Smart thermostats

There are now a new range of very smart thermostats that can take advantage of smart phones and the internet to determine things like what the weather is like and if you are coming home to help control your heating and save you money. Savings of 30% are not unusual so its not surprising these new smart thermostats are a big hit. It is less of a question of if they will pay for themselves and start saving you money but when. This is a round up of the most popular and what they have to offer.

Nest

This is the company founded by "father of the iPod" Tony Fadell after he left Apple. The design of this device is excellent and the company was recently bought by Google for $3bn. With amazing looks and strong software support this is a great piece of kit. It can detect when you are at home and can adjust your heating accordingly. Later Nest went on to develop a smoke alarm which also has proximity sensors to work with your thermostat to determine when you are at home. The Nest doesn’t control temperature on a room by room basis and it does not control hot water temperature though those thermostats that do come at a price. It does however have the best user interface and software support.

Tado

Like the Nest, Tado uses sensors to tell when you are home. It can also use your internet connection both to check weather reports and it has a smartphone app that can tell it where you are so it knows if you’re coming home, to switch the heat on. If you want to control your hot water, a separate extension kit is needed.

Hive Active Heating

This is made by British Gas and since this is an oil website, we advise visitors to check whether any installation that might come with it applies to oil boilers. Also we have many visitors not on the mainland and at the time of writing, oil boilers or free installation not in the mainland was not applicable. Unlike Tado and Nest, there is no location detection however it does have hot water management. There are a couple of versions of this currently. Users of version 1 can upgrade to a smarter looking thermostat for around £99 though bargain hunters that aren't concerned about the look for special offers on the first version of the hive.

Honeywell Evohome

We saved the best until last. This is by far the most advanced (and most expensive) smart thermostat on the market. It allows zones to be set up throughout your home through the addition of smart TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves) that allow your thermostat (a large touch screen control panel) to control each radiator independently. These TRVs do cost around £59 each so the installation costs can add up but this can allow you to switch off the heating of all the rooms not in use.

The Honeywell takes a different approach to continually switching your heating on and off as they would argue (and there is a lot of merit in this) that this is more expensive than maintaining your home at a standard temperature. It can instead control the temperature of different parts of your home at different times of the day. Zoning means it has by far the most control of any of the smart thermostats listed here but users would need to work out the cost for their homes and how many radiators they would want to control. Its not without its flaws but its our dream system.