Central Heating Wireless Stat Recommendations

Thanks Chris

I'm not sure that would be a great hardship for me as my current devices have this exact same "feature".

Vagaries like these are deliberately included to keep this old codger scratching his head I'm sure.

Phil

Thanks Rob

I may have got wires crossed on the Hive support, which was a reference seen fleetingly in a comparison of stat models.

My rad valves were swapped within the last two years for Drayton TRVs (the dumb variety). So there won't be financial leeway to replace these with wireless upgrades in the immediate future.

Phil

Thanks Theo

Not sure they would work for us as er-indoors is quite often found in unlit gloom peering at her iPad.

I'm pretty slow to adopt new tech these days, so don't expect to move to a heat pump any time soon.

Phil

Thanks Dave

The fact that you can undo any unwanted "meddling" with the controls sounds like the best argument for remote control yet!

Phil

Thanks Charles

I believe my stats have a 5 degree frost setting.

It would be necessary to turn off power to the entire heating system for catastrophe to strike.

Unless they did just that.

Phil

Thanks Dave

I was kind of put off the "intelligent predictive" features in my current Honeywell devices. They claimed to learn habits and pre-heat prior to your defined on times. This resulted in finding the house well toasty at 3:00 am, so that enhancement was promptly disabled.

The fact that your Wiser system forgets changes made by tinkerers sounds like a real bonus.

Phil

Thanks TD

I am liking the sound of your voice controlled smart TRVs.

Unfortunately this is strictly a break fix exercise fro my system, as the TRVs were replaced recently with the standard Drayton model.

Phil

You can put smart "heads" on dumb TRVs ...

Thanks Roger

It looks like the CMT927 has been replaced by the Total Home product.

That does look attractive for the direct swap option and will not break the bank.

As you point out, the app programming option of the Hive and similar products may make the initial setup and occasional tweaking more user friendly than the direct manipulation of the stat itself.

Phil

You don't need to change the TRV body for several of the clever systems. So for example the Wiser TRV acuator screws on in place of the normal control top.

I believe that you have two zones, but for folks like me with only a single zone the ability to set different schedules for different rooms without adding extra zone valves was a game changer.

Before we had Wiser my wife frequently complained about how cold the bedroom was as we went to bed. As we age we want a warmer bedroom at night which we now have...

.. and even though the bedroom is warm at night the heating goes off in the living room so keeping consumption under control...

Dave

It depends on how cold and for how long, When father died (In Edinburgh

Set once and then I usually leave it alone. I may occasionally manually set a few degrees higher CH heating temperature but it reverts automatically to its scheduled value on its next switch on period.

I have a Tado system that works well ....BUT... it relies on a internet connection for scheduling with only a really basic manual override if the internet goes down. The initial and ongoing configuration is via an app on a mobile phone* and once setup you don't actually need the phone but it is useful for temporarily overriding the configuration, a few degrees hotter for an hour or an extra 1 hour of hot water etc. The phone app can also monitor the room temperature and control the system remotely when away from home. Although in the last 2/3 years nothing has gone wrong I would recommend an alternative that does all it's scheduling locally and maybe also has an (optional) internet connection.

• There is also a Tado web app you can run on a web browser to configure/control the system.

Note: I have a wireless room thermostat that connects to a Tado central heating/boiler controller rather than just a room thermostat.

I had an Optimum branded wireless thermostat which worked well when configured.

Cons: Button operation - they only worked with a quick touch. Press the button a fraction too long and it ignored the button press.

The battery compartment lid was poorly designed and tended to pop off with batteries installed. Unfortunately the connections to join the batteries in series was part of the lid, A piece of electrical insulating tape solved the problem.

No, you boiler will be full of water that can freeze. Many modern boilers have a frost protection mode inbuilt that switches them on to heat the water within the boiler to stop it freezing.

"Intelligent" room thermostats also have programmable frost protection so even if you tell them you are away from home and don't require CH if the the room temperature is at or below the configured threshold frost protection temperature the central heating will be triggered on to prevent potential burst pipes.

I use the away from home control features to turn my central heating and hot water back on the day before I'm due back home from, say, a holiday.

TADO self install is available at around £100 for the wireless room thermostat, ch boiler control and internet hub. You need some CH electrical experience and common sense. TADO do have some install videos.