Hive heating/hot water controller

I have a Hive thermostat and lighting and I love them. The thermostat has to be installed, I had my boiler guy do it for me and I'm not sure it's a DIY job. It's really simple to use the app or your PC to program and change temperature - I've turned my heating up when I've been sitting on the bus coming home .
I have the lights programmed to wake me with a natural sunrise, which is much better than an alarm clock. I've set up the location monitoring so they switch off when I leave the house and on again when I return. I have other programs running to switch a few lights on randomly too when I'm out and it's after sunset. It took me less than 10 minutes to set this up on the app, as it's all pre-programmed, you just select if you want them.
It is wonderful and if you can get the thermostat on a deal, I'd recommend it.

I've not heard of this but it sounds great if it really is easy to programme. I cannot work out my central heating controller at all. I have had to revert to just switching it on when I get up and off or on during the day when I am hot or cold.

My daughter has had one fitted to her flat in the last couple of weeks. She loves it, very easy to set the times for on/off on any particular day. Especially loves the “boost” feature where you can boost the system at any time, ie she can whack up the heating from the app on her phone when she is on the way home. The one thing we wish we had asked at the time is, what happens to the heating if there is an interruption in Wi if signal? (Hers was bought from BGas when she took out Home Care).

Thanks Primrose. That is the kind of thing I was hoping to hear. All I need now is the money - the add-ons are not cheap, and they are so tempting.

Should be wi fi, oops.

I think it has batteries on the controller so I assume what is already programmed in would still happen. They say batteries last two years. You wouldn't be able to make instant changes through the PC or phone though. Can you make changes manually to it?

Oh that’s handy to know, certainly makes sense, will check the manual controller has batteries. Yes, you can make changes manually, that looks straightforward too.

Do you have to pay £10 a month for Hive Active Heating to be able to control it via PC and mobile? My son says you do. That is more than my total mobile charge!

We've had it for about 2 years. We love it as it is really easy to control.

We had a problem at first working out where to position the thermostat in our weird house but, now we have that sussed, we are very happy with it.

So what do you actually have to buy to have it control temperature and timings and access it through the PC? Do you then have ongoing costs or is that it? And what do you actually have to buy to control a light? A plug? To have it sense when you are at home and when you are out? The description makes it sound like the best thing since sliced bread (and it could be!) but is a bit vague on practical details.

We had ours fitted when we had the boiler serviced. It cost about a hundred pounds. You get a thingy in your boiler and a thermostat. You then download an app and control the times and temperatures from that. You can have lots of different time slots each one having its own temperature. You can boost the temp or turn it down with out altering the programmer and each day can be completely different.

We don't have it controlling lights.

But do you have to have subscription to pay monthly as well?

DD2 doesn’t have a subscription to pay, as yet she does not control anything else by it. That may come later!

You can buy the hive outright to control heating and hot water. It even has a holiday setting so keeps frost free while away and lovely and warm when you get home.

Ps we bought ours on a Black Friday deal and BG could not fit it till jan

Elegran You do not need to pay monthly as well. I think British Gas offer 2 different ways to get Hive heating - you can buy it, which is what is on offer at the moment, or you can pay for it monthly.

Sorry, forgot that bit! We bought it outright and it upgrades itself - unlike my car satnav!

Thank you. I was starting to worry about just what the cost was.

We have seen and heard the Hive adverts, but really cannot see what it has to offer that is so special. We have a controller which adjusts for changes in time so we do not have to make adjustments for summer and winter time. Our heating comes on twice a day for hours we have chosen. We have a set temperature and rarely see any need to change it, either up or down. The hours and temperature are sufficient to keep the house comfortably warm all day.

When we go away we can easily adjust the timer to drop to a frost protector temperature while we are away returning to normal the day we return.

I cannot be bothered to be constantly fiddling with the central heating, which the Hive assumes people want to do. There are far more interesting things I can be doing.

We don't fiddle with ours Monica but we can if we want. When we had a new boiler fitted the new controller was so flipping complicated and guess whose job it was!!

As I said above, our house is weird and basically in two halves so we need to tweak it occasionally but we generally have it on 21 and leave it there. The ability to boost the heating or put the water on for a bath during an off period is worth the outlay.

We have a combi boiler so have constant hot water.

We changed our controller from the complicated one that came with the boiler, with instructions in such small print, that even the installer couldn't read them, to one like our daughter's, which is easy to operate and change.

Generally we only need to boost the temperature during winter freezes, which we define as an outside day temperature close to freezing and then, usually light our stove. If we do need to change the temperature, which is only when we are in the house anyway. We just press a button on the controller a couple of times and it reverts to the normal pattern at the next daily switch off/on.

We had it fitted by BG when they serviced the boiler earlier this year - it was on offer they said. I got an e-mail a few weeks ago saying it was noted my devices weren't connecting which I did know - they just put a booster in the post FOC and it works fine now.

Yes have a hive and love it. Easy to operate and also from my phone app. Can put on/boost heating even when away if necessary. It was fitted during a boiler service as I had no room thermostat. Intend to buy some lightbulbs soon.