Smart heating

TheLodger said:
You can now get £5k towards the £12k outlay so less than £7k and still get the whole of the £12k back over 6 years, with the new Green homes grant scheme.
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Like the though and would be good but just to expensive outlay at this point. Just had a quick check and the estimate is £14k so even with the £5k grant still need to pay £9k up front...

I am toying with idea of smart thermostats been expensive at £300 or so
 
The_Big_Woodowski said:
Do any of these allow me to say:

8 till 10 I want a temp of 20
10 till 6 I want temp of 1
7 till 8 I want temp of 18

I have also looked at the valves and they are so much more expensive than a regular valve. Sound a good idea if want to to control temperature in each room but struggle to justify the price for what it is.

As you all appear to be in to tech, has anybody any smart lighting? I am in middles of an extension and looking at this as an option
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Yes I have all the lighting.
 
TheLodger said:
You can now get £5k towards the £12k outlay so less than £7k and still get the whole of the £12k back over 6 years, with the new Green homes grant scheme.
Click to expand...
I was just reading today about the number of companies that are pulling out of this scheme, because it's been outsourced to the US and they're not getting paid.
 
BoroBosco said:
I have the Honeywell Evohome system with control of every radiator in the house.

It is expensive but it allows you to set the temperature in every room independently at any time you want & can be operated from your phone, pc or smart speaker.

To get it to work at its best you need a boiler with opentherm

Must add that it doesn't stop thermostat wars with the wife in fact it probably makes it worse.
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Have a look at genius hub. Did exactly this but with much better support than Hive does.

British firm based in Birmingham area and very very good product even though its not the cheapest
 
The_Big_Woodowski said:
With the lighting what do you get from it? I am not convinced that both the heating and lighting are just expensive gimmicks. Are they any better that traditional lights/ thermostats?
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The heating is certainly more convenient as it’s relatively cheap and allows you to control the heating from anywhere in the world. Including your bed, so if you’re cold at night you can address that without having to go downstairs to adjust the thermostats and/or timer, the whole system is controlled by your phone.

As for the lights, well they’re certainly a little bit of a gimmick but they’re quite useful instead of traditional timers etc and you do get used to them being on a schedule etc. For instance, my son is too short to turn the light on in his playroom but he asks Alexa to do it for him. Not as if life would be unbearable without it but the bulbs are actually really long life and not that expensive. We only have a few and I wouldn’t vehemently insist that someone should get them, but if you’re into your gadgets like me they’re ok.

But for heating, I’d say it’s a genuinely very useful tool.
 
Another hive customer. I love being able to put the heating on by phone when we are out. Decent customer service although I did have to have a row with them to get a new one when it stopped working just before the warranty ran out.
 
It's something most people don't really need and something else to look after and worry about hacking etc.

I found it useful for my mother's house when she had mobilty problems and could no longer manage, but that was predictably for a limited time only.
 
Nest is a better product than the hive especially being open therm .
Hive is a BG product, they tend to be less helpful when there’s a fault unless yiur a BG customer.
The nest requires power , so you can either use a stand and plug it in a wall or use old stat wires .
The hive has a basic display so doesn’t require mains power you can just use AA batteries .
Most customers like both stats especially compared their old one . The nest being more of a solid unit, the bloke who designed the iPhone designed it .
Smart trv’s are a costly item , st say £50 x6 would you buy them on the basis you might need to replace them min once in ten years ?
 
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Had hive in old house, installed nest in new house, of the two massively prefer nest, hive may have changed but it used to be come in at X go off at Y. Nest you set it to be a temp at a time and it knows how long it takes to get to that temperature and comes on in time to get you to that temp, which i vastly prefer

I have the smoke alarms around the house, as well as 3 nest cameras and like how it’s all in one app. The cameras recognise people so tell you the post lady is at the door etc. Smoke alarms and cameras both give push notifications and app access

Also had a nightmare with BG as they damaged my heating system installing it and wouldn’t admit to liability so it cost us £150 for a repair. Had a few brief issues with nest but they’ve been quick to resolve.

Ultimately comes down to cost and which features you will make the most of and if you would expand it to other devices, look at what each company offers

To comment on lighting etc every bulb in our house apart from the en suite and downstairs bog is a hue full colour bulb. We also have garden lights and light strips in garden, behind desks, lights behind tv etc and behind sideboard unit that sort of thing. They don’t have to be on colour but we do use the colours quite a lot

Everything is controlled by voice or motion sensor. We have wall switches still and they work for off on if needed, but we rarely use them. Lights are grouped and we have routines written in Alexa, and via Harmony, to automate things. For example to watch a film on Nvidia shield, it’ll turn on the tv, switch to the right hdmi input on the receiver, set volume level, turn on the Nvidia shield and if it’s dark, set the lights to an appropriate level.

We’ve got routines for all sorts, and at night motion sensors trigger the lights for us. We have ones that boost the heating for x amount of time, or that turn on all sonos devices and my receiver which is linked and starts a playlist etc. There is also geofencing so we turn on the hall and kitchen lights once it gets dark once we are within 500m of the house so that we can bring shopping in easily, and turn off heating or lights when we leave the house, other then home presence mimicking routines

Coloured lights can sync to music when we have friends over, tv lights sync to content in the screen and my pc lights do the same. Pc and home cinema setups are both pretty high end and adds to the experience

I also have a stream deck on my pc so can trigger much of this at the push of a button, or can use apps but it’s 99% Alexa. For which there is an Alexa device in every room. There are cheaper smart lights out there then hue but hue are consistent, good customer service and huge product range to choose from. Compatible with zigbee so lidl smart plugs work with them (we used to control the Christmas tree, and I use one for some non-smart garden lights and also my neon sign in my office)

None of this is needed or essential, but we like having this level of automation.

I take advantage of deals;multi buys, ebay codes, buy used and do topcashback so hasn’t really cost me a huge deal.
 
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I have a NEST as part of my SMART home and love it, I have it linked to SMART radiator valves too so I can heat each room independently. Its all setup to my GOOGLE Home as well which I have ring fenced to a 3 mile radius of my home, this then detects my proximity to my house using GOOGLE Maps and turns the heating on so I come home to to a warm house and turns it off when I go out of that radius.

I do love new tech tbh and the NEST is the second best bit of tech I have, the best is the WiFi washing machine that I can set to start when im out and I come home the the spin cycle ending......it means that I dont have washing sat damp for hours.
 
Jonny2773 said:
I have a NEST as part of my SMART home and love it, I have it linked to SMART radiator valves too so I can heat each room independently. Its all setup to my GOOGLE Home as well which I have ring fenced to a 3 mile radius of my home, this then detects my proximity to my house using GOOGLE Maps and turns the heating on so I come home to to a warm house and turns it off when I go out of that radius.

I do love new tech tbh and the NEST is the second best bit of tech I have, the best is the WiFi washing machine that I can set to start when im out and I come home the the spin cycle ending......it means that I dont have washing sat damp for hours.
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The one downside to nest is there is no “boost” option like every thermostat I’ve ever had and it’s intentional because they want you to use the learning functionality, which when we had enabled made our gas bill rocket, as came on all the time so turned it off and we heat as we need it.

If you haven’t done so it’s easy to create an Alexa routine that puts it in for an hour and then turns it off, really useful 👌🏻
 
The_Big_Woodowski said:
Do any of these allow me to say:

8 till 10 I want a temp of 20
10 till 6 I want temp of 1
7 till 8 I want temp of 18

I have also looked at the valves and they are so much more expensive than a regular valve. Sound a good idea if want to to control temperature in each room but struggle to justify the price for what it is.

As you all appear to be in to tech, has anybody any smart lighting? I am in middles of an extension and looking at this as an option
Click to expand...

I have my whole downstairs setup with SMART lighting. Buying the Hue bulbs can be quite expensive so what I did is bought a Hue starter kit that contains a Hue Hub and 2 lights, the rest of the lights are IKEA Tradfri bulbs, they are a third of the price of Philips colour bulbs and run off the same Zigbee system to communicate.
 
If anyone wants to make some thing smart controlled look at sonoff. It just a small cheap device you can add to an application, not really for for adding to a stat though but i have seen it done .
 
Jonny2773 said:
I have my whole downstairs setup with SMART lighting. Buying the Hue bulbs can be quite expensive so what I did is bought a Hue starter kit that contains a Hue Hub and 2 lights, the rest of the lights are IKEA Tradfri bulbs, they are a third of the price of Philips colour bulbs and run off the same Zigbee system to communicate.
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There are also lidl smart plugs and lights which are compatible. The plugs at £7 are great value! Light strips for £14.99

For most bulbs I prefer hue for the good warranty and knowing they will be consistent with the other products, but for some things like guestroom I’m less picky

One drawback though is none hue items can’t be used for hue sync / entertainment areas. It’s small for most people but worth knowing. They don’t all behave same way as hue so although compatible you will get different dimming behaviour or colours so best to stick to one system in room.

Deals on starter kits are to be had all the time, and can be picked up for less on fb marketplace. Never paid full price for anything hue tbh
 
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The_Big_Woodowski said:
Do any of these allow me to say:

8 till 10 I want a temp of 20
10 till 6 I want temp of 1
7 till 8 I want temp of 18

I have also looked at the valves and they are so much more expensive than a regular valve. Sound a good idea if want to to control temperature in each room but struggle to justify the price for what it is.

As you all appear to be in to tech, has anybody any smart lighting? I am in middles of an extension and looking at this as an option
Click to expand...


You can do it by time schedule, and you can turn it off when but home. You can adjust the temp manually either on the thermostat device, app or voice assistant or set triggers like motion, times, when certain things Happen etc

We have a ten minute routine for when our 17 year old Bengal cats get rowdy as they settle down in front of the radiator in their cat bed, works every time.

If so inclined you can even link in with IFTTT to turn water on when you finish a workout (if you have tank system), or heat up when outside temp goes below certain Level etc there are all sorts of things you can do

Nest can usually be had quit cheap on eBay brand new, we paid £50 to get it fitted
 
The_Big_Woodowski said:
With the lighting what do you get from it? I am not convinced that both the heating and lighting are just expensive gimmicks. Are they any better that traditional lights/ thermostats?
Click to expand...
I have the Hive and it works really well for me as I can put the thermostat in the room I am sitting in rather than in the hall where it used to be. My heating was installed many moons ago before I moved in and how they have plumbed it means I cant have thermostatic valves on the radiators so this option works well.
I have a hive light I use when away on holiday (remember those days eh?) and puts my light on and off during the day. I also have a table lamp in my main room which comes on when at work in the dark nights and goes off at 11 pm regardless of me being there or not (I know it can be done by a timer but it is easier to set it up on the iPhone). I also like messing with the light when working away and changing the tone of the light just to scare the Mrs. Now she just calls me to tell me I am a **** when I do this which amuses me :). Little things eh?
 
Anton_Berg said:
I found it useful for my mother's house when she had mobilty problems and could no longer manage.
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Same. Mine was always complaining about the temperature in the house. We'd go round & the house would be glowing white hot and other times it would be freezing. Installed Nest & were able to ensure it was pleasant for them 24/7.
 
TheFair86 said:
There are also lidl smart plugs and lights which are compatible. The plugs at £7 are great value! Light strips for £14.99

For most bulbs I prefer hue for the good warranty and knowing they will be consistent with the other products, but for some things like guestroom I’m less picky

One drawback though is none hue items can’t be used for hue sync / entertainment areas. It’s small for most people but worth knowing. They don’t all behave same way as hue so although compatible you will get different dimming behaviour or colours so best to stick to one system in room.

Deals on starter kits are to be had all the time, and can be picked up for less on fb marketplace. Never paid full price for anything hue tbh
Click to expand...

The entertainment zone thing is the only issue I have and I intend to change to a full hue setup in the living room when I get my next TV, needless to say it will be a Philips with Ambiview :)
 
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