As we approach Autumn, I’m having thoughts of switching out my existing thermostats for models I can control via Smartthings. I have two thermostats connected to two valves resulting in two physical zones in my home - both setups can accommodate this.
Does anyone have any views on which is the better offering for Smartthings? Personally I think the Nest has the better looks, but both are acceptable to the wife. I’m not sure I need any of the Nest smarts, as I’ll get Smartthings to handle the turning on/off of the heating based on external events. Not interested in the ‘learning’ facility.
I’m in a similar situation by I can’t decide between the Nest and the Ecobee 3.
(The Ecobee 4 over here is just a rip off lol)
But the price of the Ecobee over here compared to the US is crazy…
Even free for sone from their energy supplier.
I do like the look of the Nest, I don’t really fancy the Hive mainly because of the cosmetics I just think it looks bland.
The Ecobee range look nice and apparently had more features and extras you can buy.
Nest looks great and works great. Their Smoke Alarms are top notch in terms of features. The smartphone App is highly polished. You can get the integration with Smarthings working via NST Manager smartapp.
However, the integration is via the cloud and not via Z-wave local network. So, if you want tight Z-wave integration and then looks elsewhere. For everything else, Nest is great. It can even turnoff the Boiler if CO2 is detected as a safety feature.
I would go for Nest again if I have to make this call.
Do the Nest smoke alarms still go off if there’s a fire and network has gone down? I’m presuming they go off no matter what , wouldn’t like it to be like other cloud based products in that situation.
Works extremely well with ST, nice app, affordable and passes ‘Wife Acceptance Test’. Minor niggles in that location services on Android are intermittent. No issues with iOS though.
Customer service is good. Product ships directly from Europe (Germany I believe) so next day delivery isn’t available if you’re the impatient kind. Usually 4-5 days for delivery of kit.
Each Nest alarm will always go off if triggered. Other linked alarms in the house will also go off if wifi is running. Remote notifications reply on internet connectivity of course.
Back to the original Next v Hive question, whilst I went with Nest alarms, for heating I went with the Genius Hub (aka Heat Genius). Reason being that whilst Nest & Hive are great thermostats, I wanted to control each room in the house separately and intelligently so wanted a multi-zone system where every radiator has a z-wave TRV (thermostatic radiator valve).
What I liked about Heat Genius over other multi-zone systems (Ecobee and Evohome etc) was the ability to also control hot water (from the gas boiler) and the electric immersion heaters all in one integrated system. They also have optional motion sensors (that also act as room temperature sensors) to help “learn” presence in rooms and offer a good configuration and professional installation service. The TRVs and Sensors are both devices with native support in ST so can in theory be interrogated via ST to trigger other things.
Caveat: I’ve researched the options extensively and ordered this system but it isn’t installed yet, so I can’t say how good it is in practice!
To add my thoughts into the mix, for a simple and good value system I went with Heatmiser Neostats after weighing up all the options. Mainly because they support underfloor heating, while Nest/Hive/Tado don’t. I have since integrated it into SmartThings and whilst the Heatmiser intelligence could be improved, I now have full control over everything through ST (and Alexa) so thats almost preferable for me.
Sorry to add further options and confusion to the mix.
Thanks for the views everyone. Unfortunately I’m no nearer making a decision. In fact I’m now researching Nest, Hive, AND Tado. Not sure Tado is compatible with my heating system as I’ve got multiple physical zones (2 independent heating loops with valves which turn them on/off heated from 1 boiler) - so I’ve shot them an email to ask.
At the moment Tado could be my new favourite, otherwise Nest.
I believe it is compatible with multi-zone but Tado’ll confirm yay or nay. It also does the individual room control in the same was as mentioned by @black-paladin and Heat Genius.
Sadly it seems Tado is not compatible. For some reason they have a restriction that only 1 extension kit can be used. I would need 2 wireless thermostats each with their own extension for my setup. They’ve stated I could have one wireless and one wired, but as I have no thermostat wiring in my house this would mean one thermostat would be sited by the boiler which would not be useful at all.
So it looks like I’m back to looking at Nest & Hive!
Oh, that’s a shame. I’ll make a note of that incompatibility for future advice.
My second penny’s worth… I had the first and second generation Hive units and would recommend it. But having never had a Nest, I’m a little biased.
Only swapped out the Hive unit because we had the opportunity to have a Loxone setup at the time.
They won’t commit to dates, no surprise there, but it seems it’s a restriction they wish to lift. I may just delay the replacement until next year when the technologies are more mature. I really want at least a few smart TRVs in the system too, and nobody does that at a pricepoint I’m interested in yet (except Tado who are incompatible for now).
Just trying to follow where heating controls is at with SmartThings integration.
Is there any heating control system in the UK that works with SmartThings that does not require its own controller hub plugged into the network router? Ive got too many powered on devices already!!! Are they all propietary solutions?
Not that I’m aware of but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.
Tado’s hub/controller is tiny compared to others. The latest one is about the size of a USB stick, maybe a little thicker. And it powers quite happily from the USB port at the back of most modern routers so no need for a wall socket… hurray!
