Hive heating/hot water controller

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

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.

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

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

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.

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'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.

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!

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.

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?

Should be wi fi, oops.

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.

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).

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.

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.