Hive Heating!!

Corranga

Member
Messages
1,219
We have had Hive since January 2014 (v1). Back then, it was £99 installed by British Gas (and we weren't even a customer)

We had no thermostat, and only a mechanical timer switch that allowed us to set the heating to come off and on at 15 minute intervals, until the switch broke!

A digital 7 day timer was looking like £70+, so Hive at £99 seemed the natural choice.

Its good. The app has improved over time, 6 time slots a day, it's easy to boost the temperature from the thermostat unit in the house, or via the mobile app.
Hive themselves have been good too, ours developed a fault mid last year (the plug for the hub which connects to the broadband broke) and they simply shipped out a replacement with no charge.

Negatives:
The thermostat is wireless, and sometimes drops connection to the receiver at the boiler. This is rectified by popping it off the wall, taking it closer to the boiler (in my brick walls house...) and resetting (remove and replace batteries)
The hub sometimes has issues with connecting to the internet - not necessarily a Hive issue, but I have Sky Broadband - the Sky home hub is ****, and sometimes won't allocate it an IP (or something) after a (frequent, because Sky BB is ****) restart, so sometimes multiple resets are needed. This was made worse by my odd home networking solution involving 2 connected (by cables) routers, and other stuff.

On Hive 1 vs. 2:
2 looks nicer...
 

safrane

Member
Messages
16,748
Hmmm...new place we hope to buy has underfloor heating and thermostat in each room...however I like a cold bedroom so will just throw a extra log into the Woodburner whilst waiting for my tea to brew to heat the remainder of the house...Man up Dem and put on a Jumper! :lol2:
 

wink

Junior Member
Messages
85
I've had Nest in two houses for the last couple of years. No problems, and they're really easy to understand. Worth checking Screwfix et al for offers.
 

jasst

Member
Messages
2,313
Honeywell do a system with programmable TRV's, so you can set individual radiators to come on at different times and different temps, much more useful I think. Never fitted one myself, but a colleague did a few years ago.
 

alfatwo

Member
Messages
5,517
Hmmm...new place we hope to buy has underfloor heating and thermostat in each room...however I like a cold bedroom so will just throw a extra log into the Woodburner whilst waiting for my tea to brew to heat the remainder of the house...Man up Dem and put on a Jumper! :lol2:

Don't get involved with that underfloor heating nonsense Peter, A friend of ours in a 2 year old new build had all the ground floors dug up last week just to fix a fault..

Apparently they'll be in a hotel till after Christmas!


Dave
 

safrane

Member
Messages
16,748
Gulp... the whole farm development has it...better make sure its under the insurance policy.
 

Wack61

Member
Messages
8,764
I Think the Tado thermostat i have would do this as it is battery powered and just replaces the existing thermostat, it was easy to fit, did it myself, required an internet connection for the router hub thing. Costs about 150 quid tho, so its only a little less than Hive.

Interesting, not sure they'll deliver this far oooppp norf though , this kind of technology hasn't made it past Birmingham yet

However This has to be a cockup on their website , is it meant to say £500

… for tenants and home owners as both will benefit from the savings. Are you a tenant? Simply replace your old thermostat.

It doesn't matter what your living situation is, tado° pays for itself within the first year. In five years a 150 sq m house with four residents saves almost £5.000.

I live in a 4 bed detached house with 4 residents , I'm up for a £10 a month gas bill
 

Ryandoc

Member
Messages
1,839
Only skimmed through this but I've had Hive over a year now and love it, never for a second got it as a money / energy saving device that's ********, if I'm cold, the heating goes on end of.

But love the ease of control from your phone and 100% being able to put the heating on half hour before you get home in the winter is genuinely brilliant.

Mines been flawless since I installed
 

Wack61

Member
Messages
8,764
My boiler is 28 years old , house is never cold in the winter because I put about a foot of insulation in the attic , detached so no neighbours to keep me warm, no thermostatic radiator thingies, mechanical timer from the Middle Ages , edf energy combined gas and electric direct debit is £97 a month on a fixed tariff , it was £120 on a variable tariff with a different company but I was always in credit so the £97 may go up a bit once I've been with them a few months

If I spend £400 so I can control my radiators individually from space how long will it take me to get that back.
 

Scaf

Member
Messages
6,512
Five of us at home from housewife to student through shift worker - heating needs to be on all the time so not sure how a Hive would ever help us.
They do washing machines you can control remotely as well but unless there is a robot to sort the washing and load it, it's just another gimmick.
 

Mattp

Member
Messages
501
We have the Honeywell Evohome system in our house and its great - for the uninitiated its like hive/nest, but on steroids! so instead of having one flash thermostat to control the house, we have the controller - which is wireless, and a remote control TRV on each rad, so each room is heated on different schedules at different temps... the kids rooms warm up earlier in the evening than our room, weekends the lounge is heated but the bedrooms are just kept warm... same for the water tank - temp is controlled much more efficiently than the original dial thermostat.
like nest/hive, the system learns the warmup and cooldown of each room and adjusts the schedules so that target temp is achieved at the target time... if a window, or the patio doors are opened, the system will sense this and shut off the rads in that room.
there is the obligatory phone app and web app, so remote control and monitoring is all there... Its very, very cool, occasionally a sensor will have a funny turn, but the system sends an email and things generally sort themselves out if you ignore it - much like an Italian car!

It is more expensive than a nest, and a nest thermostat is quite a lovely thing in terms of design and feel, but as a whole house heating system, i think its the best... this will be year 3 and the heating bills are noticeably smaller than when we first moved in...
 

Slowly

Junior Member
Messages
327
I like the idea of a Maserati forum enthusing about the benefits of more electronic control mechanisms for the mechanical things in our lives. :yeah:

My GS seats have a mind of their own, which doesn't matter, nor does the way that my VW only connects with our 'phones via Bluetooth once every x times we get in it, but that always makes me think about the systems controlling the fly-by-wire / Bluetooth modern aircraft - doubtless there are peeps working in the field on the forum who can reassure us that there is lots of redundancy there so all is well and at 30,000 feet there isn't going to be a reboot....
 

Ebenezer

Member
Messages
4,445
My steam powered galaxy s3 phone reboots itself every morning on my way to work. Not sure if it's had enough of my music tastes! :)
Eb