Smart thermostat advice needed

[WTFH]

My butler has advised me that due to his batman's servant's wife wanting to move some radiators, he's going to end up with a radiator very close to the one wired thermostat in the whole of his house.
Since I realise most of you are disguised radiator bleeders, I thought this would be a good place to ask for advice. My current thinking is to disconnect the current thermostat and get a wireless one that could be set somewhere more appropriate, without the need to create new cable runs, etc.
Due to the open plan design of the lowest floor of the property, I don't see any value installing multiple thermostats in multiple areas, since the heat just circulates. Each radiator TRV is adjust for each room, which works fine.
Given that there is no current smart home setup (if we rule out the Arlo cameras), then there is no requirement for it to fit in with a particular system.
I've ruled out Hive already, since they are dropping support for everything. I'm contemplating a Drayton Wiser system as the current heating control is Drayton and the new system allegedly clips in to the same wiring plate.
Does anyone with any experience have any relevant advice?

[BigLadFromBeeston666]

I went with Tado. It was discounted during Black Friday on Screwfix. I have two zones (upstairs and downstairs). I also use it to control my hot water. Why I went for Tado:

• Very competitively priced
• Minimalist design
• App is good, and can be used by me and my wife no issue
• Easy to add on smart TRVs to all your radiators in the future (a bit too expensive for me atm)

I looked at Hive. Lots of issues with the app reported. Design is also very old fashioned.

I looked at Nest. The 'Smart' feature which auto-adjusts your heating seems to be very hit and miss. People report it coming on at random times and costing them a few quid.

Tado often comes out trumps on comparison sites. Check out: https://heatable.co.uk/boiler-advice...rmostat-review

Final note -- getting a smart thermostat was a great decision for me. My wife would fiddle with the knob(!) randomly each day. Now I know it's set at X temperature. I know how to turn it off when we're out, remotely. Cost savings aside, that feeling of control is wonderful.

[eek]

Wiser just works - we have it throughout the house.

Depending on the size of your house you made need a wiser smart plug or 2 as they act of boosters if the distance between the thermostat and the main controller is too far...

[ladymuck]

+1 for tado

Really easy to set up and just works. You can go as minimal or as full on as you like

[d000hg]

We invested in the Honeywell Evohome system when we moved here ~6 years back. Went the full "every room its own zone" thing so we set the temperature on a per room basis.

It's good but it doesn't really seem to get the updates others do, but it's a bit more of a serious system. We maxed out the 12 zones which is an unfortunate limitation and had to juggle a bit but it certainly helps on reducing waste.

[Chris Bryce]

+another for Tado.

[northernladuk]

Interesting to see the responses. I thought it would be mostly Nest and no one has mentioned it yet. I've got a nest and it's done what it needs to for years. Only gripe is the whole house seems to act like a faraday cage and I can't get wireless through two rooms let alone to cover the house. Even the smart meter man commented on it as he had to install the most power full option just to get through one room and downstairs. About 40ft in a diagonal and it didn't work. Thankfully the nest is in the hallway about 10 feet from the boiler and had no connection issues to date.

Second issue is hte house again. It started as a tiny bunglow on the side of a hill and has been extended multiple times over many years. I'm guessing the plasterboard could be fitted on an aluminium structure not just battons hence the faraday issue but it also means every single room bar non has a different insulation situation. Three rooms with flat roof, of those one has one external wall, another has two and the office has three and so on. When the house is up to heat every single room is a different temp and the office is freezing. Two zones would be useful but d000hg's solution sounds perfect so will deffo have a look in to that.

[BigLadFromBeeston666]

Interesting to see the responses. I thought it would be mostly Nest and no one has mentioned it yet. I've got a nest and it's done what it needs to for years. Only gripe is the whole house seems to act like a faraday cage and I can't get wireless through two rooms let alone to cover the house. Even the smart meter man commented on it as he had to install the most power full option just to get through one room and downstairs. About 40ft in a diagonal and it didn't work. Thankfully the nest is in the hallway about 10 feet from the boiler and had no connection issues to date.

Second issue is hte house again. It started as a tiny bunglow on the side of a hill and has been extended multiple times over many years. I'm guessing the plasterboard could be fitted on an aluminium structure not just battons hence the faraday issue but it also means every single room bar non has a different insulation situation. Three rooms with flat roof, of those one has one external wall, another has two and the office has three and so on. When the house is up to heat every single room is a different temp and the office is freezing. Two zones would be useful but d000hg's solution sounds perfect so will deffo have a look in to that.

I mentioned Nest. The 'smart' feature of automatically setting the temperature seems to piss a lot of people off. Do you have that issue? I hear many people end up disabling it.

[d000hg]

Interesting to see the responses. I thought it would be mostly Nest and no one has mentioned it yet. I've got a nest and it's done what it needs to for years. Only gripe is the whole house seems to act like a faraday cage and I can't get wireless through two rooms let alone to cover the house. Even the smart meter man commented on it as he had to install the most power full option just to get through one room and downstairs. About 40ft in a diagonal and it didn't work. Thankfully the nest is in the hallway about 10 feet from the boiler and had no connection issues to date.

Second issue is hte house again. It started as a tiny bunglow on the side of a hill and has been extended multiple times over many years. I'm guessing the plasterboard could be fitted on an aluminium structure not just battons hence the faraday issue but it also means every single room bar non has a different insulation situation. Three rooms with flat roof, of those one has one external wall, another has two and the office has three and so on. When the house is up to heat every single room is a different temp and the office is freezing. Two zones would be useful but d000hg's solution sounds perfect so will deffo have a look in to that.

AFAIK Tado can do the same as my system. I think there are a few options like that these days.

[Snooky]

Surely you should be leaving all this to your housekeeper or handyman?

Anyway, we changed from a fixed wired thermostat to a wireless one many years ago, before smart homes had even been dreamt of, so we still have something really simple, very similar to this https://www.screwfix.com/p/honeywell...ermostat/543kt

You just wire one bit into the demand controls (I let the heating engineer do that as he was fitting a new boiler at the time) and then the thermostat part sits wherever you want it. It's wireless but not via your WiFi, so it needs to be close enough to able to talk to the receiver in the airing cupboard or wherever. You can add preset temperatures for different time ranges on different days of the week.

The only slight annoyance is that sometimes my wife puts it in the living room, which is by far the warmest room in the house, so when it gets to its set temperature the heating goes off and the rest of the house is freezing!