Best Wifi enabled thermostat

[Bollah]

Looking for some advise on smart heating. I did look into this a few months, more so around Tado, but when I contacted Tado about the TRV's I had, it seems their system doesn't work with the TRV's, as they had a different style head on it, so gave up on the idea, but that niggle is still there that I'm sure it can be over come.

The current system I have is:

Boiler for hot water and heating
Hot water tank
3 heating zones downstairs for wet UFH with 3 x wired Polypipe thermostats
1 heating zone upstairs (3 x radiators with TRV and 1 central landing rad without TRV) with single thermostats
Wired Honeywell hot water / heating timer.

The TRV that I currently have are Boss TRV's and the pin for the TRV's look like this https://www.heatingcontrolsonline.co.uk/image/cach... which Tado said wouldn't work. I might have discovered that you might be able to get adaptors for this so the smart TRV can use the standard style pin?

Anyway, I know I would need 3 thermostats for downstairs, but trying to understand what I would need for upstairs. I would like to have heating in the spare room Mon - Fri 9-5 for me, as I'm working here, child's room to have heat say from 6 - 9pm and master bedroom to be from 8 - 10pm every evening. From reading about the Tado TRV's that the offset in temp for the TRV on the radiator isn't that great due to the offset, so would I need a thermostat per room to be able to do this? Or would would a different system E.G. Wiser be better for it?

Any pointers would be appreciated

[illmonkey]

May work for you, but others might benefit from the Hive sale

https://www.hivehome.com/?cid=soc.cid_tool=fb.cid_...

[rossyl]

Thanks guys, a positive response for Tado, Wiser and Evohome.

Has anyone had NEGATIVE experiences with their system?

Thanks

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Anyone after an evohome hgi80?

Think I'm done with mine

[dickymint]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

Anyone after an evohome hgi80?

Think I'm done with mine

What you going for next?

[kambites]

rossyl said:

Has anyone had NEGATIVE experiences with their system?

Wiser certainly isn't perfect. A few comments:

1) The TRVs eat batteries (you need to replace them roughly once a year).
2) Some of the more advanced features such as automatic geofencing are missing (although I believe many can be implemented via IFTTT).
3) Occasionally the valves drop off the network for a few seconds, which is fine unless they happen to miss a command to open or close in which case that command never gets pushed again so they stay in the wrong state. In the few years ours has been installed, twice a valve has stuck open when it should have closed and one room has ended up sweltering. This hasn't happened for over a year now though so they might have fixed it.
4) There is no way to program how far the valves open, which means if you put the Wiser TRV head on a cheap "TRV4 clone" body it sometimes wont open far enough to let hot water into the radiator. I had to replace two knock-off bodies with real ones when I installed ours.
5) The room thermostat unit is pretty basic compared to much of the competition. You pretty much have to use the app.
6) They keep changing the app. Usually the changes are for the better but it's a bit annoying that everything keeps moving around!
7) Alexa integration is a bit clunky if you want to use that.

It's enough cheaper than the competition that I certainly don't regret going for it, but it's not perfect. If you keep an eye out for sales, you should be able to get the Wiser TRV heads for about £35, which is considerably cheaper than the others.

ETA: I also found Drayton's customer service to be remarkable the one time I had to use it, which is handy for when things do go wrong.

Edited by kambites on Saturday 8th January 14:22

[Trustmeimadoctor]

dickymint said:

Trustmeimadoctor said:

Anyone after an evohome hgi80?

Think I'm done with mine

What you going for next?

Nowt I bought it to monitor evohome but could never get my domoticz setup working reliably and my evohome just works so yeah


actually ive given it another go its now working! thankfully my linux knowledge has grown since the last time so that helped

Edited by Trustmeimadoctor on Monday 10th January 16:13

[mrpbailey]

An issue with my Wiser radiator thermostat(s).
The one in my daughters bedroom is set to hit 21 degC. Having measured it with a separate thermometer (known to be within 1 degC accurate) it’s only 17.5. Then through the night with heating off, the rad stat will indicate 15 when actual is 17. So it is reading both high and low. If it just read high then I’d simply increase the set point.
Is there a way to calibrate? All my other radiator stats are pretty accurate (max 1.5 degC out).
Swapped stats with a known working one from the kitchen and still have the same issue.
I have read that these rad stats use an algorithm to calculate temperature in the centre of the room rather than just measure the temp next to the radiator.

Also found a couple of radiators hot when not calling for heat, seems the thermostats allowing water to pass

[kambites]

mrpbailey said:

Also found a couple of radiators hot when not calling for heat, seems the thermostats allowing water to pass

Can't help with the first problem (ours all seem to read within a degree or so) but this could be down to them being fitted to TRVs bodies they're not properly compatible with. I had the opposite problem because of this (the valve never actually opening far enough to let water through). The other possibility if that they didn't calibrate their movement properly when you installed them, if you look in the instructions it will tell you how to force them to rerun their calibration.

It does annoy me slightly that you can't buy a simple cheap room thermostat (with no screen, buttons etc.) for Wiser. Not sure if the other systems have such a thing?

Edited by kambites on Monday 10th January 16:13

[mrpbailey]

kambites said:

Can't help with the first problem (ours all seem to read within a degree or so) but this could be down to them being fitted to TRVs bodies they're not properly compatible with. I had the opposite problem because of this (the valve never actually opening far enough to let water through). The other possibility if that they didn't calibrate their movement properly when you installed them, if you look in the instructions it will tell you how to force them to rerun their calibration.

It does annoy me slightly that you can't buy a simple cheap room thermostat (with no screen, buttons etc.) for Wiser. Not sure if the other systems have such a thing?

Edited by kambites on Monday 10th January 16:13

Yeah I have done the calibration by twisting the top again etc, will see if this solves the ones that are passing.
I think the only way I will be able to sort the inaccurate temp in daughters room is to put a wall stat in there as well, but as you say these aren’t exactly cheap! Agree with you they should make a basic one just for this purpose

[InfamousK]

I seem to be having a bit of difficulty with my boiler/Nest.
I've called out Gasway multiple times as my heating is temperamental (this morning it isn't working) and they keep pointing at the Nest saying that the Nest Thermostat isn't working, if it was the boiler there'd be an error message showing on the boiler I'm told, Vaillant Ecotec combi by the way.
I have spoken to Nest support and they couldn't find a fault but they advised me to contact a Nest Pro. I called out a Pro and they came the next day and he confirmed that there was no fault you can hear the Heatlink clicks away when trying to turn the heating on, be phone or thermostat or by manually turning the Heatlink on.
Gasway were supposed to come out on Thursday (day after the Nest Pro came out) and because the heating was working he refused to come out...

I'm in a bit of a pickle, anyone got any idea here?
Surely a Nest Thermostat cannot be temperamental, it either works or it doesn't?

[Harry Flashman]

AstonZagato said:

Any advice on installers? I'd like to do this but I'd want someone who knows what they are doing as I have a very complex system (over 40 rads).

Which system do you want to go for? I have a complex setup with 22 zones and just over 30rads as well. This required two Evohome controllers as each can only do 12 zones.

You can have up to four rads in a zone though.

As for installers, this is the great drawback with the system. Installers seem like hen's teeth and as I discovered when I reset the system by mistake, binding and intalling it is an absolute pig. And their curtomer service is nonexistent, as their business model is for professional installers to be paid to do this for customers.

The system has been faultless in operation. But the discovery of poor support has been an eye-opener. It only happened once, and it was due to my mistake rather than the system failing, but it was a nightmare.

I posted a thread on here with the (ridiculous) procedure required to re-bind the system, in case it happened to so eone else. My installer was amazing, he was unavailable, overseas on holiday, but talked me through it on the phone. Nothing helpful to be found on line, and Honeywell neither answered E-mails nor picked up the phone.

In the meantime, I heated the house for a few days by firing the relays manually - so I didn't really suffer, as such. Boiler relays still hard wired so you could hit the button and get heat.

Edited by Harry Flashman on Saturday 15th January 08:48

[journeymanpro]

InfamousK said:

I seem to be having a bit of difficulty with my boiler/Nest.
I've called out Gasway multiple times as my heating is temperamental (this morning it isn't working) and they keep pointing at the Nest saying that the Nest Thermostat isn't working, if it was the boiler there'd be an error message showing on the boiler I'm told, Vaillant Ecotec combi by the way.
I have spoken to Nest support and they couldn't find a fault but they advised me to contact a Nest Pro. I called out a Pro and they came the next day and he confirmed that there was no fault you can hear the Heatlink clicks away when trying to turn the heating on, be phone or thermostat or by manually turning the Heatlink on.
Gasway were supposed to come out on Thursday (day after the Nest Pro came out) and because the heating was working he refused to come out...

I'm in a bit of a pickle, anyone got any idea here?
Surely a Nest Thermostat cannot be temperamental, it either works or it doesn't?

You need to check that the boiler is getting the demand for heat.

[InfamousK]

journeymanpro said:

InfamousK said:

I seem to be having a bit of difficulty with my boiler/Nest.
I've called out Gasway multiple times as my heating is temperamental (this morning it isn't working) and they keep pointing at the Nest saying that the Nest Thermostat isn't working, if it was the boiler there'd be an error message showing on the boiler I'm told, Vaillant Ecotec combi by the way.
I have spoken to Nest support and they couldn't find a fault but they advised me to contact a Nest Pro. I called out a Pro and they came the next day and he confirmed that there was no fault you can hear the Heatlink clicks away when trying to turn the heating on, be phone or thermostat or by manually turning the Heatlink on.
Gasway were supposed to come out on Thursday (day after the Nest Pro came out) and because the heating was working he refused to come out...

I'm in a bit of a pickle, anyone got any idea here?
Surely a Nest Thermostat cannot be temperamental, it either works or it doesn't?

You need to check that the boiler is getting the demand for heat.

The Nest Pro said on his report "System works as it should be, Whenever calling for heat from app/thermostat or heat link boiler always activates. Again when call for heat not there boiler switches itself off"

Obviously as luck would have it everything was working as it should on the day he came to look at the Nest.

Is there a simple task I could do myself to check that the boiler is receiving the demand for heat?

Edited by InfamousK on Saturday 15th January 11:02

[InfamousK]

InfamousK said:

journeymanpro said:

InfamousK said:

I seem to be having a bit of difficulty with my boiler/Nest.
I've called out Gasway multiple times as my heating is temperamental (this morning it isn't working) and they keep pointing at the Nest saying that the Nest Thermostat isn't working, if it was the boiler there'd be an error message showing on the boiler I'm told, Vaillant Ecotec combi by the way.
I have spoken to Nest support and they couldn't find a fault but they advised me to contact a Nest Pro. I called out a Pro and they came the next day and he confirmed that there was no fault you can hear the Heatlink clicks away when trying to turn the heating on, be phone or thermostat or by manually turning the Heatlink on.
Gasway were supposed to come out on Thursday (day after the Nest Pro came out) and because the heating was working he refused to come out...

I'm in a bit of a pickle, anyone got any idea here?
Surely a Nest Thermostat cannot be temperamental, it either works or it doesn't?

You need to check that the boiler is getting the demand for heat.

The Nest Pro said on his report "System works as it should be, Whenever calling for heat from app/thermostat or heat link boiler always activates. Again when call for heat not there boiler switches itself off"

Obviously as luck would have it everything was working as it should on the day he came to look at the Nest.

Is there a simple task I could do myself to check that the boiler is receiving the demand for heat?

Edited by InfamousK on Saturday 15th January 11:02

Update: Went out for a drive, come back at 1530 and it decides to come on.

[AW10]

I don't know the Nest system very well but one comment you made about it coming on when you came home - do you use the geo location function and is there an issue on your phone such that the Nest app thinks you're not at home when you in fact are? Is your home's location set correctly within the Nest app?

[Gary C]

mrpbailey said:

An issue with my Wiser radiator thermostat(s).
The one in my daughters bedroom is set to hit 21 degC. Having measured it with a separate thermometer (known to be within 1 degC accurate) it’s only 17.5. Then through the night with heating off, the rad stat will indicate 15 when actual is 17. So it is reading both high and low. If it just read high then I’d simply increase the set point.
Is there a way to calibrate? All my other radiator stats are pretty accurate (max 1.5 degC out).
Swapped stats with a known working one from the kitchen and still have the same issue.
I have read that these rad stats use an algorithm to calculate temperature in the centre of the room rather than just measure the temp next to the radiator.

Also found a couple of radiators hot when not calling for heat, seems the thermostats allowing water to pass

The room temp is never quite accurate because your measuring it right next to a heat source so it picks up some radiant heat. You need to set it by trial and error to match the room temp you want.
Its also worth making sure the water temperature isn't too high as that can cause cycling, especially if you have heavy radiators that radiate heat for quite a while after the water flow is cut off.

Best way is to have a room stat that can command the TRV's which is possible with the Tado system.

[AW10]

mrpbailey said:

Also found a couple of radiators hot when not calling for heat, seems the thermostats allowing water to pass

Make sure they're firmly attached - you should not be able to easily rotate the TRV body.

I had one that was letting water through and found that it could be rocked back and forth slightly while all others seemed firmly fixed in place. The Wiser helpdesk recommended getting it replaced under warranty which I did and the new one solved the problem.

[kambites]

Gary C said:

Best way is to have a room stat that can command the TRV's which is possible with the Tado system.

It is with Wiser too, but the 'stat is £70 which is rather a lot!

[Gary C]

kambites said:

Gary C said:

Best way is to have a room stat that can command the TRV's which is possible with the Tado system.

It is with Wiser too, but the 'stat is £70 which is rather a lot!

It is, but cheaper than the Tado one