Best Wifi enabled thermostat

[simion_levi]

paulrockliffe said:

Don't understand why you would buy any of them if they don't have Geolocation. I've never looked at the alternatives as I bought Tado when it first came out, so I'm surprised Nest doesn't have geolocation, it's the difference between it being able to have the heat on when you need it and just pissing in the wind.

Though you're right with working from home, it's less important. Think I managed 2 hours in Away mode last month. It's not as big a waste of money as the burglar alarm though!

Does Nest really just guess when you'll be at home? That can't be right surely? If one company knew when you were at home or not it's Google!

Nest does do geolocation, if you give it permission. Google know where you are and of course they use that functionality! I can see events in the Nest log for either me or my wife's phone arriving home or going away, this triggers heating events.

It doesn't do geofencing - you are either Home or Away, not "10 miles away but looks like you might be on your way home, so I'll turn the heating on for you automatically". But you can turn on remotely in the App, of course.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/92624...


EDIT: I do appreciate I may be using those words inappropriately, but the substance is correct! Boundary for Nest is just 'home', not a user definable geofence further away.

Edited by simion_levi on Thursday 1st October 20:39

[LocoBlade]

paralla said:

The Tado algorithm uses your location, the inside temperature, the outside temperature, the setpoint and the information it's learned from the rate of rise and decay of the temperature in your house to determine the heating capacity and insulation effectiveness to determine the most efficient heating strategy that has the temperature desired when you arrive home.

In my opinion it's a far better way to heat your home to your desired temperature using near to real time inputs rather than historical data of when you walked past a sensor on the front of your thermostat.

Surely geolocation is only useful if everyone in the house travels a decent distance from the house on a regular basis? If you only work 3 miles down the road or stay local when going out then its not going to have time to react to heat the house when you leave for home, whereas something that learns that you walk in the door most days at 5pm might do a better job.

[Trustmeimadoctor]

You can get them to change the distances it operates at

[devnull]

Has anyone connected their evohome to a really old boiler? Last Black Friday, I picked up a very good priced complete evohome setup for my home with the intention of shelving it until the spring which was when I was going to revamp the central heating, including the boiler.

I have a 40 year old thorn Olympic connected to a Drayton RTC thermostat. It’s a 5/6 wire system as opposed to the usual 3 wire.

Given that evohome simply turns the boiler on and off, it should be easy....right?

[LocoBlade]

C2Red said:

Quick Q.

I’m keen to do his and integrate into home assistant, or SmartThings, but one thing I’ve searched for and not been able to find a definitive answer to is.
The thermostat just controls the room temp, and then shuts off he boiler; now on my Vaillant boiler , there’s a Vsmart system that looks ok, but it’s only a stat, not a programmer, it’s supposed to do hot water as well, but how on earth does it swing the 3 port to change from rads to hot water cylinder heating.

Clueless would like some help please.

Are you sure it's not a programmable room stat? I dont know anything about modern Vaillant controls but we had to bypass the ~2009 vintage Vaillant control box etc when we installed Hive and just put regular boiler control electrics in instead, it uses some kind of canbus system to talk to the boiler that third party controls can't connect into.

[LocoBlade]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

You can get them to change the distances it operates at

Yep I understand that, but if you're only ever a maximum of 10-15 minutes from home and it takes half an hour to heat the house to the desired temperature it's obviously not going to get to the desired temperature in time.

[C2Red]

LocoBlade said:

C2Red said:

Quick Q.

I’m keen to do his and integrate into home assistant, or SmartThings, but one thing I’ve searched for and not been able to find a definitive answer to is.
The thermostat just controls the room temp, and then shuts off he boiler; now on my Vaillant boiler , there’s a Vsmart system that looks ok, but it’s only a stat, not a programmer, it’s supposed to do hot water as well, but how on earth does it swing the 3 port to change from rads to hot water cylinder heating.

Clueless would like some help please.

Are you sure it's not a programmable room stat? I dont know anything about modern Vaillant controls but we had to bypass the ~2009 vintage Vaillant control box etc when we installed Hive and just put regular boiler control electrics in instead, it uses some kind of canbus system to talk to the boiler that third party controls can't connect into.

Programmable yes, but only by setting temperatures for times of day, so not in the conventional sense, I still don’t understand how it can swing the 3 way port to operate the water cylinder.
The boiler has separate temp control for central heating and water, so that’s easy, but in a Honeywell y plan (I think) there’s a 3 port to divert the boiler water; as part of their e- bus system, which apparently is built on the Netatmo devices, I am clueless about how it can divert the heat demand

[Trustmeimadoctor]

LocoBlade said:

Trustmeimadoctor said:

You can get them to change the distances it operates at

Yep I understand that, but if you're only ever a maximum of 10-15 minutes from home and it takes half an hour to heat the house to the desired temperature it's obviously not going to get to the desired temperature in time.

Imho the geolocation is only really of use for turning it off not on

[LocoBlade]

C2Red said:

Programmable yes, but only by setting temperatures for times of day, so not in the conventional sense, I still don’t understand how it can swing the 3 way port to operate the water cylinder.
The boiler has separate temp control for central heating and water, so that’s easy, but in a Honeywell y plan (I think) there’s a 3 port to divert the boiler water; as part of their e- bus system, which apparently is built on the Netatmo devices, I am clueless about how it can divert the heat demand

What I meant is does it not have programmable channels for both heating and water? Is it one of these as this suggests it does both? https://www.vaillant.co.uk/homeowners/products/vai...

[dodsi2000]

My conundrum is now Hive Vs Tado

I have recently moved from a 2 bed flat to a 4 bed house over 3 storeys in my old flat I had a nest which worked perfectly well in that setting However as there is still just 3 of us in this house it would be great to ‘zone’ the heating somewhat so I want a system with smart TRVs.

Which is the ‘better’ system between Hive and Tado?

Can both of the systems TRVs call for heat from the boiler if that room drops below the set temp on the TRV?

I’m aware that Tado charge a £3/month for geolocation etc features.

Any help/guidance I would really appreciate.

[Mattt]

If you buy a Tado V3 rather than V3+ bridge off eBay you shouldn’t need to pay the subscription fee.

I would price up the two systems and see, bear in mind it’s Prime Day soon so I would hold off buying till then.

[paulrockliffe]

I think I said earlier in the thread last week that the location pre-heat thing isn't good on Tado. Not really sure how it can be better other than integrating with a calendar app and you putting in your movements or something. Which isn't really the ethos.

It's not just that if you can get home quicker than it can hear the house, it's that it doesn't know when you're coming home and if you move closer to home or can't really assume you're then on your way home.

There's an eco setting that has a few levels to it, or interacts with the early heating in two ways, if you set the house to 20 from 6pm the most eco setting will not hear the house until 6pm, the least eco will heat so that it hits 20 at 6, using the external temperature and the learned heading rate at that temp.

It works with the geolocation to change the minimum temperature of the house, offsetting upwards from your set temperature the closet your are to home. So if you set it to 14 and you're on the next village it's might keep it at 17, if you're on the otherwise of the country it'll let the house drop to 14.

Not sure if it's a good feature or not, I don't use it as the pre heat function means the boiler will wake me at 5am in the winter, so I have Eco turned to the max to avoid that!

I wouldn't buy Tado based on that but if the geolocation, but having it automatically flick between away on home mode of there's people in our not is great.

[Dan_1981]

dodsi2000 said:

My conundrum is now Hive Vs Tado

I have recently moved from a 2 bed flat to a 4 bed house over 3 storeys in my old flat I had a nest which worked perfectly well in that setting However as there is still just 3 of us in this house it would be great to ‘zone’ the heating somewhat so I want a system with smart TRVs.

Which is the ‘better’ system between Hive and Tado?

Can both of the systems TRVs call for heat from the boiler if that room drops below the set temp on the TRV?

I’m aware that Tado charge a £3/month for geolocation etc features.

Any help/guidance I would really appreciate.

As I understand it and from my numerous posts on the subject it seems that the hive system can not call direct from the boiler. The main stat already has to be calling

So in effect you use the smart trv to keep the temp lower in some rooms.

Which to me seems very counter intuitive!

[dodsi2000]

Dan_1981 said:

dodsi2000 said:

My conundrum is now Hive Vs Tado

I have recently moved from a 2 bed flat to a 4 bed house over 3 storeys in my old flat I had a nest which worked perfectly well in that setting However as there is still just 3 of us in this house it would be great to ‘zone’ the heating somewhat so I want a system with smart TRVs.

Which is the ‘better’ system between Hive and Tado?

Can both of the systems TRVs call for heat from the boiler if that room drops below the set temp on the TRV?

I’m aware that Tado charge a £3/month for geolocation etc features.

Any help/guidance I would really appreciate.

As I understand it and from my numerous posts on the subject it seems that the hive system can not call direct from the boiler. The main stat already has to be calling

So in effect you use the smart trv to keep the temp lower in some rooms.

Which to me seems very counter intuitive!

Perfect! Thanks for this - it’s really what I wanted to know! The Tado can call direct from the boiler?

[dickymint]

paralla said:

number2 said:

That's what NEST does. You need to tell it what time you want the temp to be at.

Does Tado know how long it's going to take you to get home from any given location, and then adjust the time it turns the heating on based on this information in addition to the rest?

Yes it does. Tado uses the location of all the smartpnones registered on the account to determine when you are at home. Nest uses a motion detector on the front of the thermostat.

Tado can see you are on your way home and turn the heat on earlier if it's a particularly cold day, if it was warmer but heat was still required to get your house to the set point it would come on when you were slightly nearer to home. Nest would do whatever it did yesterday or what it had "learned" that your heat requirements had historically been.

If everybody leaves our flat Tado see's that and will turn the heat off immediately. Systems that don't have geolocation don't do that.

Edited by paralla on Thursday 1st October 17:01

Also with Tado you can define the area where it thinks you are "home" .......... very useful when i'm sat in my local having an after work pint and Wifey sees I'm "at home"

[paulrockliffe]

dodsi2000 said:

Perfect! Thanks for this - it’s really what I wanted to know! The Tado can call direct from the boiler?

Yes. You can also now use the wireless thermostats to control the radiator valve, so you don't have to rely on the temperature sensor that's next to the radiator where it's often unable to be representative of the actual room temperature. Though obviously that has an additional kit cost.

Personally I'm not overly fussed about the smart TRV approach for a few reasons; it's another level beyond knowing when you'll be in the house, you need to also know when you'll be in which bit of the house. Unless you keep the doors closed, drafts all sealed, insulate floors and internal walls then heat is going to move around the house, particularly around stairs, so the temperature differences you can achieve is limited. Then unless you're not going to use a room at all for days, it's just going to be colder when you do want to use it, so you need to pile more heat in. And of course unless you'd planned to use the room you'll be annoyed that it's cold when you first go in. The boiler may not cycle down well enough to supply only a single room or a few rooms, so heating small areas may not be practical in any case. The last thing is that it's all or nothing; you need to shell out for the TRVs for all the rooms as it works by turning radiators off; the radiator that calls for heat also needs to be able to shut all the other rads, or there's no zoning.

So I think on balance unless you have a more niche use most houses would be better just fitting zone valves at the boiler on controlling temperature at individual floor level where being able to set different temperatures makes more sense. Broadly, we run warmer downstairs as people get up and go downstairs and the heat slowly rises up so it never needs to be super hot upstairs. Then we just heat the loft during the day in the week as that's where we work, the rest of the house is unheated until the kids come back from school etc. The zoning has a broad effect on how we heat the hose, but it's as much about managing the way heat moves around as anything else. Heating in the loft really just gets it up to temperature quicker as it catches the heat from the rest of the house so would be fine without any heating at all.

That's three zone valves and two extra thermostats on a 5 bed three story house vs 12 smart TRVs too.

[dickymint]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

You can get them to change the distances it operates at

You can do that yourself by setting the Home Area in settings. You can also fool the system by entering a different post code as your home address.

[BigBen]

paulrockliffe said:

Personally I'm not overly fussed about the smart TRV approach for a few reasons; it's another level beyond knowing when you'll be in the house, you need to also know when you'll be in which bit of the house. Unless you keep the doors closed, drafts all sealed, insulate floors and internal walls then heat is going to move around the house, particularly around stairs, so the temperature differences you can achieve is limited. Then unless you're not going to use a room at all for days, it's just going to be colder when you do want to use it, so you need to pile more heat in. And of course unless you'd planned to use the room you'll be annoyed that it's cold when you first go in. The boiler may not cycle down well enough to supply only a single room or a few rooms, so heating small areas may not be practical in any case. The last thing is that it's all or nothing; you need to shell out for the TRVs for all the rooms as it works by turning radiators off; the radiator that calls for heat also needs to be able to shut all the other rads, or there's no zoning.

That's three zone valves and two extra thermostats on a 5 bed three story house vs 12 smart TRVs too.

I think what you are saying makes sense for the main living areas of a house but in my case I have spare bedrooms that I almost never go in, likewise a 'formal' dining room. Really no point heating these spaces unless you have guests coming or it is Christmas dinner time.

I have wiser TRVs on all the radiators, excepting on in each zone which is required for flow as per regular TRVs.

Ben

[MiniMan64]

We had a wireless Honeywell thermostat put in with a new combi boiler nearly 9 years ago and it’s worked great for us. Unfortunately it now seems to failing, it works fine with the boiler but frequently ‘cuts out’ and loses track of the correct time. The buttons also appear to be failing, it often doesn’t respond with a proper mashing. The other half is getting rather frustrated as she lacks the necessary button mashing force.

It would seem therefore a replacement is required and Smart seems to be the way. We’ve an Alexa and a tele but nothing else smart-wise at the moment in the house.

a) what is the best option? Hive?
b) are there wireless smart options?
c) I assume the boiler is going to need some hardware added?
d) is this something I can have a go at myself?

[guindilias]

BigBen said:

I think what you are saying makes sense for the main living areas of a house but in my case I have spare bedrooms that I almost never go in, likewise a 'formal' dining room. Really no point heating these spaces unless you have guests coming or it is Christmas dinner time.

I have wiser TRVs on all the radiators, excepting on in each zone which is required for flow as per regular TRVs.

Ben

You probably already have one, but you need a bypass valve for the boiler. When there is nowhere to pump, it just pumps round back into the boiler. But you shouldn't really need one - if you have your smart setup linked to the boiler, it won't be pumping or firing unless a TRV calls for it.