I want to change and resite our present programmable thermostat with a wire less type. The one I have been considering is not all that much cheaper tha n the self install version of Hive. I was wondering if anyone has any exper ience of the system and can answer a few questions.
Is the system straight forward to self install? BG's website is full of dir e warnings that it needs installing by them or an approved and qualified in staller. Is it a case of them trying to drum up business? From what I have seen of the installation information it looks pretty straight forward?
Are there any other on going costs involved? It seems to access with your p hone you need an "account" with BG. Is this access charged for other than y our phone usage? If free now is it potentially chargeable in the future?
Finally is it worth it or is it just a load of pretentious bollix and I wou ld be better sticking to what I was considering before and wait for some sm arter technology to emerge?
HeatGenius can also function without a server too. I've been very pleased with their system and it is way more advanced than any of the others (in that it can control right down to individual rooms, though you don't have to).
Like all these things, I think about how I'd use it if I had it. Going on the adverts.
Turn on the hot water? I do have a storage system. Which like all takes some time to heat. Which would be better - leaving it off until I remember to turn it on when out? And if I forget, come home to no hot water? If I were concerned about the running costs that much, I'd probably have a combi.
Turn the central heating up or down? My system already does that for different times of the day. And will adjust if it suddenly gets cold outside - don't they all?
Turn a light on when I'm out? Why would it suddenly occur to me that might be a good idea and why? If you think a light on when you're out is a good thing why not do it automatically?
Oh - I'm single. In the average family, would it really be a good idea having someone who is out of the house messing with things while others are in?
Evidently he bought the subscription package rather than the purchase-outright version of Hive. We got one on Amazon Black Friday (I think) for a significant reduction in price. I fitted it myself because our heating engineer, who was coming to service the boiler at around that time, didn't feel confident (fear of the unknown) so he was interested to hear how I'd got on, to see whether it was something he could offer as a service to his other customers. It was probably the internet side of things rather than the mains-wiring side of things that was unknown territory for him.
I really *must* get round to shorting-out and removing the old thermostat which is no longer needed and which is now set to an arbitrarily high temperature so it is always calling for heat and leaves the control of the boiler entirely to Hive.
For the £10 it cost to build, mine was worth it just as an object lesson to show people why they don't need one, and to piss off those I know who have forked out £££ on Hive's and Nest's.
Yes, there's nothing magic about a Hive. It's basically a temperature sensor, a relay, and some wireless comms. it probably has a clock so it will continue to free-run using the most recent program even if it loses contact with the server. I dare say I could have worked out a spec and built it from a kit of parts. But it's a lot of hassle and my soldering skills are very rusty (if that's the right word to describe non-ferrous solder!). The last time I tried to solder something was when I was making up a lead to attach some speakers to an Amazon Dot (mini-Echo) which has a 3.5 mm socket. I must have overheated one of the tags on the 3.5 mm plug because although there was a perfect contact from it to the far end of the cable, there was variable resistance and intermittent no contact between one of the tags and the tip or collar of the plug. Pretty crap design if normal soldering heat can break down connections within a plug. Modern lead-free solder (*) that melts at a higher temperature doesn't help :-(
(*) Somewhat akin to pork-free pigs or alcohol-free beer :-)
Pretty easy IME - if your present thermostat has a power feed.
No ongoing costs. As others have said, if BT block access to their internet side of things, it could then become a subscription service. I would doubt that'll happen. I've got a £20 web cam that I've had for years that gives just the same thing - so I can't think the marginal costs to BT are great. And if they did, their name in the IoT would be mud(dier) and I'm sure someone would work out a way around it.
I suppose it could be pretentious if you flash it round your mates :-)
The only downsides I've noticed so far are:
The thermostat needs to be prodded to show status - otherwise it's a blank and rather bulky box;
You do need to site the hub and it needs to be in range of each router. And there's also a stat receiver (goes in place of your old stat).
I've not measured the electricity consumption, but I did look into it, and was led to believe it's low - maybe 4 units (~50p) a year.
I work irregular hours, can't be arsed to set/reset a programmable stat for a schedule I can't rely on, and gain a certain amount of amusement. I could easily live with out it but I'm lucky enough to have a choice.
When the mechanical time switch stopped working I didn't bother replacing it until I put the place on the market. The stored hot water only took 20 mins to heat from cold and would last a couple of days.
The place above had an ordinary room stat to maintain the temperature. Worked well enough. We have programable stats now comfort is better and temeprature control better (minimal under/over shoot)
Or leave it on when you go out. The only light that could be useful to switch on remotely is the exterior one but that only needs to be done when arriving back home at night. Ideally that would be automagic, perhaps by detecting when a persons phone connects via Bluetooth to a controller.
Can't use WiFi as that is switched off when out and about and don't have GPS enabled unless I need it (which isn't very often).
I don't yet have any direct experience, but I've been researching it with a view to installing a Hive system in my holiday flat. It would have the advantage for me that, when I visit the flat in the winter (I'm there now) I could turn on the heating remotely a few hours before arriving rather than coming into a very cold place and having to heat it from scratch. Since I have a stored hot water system, I could turn that on remotely, too, but that's less important.
I already have a wireless programmable stat and, in theory, I could use its holiday mode to turn the heating on just before my next planned visit - but the problem with that is that my plans sometimes change!
As far as I can see, it's pretty simple to install. The only wiring you need to do is to connect the receiver to your boiler and/or motorised valves, depending on your system configuration. If you understand your system well enough to install a wireless thermostat, you certainly shouldn't have any trouble with installing a Hive receiver. If you're lucky, you may have to do virtually no wiring. If you currently have a programmer/timer which uses an industry-standard wall-plate, the Hive receiver may plug into the existing wall plate in place of the old programmer - with the only wiring necessary being to link out any existing room stat. But you'd need to identify all the wires, of course in order to confirm that.
The other part of the installation involves connecting the hub to a spare port on your internet router, and providing it with a mains supply.
The thermostat unit, with its knob, buttons and display screen is wireless, but is intended to hang on a wall. If you want to move it from room to room, you can buy a stand for it - at an iniquitous price of nearly 30 quid. I think I would make my own stand!
You are probably aware that the current model is the Hive 2 and that it comes in two versions - heating only or heating plus hot water. Screwfix have recently been selling the earlier version off for about 50 quid - don't know whether they still have any. The old version is functionally similar, except that the thermostat unit is much less sexy. Its hub also has the disadvantage that it may not recover from a power cut - making it useless if you are relying on remote access. This is because, when the hub is turned on, it expects an internet connection to be there, and gives up if there isn't one. After a power cut, it's likely to look for a connection before the router has finished re-booting. The later hubs - supplied with Hive 2 - are programmed to make multiple attempts to connect to the internet and thus shouldn't suffer from this problem.
If you buy the self-install version, there are no ongoing costs. Access to the app and to the remote server are free. I am assured by Hive that they will provide free "lifetime" support. This slightly begs the question as to whose lifetime, but they assure me that it is an ongoing thing, and not just until that model is no longer sold.
My other concern is future-proofing. The hive is simply a switching device. If you have a modulating boiler and want to be able to control flow temperature, it can't do that. Hive are being a bit cagey about whether they plan to add that capability - for obvious commercial reasons, I guess. My boiler is pretty basic - so I don't need any modulation control at present, but I may do in future if and when I replace the boiler.
AIUI, the Nest already has the ability to control modulation - but its other functions seem too clever by half to me, and I would would want to maintain more control over the system than it appears to allow.
Is it worth having? I guess that depends on how important remote control is to you. If you know when you're going to be in and out and away from home, a programmable stat with a holiday mode is probably adequate - but if your plans are flexible and you want to be able to come home to a warm house at unpredictable times without using energy unnecessarily, then it could come into its own.
I have had a lengthy dialogue with Hive - via the Screwfix site - to try to bottom out some of these issues. If you go to
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and click on 'View all Q & A' you can see my questions and their answers.
That's because the Hive thermostat is completely wireless and relies on internal battery power.
The designer of my home-made one also decided to turn the back-light off after half a minute for no logical reason as it's mains powered. I modified mine to dim the display rather than blank it.
There are 3 components in a Hive system - a hub, a receiver and a thermostat.
The hub connects to an internet router by means of an ethernet cable, and talks to Hive's remote server - enabling remote control by a smartphone or computer app - which also talk to Hive's server.
The receiver connects into the heating system in place of an existing programmer and room stat.
The thermostat is battery powered and behaves much like any other wireless programmable thermostat.
The 3 components talk to each other using some wireless protocol, or other - but not WiFi.
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