are in - including overnight. Not what most people want. The home presence overrides the timed switching, whereas it should be vice-versa at the next switch point.
It also offers no way of choosing the hot water temperature except the knob on the boiler, whereas the Worcester control I replaced, the TD100, allowed me to set HW temp precisely.
As someone has said, I didn't think much of the weather compensation feature: it seemed to do nothing except maintain a room temperature other than the one I'd chosen. I can't say I noticed it running the pump 24/7, though.
Sheepshanks said:
The unique thing Wave does with compatible WB boilers if using weather comp is it takes over the boiler 'stat setting and works to keep the flow temp lower so running the boiler in condensing mode as much as possible.
That seems to contradict the documentation, which says that weather compensation can improve comfort level, but that the only way to do so may involve using more energy, not less. Edited by Sheepshanks on Tuesday 20th January 20:54
As far as I can see, the Wave takes over the boiler stat and keeps the flue temps in the condensing range as much as possible whether or not weather compensation is on.
r999 said:
That seems to contradict the documentation, which says that weather compensation can improve comfort level, but that the only way to do so may involve using more energy, not less.
Improved comfort level almost certainly doesn't equate to less energy!I think the point is it's supposed to keep the house warmish all the time so it doesn't get chilly enough to make you to ramp up the room stat.
It's a bit more logical with underfloor heating and a well insulated house. I don't really get it for a normal house in the UK.
The better WB boilers now have modulating pumps so they should take a lot less power than the non-modulating ones, although running them when not necessary still seems bonkers. Sadly I didn't realise about modulating pumps until too late, and the installer had no idea.
r999 said:
As far as I can see, the Wave takes over the boiler stat and keeps the flue temps in the condensing range as much as possible whether or not weather compensation is on.
I don't think it does that, but wouldn't swear to it. However it doesn't make sense - it'll just run the boiler flat out (limited by the boiler 'stat) until the room 'stat is satisfied. Without being in weather comp mode, how would it know to do anything else?Edited by Sheepshanks on Thursday 22 January 21:41
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