Last Updated on 24 August 2025 by Dan Wilderness
Hello everyone! As part of upgrading our home I had a Hive smart thermostat and heating system installed. The aim of these systems is to try and control your heating on more of an automated basis that you can do with a traditional programmer, and enable room by room heating to save money. So did we think a smart thermostat and heating system was worth it? Read on!
I also installed some smart TRV’s (Thermostatic Radiator Valve, or as better known the little control knob on the end of your radiator!) as well to create a room by room heating system, so I’ll also be covering those in this review as well.
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Are smart thermostats worth it?
Let’s start by looking at smart thermostats, and then we’ll move onto how they benefit with smart TRV’s.
What does a smart thermostat do?
At core, a smart thermostat is a device that acts to control your central heating and hot water as a regular thermostat does, but there’s a few additional advances which provide ease of use and in the best of them save you money.
A picture of our Hive smart thermostat mini below:
What are the advantages of smart thermostats?
A quick note before we start: All smart thermostats will have the remote control option, but not all smart thermostats will necessarily do all of the features we list below – I’ll cover the key advantages in greater depth of some of the different options on those available in the UK further down.
Smart thermostats can be remote controlled
A smart thermostat can be controlled by a phone or smart speaker like an Amazon Alexa rather than needing to adjust a physical thermostat in your hall.
There’s an initial minor benefit from this that even in your house you don’t have to get up to change things if a little too warm or cold – lazy but effective.
However where this really comes into a practical use is the ability to control heating when out. At the touch of a button I can turn off my heating when I go out to work or for a long period, and tell it to come back on when I’m on the train home or travelling back so everything is warm for my return.
Simple but this can save you money in time, as it’s so easy to go out and forget to switch the heating off, or just default to it being on permanently – and some smart thermostats will supplement this with the following feature
Smart Thermostats can use Geolocation
Some smart thermostats have the ability to use Geolocation – meaning an action can be taken when it picks up via location services on the phone you’re out of the house.
At the more basic end of smart thermostat range they’ll send you a reminder to switch the heating off because you are away. More advanced geolocation features will automatically switch off the heating for you when you are a set distance away from the house.
(For instance, you can set that the heating switches off when you are further away than a 1 mile radius, and back on when you’re vice versa)
Used effectively, this can save you quite a bit of money – so many people just leave the heating on because by default they want it to be toasty when they get back.
Smart Thermostats can Learn
Some smart thermostats like the Google Nest have learning features – they learn how you adjust it manually when you first start installing it and it’ll adapt to your underlying habits and try and anticipate them.
Smart Thermostats can be flexibly located
As a smart thermostat doesn’t need to be hardwired into your electricity circuit and can be battery powered, you don’t need this to take up a slot on your wall – you can have it be portable or sit anywhere in the house.
Smart thermostats can work with boiler modulation
Now we’re getting into slight technical geekery, but boilers used to be either very much on or off at a set temperature.
A modern boiler combined with a smart thermostat will employ modulation where if it doesn’t need the full power of your boiler to heat to the required temperature, it won’t use it.
This will require a boiler compatible with modulation and a thermostat that can manage it too. I’ll just note that you can also get non smart thermostats which can take advantage of boiler modulation as well.
Smart Thermostats can interact with Smart TRV’s
We’ll expand on this below, but whilst expensive, Smart TRV’s can be one of the bigger money saving opportunities and smart TRV’s work better with a smart thermostat.
What are the disadvantages of smart thermostats?
Reliance on Wi-Fi
A smart thermostat will need wi-fi to work effectively – if it loses connection or goes down whilst you can still adjust it from the wall, you won’t be able to control it with your phone (for avoidance of doubt, you will have heating!)
I did see reports others had with losing connection with Hive that nearly put me off buying it, but touch wood I haven’t had issues of this nature to date.
Update: Ok, I did have a single dropout where I lost connection to the thermostat. It was relatively easy to reset but a little annoying. I bought a range extending smart plug for the signal and that seems to have solved the issue, as the reported signal of all devices is now stronger.
Smart thermostats may require Installation
The thermostat itself is pretty easy to install, but you’ll also need to put in a receiver to connect up to your boiler and heating/hot water supply.
This is possible to do as a DIY task if you’re competent with wiring, but may need a professional installer if you’re not – expect this to add about £100 to the cost.
Smart thermostats may have a Higher Upfront Cost
Smart thermostats are more complex, and as a result have a higher initial cost – this can really vary depending on the thermostat selected.
Does a Smart thermostat save you money?
Generally a little bit, but it depends on your schedule. The bigger savings can come where you partner it with smart TRV’s, but we think the thermostat itself is relatively marginal and more about benefits of convenience.
If you’re absolutely ruthless about adjusting your thermostat as you go in or out, or have an extremely regular schedule where you are in and out on at the exact same time on most days, a smart thermostat is unlikely to make significant different to what you can do with a manual programmer.
If you work from home the cost savings are more variable as your thermostat is more likely to be on all the time, but you can still save via learning features if you want your home at a different temperature during the day.
Are smart TRV’s worth it?
Now let’s look at a smart TRV’s (Radiator Valves) to see how they can benefit a smart heating system!
What do Smart TRV’s do?
A smart TRV’s is a valve on the end of your radiator which adjusts the temperature of that individual radiator. This allows room by room control – so rooms which are empty all day don’t have the heating on and vice versa.
These are usually controlled by a twist knob for how hot you want the underlying radiator to be. In the case of a Smart TRV’s, they have a motorised valve inside which allows the valve to adjust it’s own temperature.
This allows very direct room by room control of your heating system.
A picture of our Hive TRV below:
What are the Advantages of Smart TRV’s?
Smart TRV’s allow room-by-room heating choices on a schedule
Smart TRV’s where I really feel many people can save money with a smart heating system.
Having smart TRV’s mean you can create a schedule where heat follows you around the house, rather than needing to fill the whole house.
For instance, I have some initial heat downstairs in the kitchen where I’m having breakfast, then time to come on so my home office is warm for working in there – then off the rest of the day. As I finish up, the heat in the office switches off and heat in the downstairs living area will come on.
Whilst this isn’t anything I couldn’t do myself via manually adjusting the valves, I know I do forgot and this is one piece that really has saved me money, and result in much more of a “heat the human not the house” approach.
Smart TRV’s allow manual control of rooms remotely
As with the thermostat, for when you’re not operating on your normal schedule you can control your TRV’s remotely – setting them to a particular temperature or using a boost function to provide extra heating into a room rapidly you’ve decided you want to use.
Smart TRV’s can call for heat from the boiler
A regular TRV requires the thermostat to be on an active in order to heat a room.
A smart TRV can integrate with your smart thermostat to call for heat from the boiler to heat up an individual room.
Smart TRV’s are easy to install
I unfortunately am not one of life’s natural DIY’ers and was a little uncertain about installing the smart TRV’s myself – however in practice I can attest that’s it’s incredibly simple and all manufacturers make it extremely easy to do with relevant adaptors.
What are the disadvantages of Smart TRV’s?
Smart TRV’s are relatively expensive to buy
This is the big one – Smart TRV’s are relatively expensive to buy (between the £30 to £60 mark each) and this was definitely one of the bits of smart home installation that definitely made me pause. In the end I picked up a bunch in a sale, but knowing the payback period is still going to be fairly long.
Remember you absolutely do not need to have Smart TRV’s for all of your radiators to try and mitigate this! I’ve bought ones only for the rooms I would consistently use of make changes on – others like guest rooms I’m content to leave to take a manual approach with because I won’t ever need to adjust them enough to justify the cost savings.
Smart TRV’s need batteries
A smart TRV will need batteries, meaning that there’s some cost in maintaining them although I’ve found that replacement is in practice relative easy and they should last about 2 years each – another cost to consider though.
Smart TRV’s can vary in temperature accuracy
I’ve seen reports online of people complaining that their TRV’s don’t pick up temperatures particularly accurately.
I haven’t had too issue with this and it’s felt about right, but I did notice that if the TRV was wrapped up in a curtain or surrounded by anything did throw off the accuracy.
Does smart TRV’s save you money?
Yes, for someone like myself working from home and using certain rooms on a set schedule I have found that Smart TRV’s are one thing that’s helped me keep heat only where I need it. However, with the high cost of the TRV’s themselves I believe they’ll take about 3-5 years to pay for themselves.
As I have my system for the longer term I’ll try and post up some more exact numbers on the costs savings I’m seeing, but I am noting through my smart metering that my gas consumption has dropped.
I installed it heading into the summer months though so the real test will be as we start to head into winter!
What is the best UK Smart Thermostat?
There are three leading brands of smart thermostat and TRV technology in the UK in the form of Hive from British Gas, Nest from Google and independent brand Tado. There are also a couple of well regarded systems from heating companies Drayton and Honeywell.
They are all pretty close in terms of what they do and I do not believe there is a clear winner, just differing points of emphasis depending on if price, simplicity or advanced features are more important to you.
I have tried to summarise from my own research the benefits and disadvantages I found with these here.
Hive
Hive is the smart heating system owned by British Gas.
It features a couple of options for smart thermostats – a full size version or a mini which enables basic touch control from the thermostat. The TRV’s fit easily on to the radiators and look smart.
Once you’re set up, it’s very simple and easy to use and has a well designed app allowing you to make changes very easily and sits in the middle of pricing. However, the simplicity is traded off by slightly limited features compared to peers.
Does Hive work with Opentherm?
Yes, but only on single zone systems (i.e, you only have one thermostat in your house) at the time of writing.
I’d also just note that Hive didn’t used to feature Opentherm, and so if buying an older receiver this may not exist.
Does Hive have learning features?
No, all schedules are manually set.
Does Hive have Geofencing?
Not on an automated basis – you can set to receive an alert when a certain distance from your home reminding you to change your heating settings.
An automated away mode to switch off is a Hive Plus feature, however it’s really easy to set up an automated action in the app which does exactly the same thing so entirely unnecessary.
What else to be aware of with Hive?
You’ll need a Hive Hub which plugs into your router to use Hive devices remotely, which is unfortunately an extra cost.
Whilst I’ve found the thermostatic valves record temperature accurately, Hive does work on an overshoot basis where it will heat fairly rapidly to over the desired temperature at first before cooling it down.
Do I need Professional Installation with Hive?
It’s possible to wire in yourself with expertise, but Hive themselves recommend a professional installation. This can be booked in with a British Gas engineer when ordering the device directly from Hive.
What price are Hive devices?
(All prices correct as time of writing).
- A Hive Thermostat is £119 or a Hive Thermostat Mini is £79. (I cannot really see unless you see yourself manually controlling your Thermostat from the wall why you would go for the main one rather than the Mini).
- The Hive Hub is £70
- Individual radiator TRV’s are £60
- Professional installation is £110
I will note that you get 10% off an order if subscribing to Hive Plus. My advice if buying the set is to subscribe for a single month and then cancel it – the discount will outweigh the monthly subscription.
Hive rarely but occasionally run sales, with Black Friday being the most commonly run one.
Review of Hive Smart Thermostat and TRV
This is the option I went for in the end, so I’m also able to review it as well. So far, I’ve been really impressed – I’ve noticed the heating is responsive and I’ve found it very easy to control and set up in the app.
The integration with the TRV’s has worked well and I’ve been able to manage the room by room control very effectively.
I noted when reading reviews online I came across fairly frequent complaints about connections dropping. I’ve had a couple of outages where it’s gone down for a moment or two but in each case it’s immediate come back online.
I also saw various comments on TRV’s overheating and getting temperature wrong – this appears to relate to an older version of the TRV’s and again, I haven’t noticed significant issues.
You can purchase Hive devices at their website here.
Google Nest
Nest is Google’s entry into the smart heating market. It brands itself as a more premium option with a really smart looking round Thermostat and learning capabilities built in.
Instead of a dedicated app it uses the Google Home Assistant ecosystem.
This has advantages and disadvantages – on the plus side Google Home Assistant is ultra-customisation to be able to create very advanced routines which pair with other smart technology. On the downside, the app isn’t the most user friendly and is slightly harder to use than dedicated smart heating apps.
Does Google Nest work with Opentherm?
Yes, the Google Nest system will work with Opentherm compatible boilers.
Does Google Nest have learning features?
It depends which of the Nest thermostats you go for, but we think that if you are investing in a Nest system it’s worth going for the Nest learning themostat which makes it’s learning abilities the focus on the product.
Does Google Nest have Geofencing?
Yes, Google Nest has Geofencing abilities that mean by default you can partner it with location tracking on your phone in order to automate procedures to switch on and off heating when you’re away from the home.
What else should I be aware of with Google Nest?
There are also no TRV’s made by Google Nest themselves, so you’ll need to combine heating ecosystems – in practice Google Home Assistant is very good at combining with other brands.
There’s also been some concern with Nest as to the extent Google will support the Google Home infrastructure.
Does a Google Nest require professional installation?
One of the things that put me off the Nest despite the range of capability was that any installations have to be self-arranged, although Google can point you towards a Nest installer.
The Nest also claims to be possible to self install, but I did see reports suggesting it was more fiddly that rivals although do-able for someone competent with wiring.
What price are Google Nest Devices?
(All prices correct at time of writing).
- A Google Nest Leaning Thermostat is £219.
- There is version of the with less features, the Nest Thermostat E for £199.
You don’t need an additional hub or receiver beyond the thermostat, however you’ll need to arrange installation yourself if not DIY’ing.
As above, Nest does not have their own range of TRV’s, but the Google Home Infrastructure is compatible with most brands.
You can buy Google Nest devices at Google’s website here.
Tado
Tado are a German technology company that have a background in thermostatic controls and air conditioning. They’re slightly less well known in the UK but when going on online forums about smart heating people tend to be enthusiastic about them as offering good value whilst being a little bit cheaper than some rivals.
The main thermostat was originally a little bit er, visually underwhelming but they’ve released a new range called TadoX in the UK now which looks a lot smarter.
Does Tado work with Opentherm?
Yes, Tado systems are designed to work with Opentherm with compatible boilers.
Does Tado have learning features?
No, this isn’t a feature of the Tado Thermostats
Does Tado have Geofencing?
Tado can do automated Geofencing with the Auto-Assist Function which is included as part of a £3.99 a month subscription – it can also automatically adjust for open windows.
Without this, Tado can be sent up to send a reminder to your phone when leaving to manually change your heating setting.
What else should I be aware of with Tado?
Most online reviews I found were very satisfied with Tado and found it easy to install.
Where people had concerns I found they were similar to Hive in relation to occasional connectivity drops and concerns about the accuracy of smart TRV’s temperature recognition.
Tado are presently also between two versions of their technology – the new range is called the X and the old range is called the V3. The two do not combine, so you’ll need to choose one range and stick to it.
Does Tado require professional installation?
Whilst Tado will require wiring up, Tado offer significantly more support for their peers with a step by step wiring guide where it asks for your exact boiler made and produces a step-by-step guide based around that.
Most people seem to have got on fairly well with this and report it’s well designed and very possible, whilst coming across the odd person who did get stuck. Tado claim 95% of people should be able to self install with their systems.
What price are Tado devices?
(All prices correct at time of writing)
At present, there are two ranges from Tado – the new X range and the old V3 range. The X range is more expensive (especially for TRV’s) but looks a lot smarter, whereas there’s some excellent deals on the V3 as the phase out brand.
Tado X Pricing:
- A TadoX Smart Thermostat Starter Kit with everything you need to get set up is £159.
- TadoX Smart TRV’s are £79.99 each, or available in a 4 pack for £260.
- A TadoX Heat Pump Optimiser is also available for £230
For the older Tado V3 equipment:
- A TadoV3 Smart Thermostat Starter Kit with everything you need to get set up is £86
- A TadoV3 TRV is £50, or available in a 4 pack for £191.
You can buy Tado products at their online shop here!
Hive vs. Nest vs. Tado – which is better?
In my opinion there’s no clear winner between the three providers, it’s a matter of what’s important to you.
The biggest difference is offered by the Google Nest, as there provides full flexibility out of the box without extra features being hidden behind subscriptions. However, it’s the most fiddly to set up and make the most of in Home Assistant.
Tado and Hive are remarkably similar to each other beyond that, and I honestly don’t think offer huge amounts of difference between them to be more than a personal preference about the design.
For me, it simply came down to a well timed sale on the Hive products coupled with making booking a professional installation very easy, as that was something I was worried about. I also know I wanted Smart TRV’s and the Tado’s being £80 each was too much for me.
FAQ’s about Smart Thermostats and Smart TRV’s
Will a Smart Thermostat work with any boiler?
They’ll work with most (even slightly older ones but not all).
You’ll need to check the website of whichever brand you’re looking to buy in order to double check this as there’s the odd exception and you want to be sure your boiler doesn’t fall into it.
For avoidance of doubt, this includes combi, oil and electric boilers.
Will I lose heating if the wi-fi goes down with a smart thermostat?
No, your heating will still work and you can adjust it, but will be required to do this manually at the thermostat or TRV rather than remotely.
Do I need professional installation for a smart thermostat?
If you’re reasonably competent with wiring all smart thermostats will come with a guide to wiring it up to your boiler and hot water, and I understand this is reasonably simple in context of wiring.
If not, you’ll need an electrician or electrically minded plumber to wire it in for you – most thermostat suppliers will be able to point you in the right direction.
Can I install Smart TRV’s on any radiator?
Yes, so long as the radiator has a TRV already on it. If it doesn’t, you may need a plumber to change the connection type.
If it does have a TRV on it, changing it over to a smart TRV is an easy job that even a non-DIY’er can do (I’m speaking from personal experience!)
Will Smart thermostats work with voice command systems?
Nearly every smart thermostat I looked at integrated with other voice comment technology like an Amazon Alexa or Google Nest speaker.
Any questions?
If you have any questions or comments about smart themostats or smart TRV’s we’d love to hear from you! Just drop us a note in the comments below.
And if you’re looking at this as part of a review of your overall heating package, you may also be interested in our review of Octopus Energy.
And that’s it!
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