Smart Thermostat - Options and Advice

mx5ire

Hi

So i know there are a lot of threads on Nest, Hive etc etc, but i don't see one that really answers my questions. Time to renew Gas and Electric with someone, i'm with Energia now, so i am looking at options.

My home setup is straightforward - We have a standard gas boiler, that heats the rads and the water. I would call it 1 zone, its either on or off. Each rad has a temperature control knob on it, to control its on, off and temp settings once the boiler is running. Once we turn on the boiler the only way to not have rads on is to turn each off manually, and that is fine. The water is always heated once the boiler runs.

We have a standard Horstmann Centaurplus C11 control unit/timer turn the boiler on for water (and heat in the colder weather) twice a day, morning and evening. And we boost it for the usual hour if we need it. If we go away we have to remember to set the timer to off. There is no main thermostat etc in any room.

I would like to get a smart thermostat, but i am not sure of the best option. Main reason to get a 'smart' one is to be able to control heat from outside, turn it on and off when we are not there, adjust timers etc. But also be able to ask Google Home nicely to boost heat, turn it on etc when we are there, just like the lights.

So i had though Nest, but the more i look at it, it may be overkill. I don't want/need the Learning abilities, as stated above - our needs are known, morning and evening timers. And Nest doesn't seem to do a simple Boost operation. So is Hive a better option - via Electric Ireland. It seems to cover most bases, and it says it supports Google home, but i read that this is flakey ?

Any advice and guidance accepted.....

toe_knee

Not an expert on this but the Nest does have a boost option. I got mine installed late last year and there are 2 options on the nest menu. One is for heating and the other is for water.

mx5ire

toe_knee wrote: »

Not an expert on this but the Nest does have a boost option. I got mine installed late last year and there are 2 options on the nest menu. One is for heating and the other is for water.

Really ? Everything that i had ready on it so far, reviews, the Nest community website, indicated that boost missing but was a really desired piece of functionality.

So how do you use it ? Like any cheap timer unit that you press a button and it comes on for 1 hour, regardless of timers or setpoints etc ?

I did read something on a review that talked about a workaround "a physical button on the Heat Link box can be pressed-and-held to override the heating and pop it on for a manual boost of heat"

L1011

Boost for heating or for HW?


The idea of boost for heating doesn't exist in the Nest world, its all target temperatures. You set targets for certain times and depending on how you have other settings turned on + the outdoor weather it turns on/off when required to hit those temperatures

If you need to extend the 'warm' period for a bit beyond your target low; on a given night and aren't using the activity detection (which I find useless beyond belief but I work erratic times like Tuesday-Saturday weeks most of the early winter), you have to turn it up and turn it down again or have multiple entries for the low target set

Boost for HW - this is the default functionality on the app. It doesn't know (can't know, currently anyway) your HW temperature and realistically your valve should be connected to a stat anyway. So the timers are on/off and the app has a 30min boost function.

You will find very little online about the HW function as its only in European Nest 3 models and even then, really only used in the UK and Ireland due to combi boilers being king on the continent. Actually I'd say its mostly used in Ireland - and may only be there due to Google buying it and Irish staff bitching!

mx5ire

i suppose my issue with these target temps, is that i perceive that the whole thing just becomes fairly inflexible. I have read a lot of stuff from folks saying that the damn heating ends up on all the time and bills go through the roof. Maybe thats just the learning thing though, which i dont really need.

So my heat/water system is simple, a standard boiler than heats the water always when its on, and any rads that are on, partly on etc via the TRV's on each one. So we have it come on at 5.30am till 7.15am for water (and heat in winter), then 5pm to 7pm for water (and heat in winter). And typically use the boost button anytime outside that. Or simply switch it Full On if the parents are over and we need the place like an oven.

So i was trying to figure out if i could use the boost H/W bit to fire the boiler, which heats the water, and by extension then heats the rads ? As you say, there is very little on the web about this. But i see lots of people complaining abou the lack of a boost button/facility for heat, but it has it for H/W. Which confuses me...

L1011

The H/W functions need a H/W zone, I don't think its possible wiring-wise (without constructing something relay based youself) to have it enabled on a single zone, H/W heated at the same time as rads, system.

How do you heat H/W in the summer? If its still timed there will still be wasted energy even with every rad off via TRV; the supply pipes are getting heated.

mx5ire

Yup, that's how it works. However i am utterly clueless on heating systems and may be making assumptions that are wrong, but i know how it operates from and end user perspective. As i understand it, its basically a single zone system, the boiler does everything once in use.

We use exactly the same timer settings summer and winter, our routines are pretty similar each day. So in summer we just have all the rads individually turned off, and in winter we just turn on individual ones as needed.

So that's what i was getting at, our boiler is heating the hot water tank anyway, so does that not mean that if the boiler is on via (h/w) boost, then the rads will also heat once they are active?

Really what i need is the ability to remotely turn on / off the heat for rads when we are out, and use Google Home to turn it on /off like lights. Nest may be a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. Hive and Netatmo are also options - its just finding accurate info that can be hard. I might just need to get a heating chap out to look and recommend.

maxamillius

Read through the heating thread, tonnes of info in there

L1011

mx5ire wrote: »

So that's what i was getting at, our boiler is heating the hot water tank anyway, so does that not mean that if the boiler is on via (h/w) boost, then the rads will also heat once they are active?

You have only one zone so the boost function will not exist.

R.O.R

Worth looking at the Hub Controller? https://www.thehubcontroller.com/

Free installs going on a part of a grant scheme. I looked in to it, but it's for single zone only (and currently doesn't work with Google Home) so I pulled out, but if you have simple requirements and a single zone, it's worth looking in to as zero cost!