Two things, one no reason why a programmer designed for CH and DHW can't be used to work two zones, but second is this picture.That black coiled up cable seems to have an orange core, so looks like the wires for the motorised valve, you said you heard it ticking, was that simply expansion of the pipes, or the valve moving, as to if when combi fitted pipe work left behind, or if it does some thing don't know, when my dad had new central heating fitted they left loads of the old pipe work in place, not connected to anything.
You clearly want better control, that boiler looks like the one my dad had, the electric control was simply, on or off, no opentherm or any other cleaver controls, however it was a modulating boiler and worked well with the radiator thermostatic valves (TRV) so all I did was fit electronic heads the the TRV's and controlled the heating that way. eQ-3 are cheap enough found them at £10 each, OK I used an expensive one the MiHome Energenie, I had intended to fit Nest, but when mother died we sold the house, so never fitted.
From that is seems you can install Hive TRV heads without needing a Hive wall thermostat, so like I did with mothers house you can start with the TRV heads then if you still need it install the Hive wall thermostat latter. The big thing is to fit a TRV head is really easy, no wiring involved.
Thanks for the reply, so as for the pipes expanding noise I had my ear at the side of the valve and it definitely sounded like it was that. It was like a motor noise/ ticking over noise. It’s a noise I’ve never heard before and we’ve been here for a year now. I don’t know if because the boiler had been put in service mode that caused it to do something.
As for the hive TRVs we did look at those and they set you back £50 a radiator so would be a hefty sum for all the radiators to have abit more control of the system.
like I’ve said previously I would be happy to pay hive to come out and fit it but from what’s been said I don’t want them to come out and be like yea this ain’t going to work. Also I need to know if I need a single or dual controller, only thing they go off is if you have a separate water tank or not.