Which smart thermostat?

1pudding1

1pudding1

1pudding1

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Hiya. I've just bought a commuter crash pad/2bed flat for when im at work away from home. I work a fixed pattern of 5 days on/4off/5 on/3 off. The work hours vary completely too so there's no way to schedule the heating to heat the flat when i'm actually there.

At the moment, it's got a recent (3yr old) Ideal combi-boiler, which is set to always on. This is then connected to a 7 day Horstmann Centaurstat 7, which is a simple 6 point timer for each day of the week. The always on on the boiler is fine, as the hot water is just on demand, but the heating via this thermostat is heating the flat a lot when im not there.

I could just turn the thermostat effectively off via the time setpoints, and override when im actually there, but then i'd constantly be coming back to a cold flat. Ideally I want to replace the thermostat with something smart, that I can either access remotely from my phone in advance of going to the flat, or perhaps by geolocation when i get within 5/10miles to get the heating on. And also would have some kind of away/holiday mode and a fall/setback temperature.

Any recommendations on what to replace the thermostat/timer with, as there seems to be tons out there from fairly basic simple and cheap stats that might do what i need, to the top of the range such as Nest etc which as supposed to recognise your habits/routines etc (but which would be completely wasted in my situation i guess?)

Cheers.
 
If you just want to control it with your phone just get a Hive setup, does exactly what you need and very reliable, mine works great.

Nest has a few more features but I would never need them all I do is set a schedule and manually turn it off/on or set a specific temperature when I need to.
 
I've got the tado smart thermostat and then their smart trvs. Love it.
 
Any opinions of Netatmo? Looks appealing and cheaper. And then even cheaper is a Salus iT500?

Is there anywhere selling Tado for less than rrp of 199?
 
So what would i miss out on by getting a Netatmo without Opentherm, vs a Tado with opentherm?

All i want is a simple and cheap as possible replacement with internet access and geolocation to detect when im at home or away and adjust the temp accordingly. No other control or integration is required i dont think.
 
Netatmo doesn't have geolocation looking at the specs. So it's either on or off based on your schedule. Not that I want to push you down the tado route too much if it's out of your price range but that's the key benefit for me. I work late, it doesn't come on and when it detects that I'm on my way home it comes on and it's at 20degrees. Rather than it heating the house for the cat.

Likewise, on a Saturday or Sunday my schedule is to keep the house at 20degrees while I'm there, I pop out it turns off and when it detects I'm heading home it comes on.

Handily, the app gives you 'energy saving reports' in December I saved 49% on my heating, January 20.3%, February 18.7%. Since September I'm confident it has paid for itself (not the smart TRVs though, I went overboard on buying those).
 
Ah yes sorry, i was looking at this here for the geolocation for Netatmo - https://ifttt.com/applets/297908p-when-you-leave-home-switch-your-netatmo-thermostat-to-away-mode

My schedule is all over, so i'd probably simply set it to 19degrees from say 7am-10pm, and rely on geolocation/detection to turn itself on/off when im actually there. Was Tado very simple to install, im hoping to simply take off the existing thermostat and replace without having to faff with boiler wiring? I can afford the Tado, it's just if there was something to do the job just as well for 75quid less i might as well go for that.
 
Oh ace. Well in that case why not give it a go? Like you say, it's £75 difference and you could always put that towards a TRV if you find yourself investing more in the system. They offer a 'money back' option.

Tado was probably a little more complex for me as I didn't have a thermostat (it was the first thing I did when I bought the place). In theory it's as easy as taking your old one off and switching the wires over where they already go into your existing thermostat. In my case I installed the extension kit (which meant opening up the boiler) but I simply popped in my model number of the boiler and they had step by step, incredibly easy to follow, diagrams. It's all very handheld. I've honestly never felt something was so easy with the way they presented it (i.e. one step was undoing a screw).
 
I wouldn't let not having opentherm be a deal breaker. Does your boiler support it?
 
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