Hive active thermostat
 

Guys

Do any of you have one of these installed?

My house is an old house, with a Danfoss set1e timer for the oil fired boiler.
I really want to have WIFI enabled heating control via an app on a smartphone.

I'm really just looking to hear peoples views on these, I'd prefer hive over nest, primarily as the hive unit can be battery powered, whereas the nest unit requires a power source.

Cheers

I have 3 of them in different houses.Works fine with an oil fired or gas combi boiler. In one of the houses I have 2 zones, so separate temps for different areas (2nd zone controls a pump on/off), a couple of lights for security purposes & it controls (via a relay I got my plumber to fit) the immersion.

All works well. Thermostat controller batteries last about a year but you get email reminders. App is easy to use. I don't use geofencing but it is there so handy if you wanted to. I haven't used any of the additional products as yet. You get good support as well.

Only gripe is that I can't amalgamate the Hive products with anything else, like z-wave, so as to add in or use with other controllers or sensors.

Not really wifi, internet is from the controller to your router via ethernet and the devices themselves are in the 2405 - 2480 MHz range.

Cheers, did on the oil fired boilers you have, I presume you just replaced the timer then.
I know what you are saying about WIFI, but remote control is the key.

The other attraction for me is hive have a heating only thermostat, which is perfect in my case, as I can't separate heating/hot water as such via the boiler, if the heating is on, you get heat and hot water.

As stupid as it sounds, I'm struggling to find a person to talk to about whether hive will be suitable for my setup.

Option 1) On the oil fired boiler I can set the hot water tank to being on or off - either at will or via schedule. It has a built in thermostat that cuts out at max temp and will turn the boiler off (if not being required for heating). Obviously that is a safety feature so if I presume you have a hot water tank over there, that will be the way it works. Hot Water always take priority to Heating if both on.

For heating, the Hive is controlled by the variable thermostat to get to/stop the temp set. Uses the same idea - once reached, turn off. Again operation controlled by schedule or manually.

Option 2) If you were to have a HW on demand boiler (aka Combi Boiler) then you will only have the thermostatic control for the space heating as HW is always "on" when "demanded" by turning the taps.

The Hive comes with a Receiver unit, a Thermostat unit and a Controller unit. The Receiver sits next to the boiler and works either/both the HW and the Heating. Thermostat is for room heating and Controller connects to the internet and manages signals to the Thermostat and Receiver (+ any other Hive things you have). With Option 1, there are 2 icons on the app to control - HW which is on/off and Heating which is temperature. With Option 2, there is only Heating icon

(In another house I have an ASHP. I use the Hive to control the temp of that only as I can't get it to switch HW on/off. Instead I have a relay to use the HW switch to turn on an immersion. As it goes, I turn the ASHP hot water off manually when I leave the place and don't use the immersion. I turn it back on when I return and HW soon heats up).

I have a system from Netatmo. I live in an apartment with a central heating system, so we don't have individual thermostats, just a metering system on the radiator inlet to divide the heating costs for each apartment. The Netatmo system consists of a central hub (with or without thermostat control) and individual radiator smart-valves. The control app is very good and provides you with all the info and allows you to configure various schedules with individual room temperature settings. Access is via the web, so you can still fully control your system remotely - very useful when you go on holiday and forget to set it to "frost guard" before you leave! There is also an "away" setting that lets you override the current schedule if you go out. For both "frost guard" and "away", you can set a return time and date and the heating will automatically switch on so you come back to a warm house.

I also have the Netatmo weather station and the smart heating system uses your own outdoor sensor and data from their network of outdoor temperature sensors to predict temperature changes and more efficiently control your heating.

Now on my second winter with the system and so far very impressed. My heating costs last Winter were down around 35% compared to previous years although last winter was pretty mild here. I'd estimate on average I'll save around 25% ish compared to the standard thermostatic valves I had before. Obviously I can't comment on how well it works with integration to a thermostat/boiler, but for my case I'm very pleased with it and will certainly have fully recovered my investment by the end of this winter.

Have spoken to a colleague whose brother in law installed hive. He said its working ok now, but still has dropouts. He said the customer service with hive is not good.
I've spoken with a local electrician, he has told me that nest is the best of the whole lot as far as he is concerned, so I reckon I'm going to go with nest.

:cry:

I have the Nest and it's very good, also have the outdoor camera which is excellent. As you say it's supposed to be plugged in, but it's USB so I have temporarily plugged it into a battery pack before. It has an internal battery but it's hours not days. The only downside is it doesn't work with Siri :cry:

Electrician coming to connect it all up on Wednesday. I got a good deal from screwfix. The electrician said to me they were doing a deal in which you got a free stand with the unit.
Turns out that was in December only, but they were discounted down to £178, and they gave me a few quid off the stand, so both cost me £203.
I already have the Ring floodlight camera, and one of their video door bell 2 units, so am well covered on that front.

All setup no bother. The electrician said that he's fitted Hive/Honeywell & 100's of Nest units, and that they are definitely the best of the lot as far as he is concerned.
Says he was one of the first approved installers in N.Ireland, he's never been called back because of device fault, only calls he gets are user errors.
Should anyone from N.Ireland be looking for an installer, then McCoy Electrical are highly recommended as far as I'm concerned.

Must say, I am impressed so far, my heating system is very old, there are no thermostats in the house, just a thermostat on the boiler for the water temperature.

I've now got to grips with how it behaves, brilliant bit of kit.
Using it with Alexa is a handy feature, I have echo dot's upstairs in two locations, so you can control Nest from anywhere if need be, and the remote access is brilliant too. I was out the night after I had it fitted, and you could increase the temperature etc, to make sure things nice and warm at home for returning back as I hadn't got any schedules setup at that point.

Got the Nest myself and got one for my dad, they're great. Works with Alexa too :)

I got the Drayton Wiser system which I installed myself and I am very pleased with it so far its been in about 8 months.

Has wifi controlled radiator valves as a way of zoning the house also has a basic data logging part in the App