Hive or Heat Genius ?

[AmmaarK]

Hi everyone,

A little introduction: Firstly, call me AJ. I work as an electrician. I have always been in to the whole technology scene (been to the gadget show live more times than i can remember)

I've recently been looking at a smart heating system for use at home and have been saving up for a while...Now I just want to know which system to go with. The two systems I have been looking at are the Heat Genius heating system, and Hive!

What's good is that Kelly Gordon has reviewed so many smart heating systems. I found a great, detailed review of both systems. From reading both reviews (and doing my own research), it seems that Heat Genius has an edge over Hive (in my opinion). This is because of it's smart Zoned heating. It learns your heating patterns. The great thing about both (and the main money saving aspect of it) is that you can choose to only heat the rooms you want, instead of traditionally heating the whole house then turning off TRVs.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/british-gas-hive-active-heating-review

http://www.trustedreviews.com/heat-genius-smart-heating-system-review

The Heat Genius system has ugly hardware, but I'm just looking for a system that does its job. So ugly isn't really a deal breaker

What's your take on this? Has anyone ever used smart heating systems before?

Cheers

 

[AmmaarK]

Also, I forgot to mention that the Heat Genius system automatically shuts off if it detects that a window is open...Can any of these other devices do this?

 

[ericmark]

I think the important bit is how the boiler works. Many boilers today have what is called anti-cycle software. It is designed to work with simple thermal TRV's and measures how long it takes for hot water to return.

With all TRV's fitted and a by-pass valve if some rooms require heat then return water will be cold even 10 minutes after the heatings starts, but if no rooms require heat then the by-pass valve will have opened and return water will be hot if the latter then boiler software reduces off time between re-tries and if former it increases off time between re-tries.

If instead of simple TRV you use a more complex type with timers or sensors built in then the software will not work correctly. So one has to also include boiler control. This is where many of the systems fall down with a motorised valve it can include micro-switches which can then in turn tell the boiler when it is required, but with electronic TRV there is often no micro-switches so telling boiler what is going on is a lot harder.

Using a thermostat in every room which in turn works a motorised valve which in turn tells boiler to fire up will work but motorised valves are expensive and ugly, there is no reason in theroy why you should not have a hive or nest thermostat in every room each controlling a motorised valve which in turn controls boiler, but it would be very expensive.

Having any wall thermostat when using TRV defeats the whole idea of having TRV except for turning off whole system when outside temperature shows it's going to be a fine day. The idea of a thermostat exposed to morning sun which will inhibit the central heating coming on with fine days is good, I tried outside monitoring of temperature but found on a good day in the morning temperature is lower than on a poor day so it needs to actually be in sun light. Even this is not completely the answer as cloudless sky in Winter means a cold day but cloudless sky in summer means a hot day.

Mothers house only 5 areas are used, up-stairs all radiators switched to frost stat settings. The hall has a thermostat which controls the whole central heating and hall and kitchen have no TRV fitted. It's a failure as the TRV in bedroom and living room can't control room temperature as when they open often boiler is not running so may as well not have TRV fitted.

With her house the wind direction is the problem. It either cools the living room too much or bedroom too much so TRV is really required. What I need is to have a fourth TRV fitted in hall leaving only kitchen without one fitted and have valves tell central heating boiler when to run. So what I need is electronic heads for three of valves which can relay if closed or open to boiler if any one open boiler needs to run.

So you need likely to start at the TRV and how to integrate them into the system. Hope you get on better than me.

 

[Agile]

So what is wrong with the Evohome?

Tony

 

[muggles]

So what is wrong with the Evohome?

Tony

LeeC will be along shortly to explain this to you...

 

[muggles]

The Heat Genius kit looks good on paper. I've just signed up to become one of their pro installers. No referrals yet and I've not seen it for real but it's caught my attention. Don't think I'd recommend it yet though, I'll wait for a referral to come through. I've removed a couple of Hives for people who didn't get on with them, but that was the last generation and I see that there's now a shiny new version

 

[Agile]

LeeC will be along shortly to explain this to you...

And then Dan will disagree with him!

 

[ericmark]

Evohome seems good. Clearly designed for British water heat transfer system. Where the Hive and Nest seem to be designed for a hot air system. There is one major problem for me. The £400 price tag. Assuming 4 heads and controller. My mother has 10 radiators so missing out wet room and airing cupboard that's 8 heads so £520 for the controller and heads.

OK cheaper than hive or nest as would require a thermostat in every room but a non Wifi head is around £22 which is far more reasonable except they have no micro switch to relay what they are doing back to boiler. So it costs £310 to connect TRV to boiler. At £40 per head getting to the point where one could use motorised valves for same price.

 

[AmmaarK]

Yeah, the start up cost for most of these heating systems can be a little pricey, but I guess that comes with most long term investments...On the Heat Genius website it has a TRV checker, to check whether I'm compatible with the Heat Genius system. Do any of you know if any of the other brands have this?

 

[Agile]

Many of these WiFi thermostats seem to be thought of as to be installed on simple on/off boiler controls rather than the more efficient weather compensation or modulated flow temperatures.

Or what I see as early in their evolution.

Really cashing in on those who have too much money and want to find new things to do with their smart phones.

One customer who needed a torch needed to download a "torch app" on his smart phone before he could turn on its light!

Tony

 

[ericmark]

I considered the idea of predicting when weather would be hot. I have a weather station which records temperature and humidity inside and out plus pressure and phases of the moon. However the temperature and humidity in the morning gives very little indication on what mid day weather will be like. The pressure does help but in real terms Spring and Autumn weather prediction and to if heating is required in the morning or if you want to keep house cool is rather hit and miss.

As to an "app" well I thought the whole idea was automation not having to use the phone to manually select if the central heating runs or not. I want like I expect most people to come home to a warm house and wake up in a warm house and since I am a man of habit a simple time clock will do that.

I do however want varying temperatures through the day. Years ago I used radiant heaters at night to boost the evening temperature. I would manually switch on the radiant heaters when it got dark which compensated for lack of physical excursion in the evening. However I now have LED bulbs instead of tungsten so don't get any heat from lights. So today I use a thermostat with a timer which alters temperature at different times of day. I only have TRV's upstairs a single thermostat controls down stairs.

My house was a 1980's open plan designed to be heated with a single central gas fire (Is that central heating?) the problem with central heating is it tends to over heat up stairs rooms. The extension to kitchen means that needs extra heat. However for my house the big problem is controlling how much heat goes up stairs. The likely cure would be a heat recovery unit to transfer heat from up stairs back to down stairs.

Mother house is very different every room has a door and heat should be controlled room by room. For her TRV's are great.

This is of course the point every house is different. There is no one system which fits all.

The idea of controlling every room independently will work for many UK homes including my mothers, but would fail with my house as there are very few doors.

To me automatic means once set then forget about it. Which means on a prospective warm day I want cool air circulated around the house until the point when house air is cooler than outside air. For my greenhouse I have an automatic vent which opens, but not for house. In the winter my trusty old boiler works well it's the summer where I need some automated method to vent house on what is likely to be a warm day.

Other than using an AC I have not found an automatic method.

 

[AmmaarK]

I understand what you mean, right now the closest we have (in terms of smart heating systems) is the Heat Genius. It picks up the user's heating patterns and basically adapts so you don't have to adjust it on a daily basis. This is great to an extent however you're right, we need something that once set can be forgot about. Something that takes the weather into account too, and I feel like this kind of technology will be likely to arise sometime in the near future! For now, we can settle for what the best on the market is (or what the most appropriate is for the user). In this case, it's either the Hive or Heat Genius (although I'm thinking of more Heat Genius).

 

[Agile]

That is what they all say they do.

Still trying to find any evidence of that action in my Nest though.

Accredited installer for Nests too.

Tony

 

[Biggles..]

LeeC will be along shortly to explain this to you...

And then Dan will disagree with him!

I agree with Dan, it's very good if you can get it to work trouble free.

Just installing it at home, also using it to switch plinth heaters, an electric radiator and an immersion heater Plus the TRV's.

 

[ChrisR]

Looking at Evohome.
Yes it copes with opening windows.
Customer doesn't particularly want phone app, but does want the central hub.
Seems OK to have a mix of zones ( with no or traditional TRVs) and individual rad stats.
Should integrate with some compensated systems through the opentherm bridge but I bet it's not many.

Application I'm looking at is on a Worcs Cdi - and a horrid looking control system on that which won't do at all.

I can't see how Heat Genius works - recognise patterns - eh? So your rooms go cold because you didn't go in one for a few days? - yuk.