There's a reason smart heating is growing in popularity. Not only will it give you more control over the temperature in your home - so it's always warm when you want it to be - and a more convenient way of changing the temperature, but you can easily monitor your heat and potentially make savings on your energy bills. However, you should bear in mind that it'll take some time to recoup the cost of the tech.
A smart thermostat, like those from Nest, Hive or Tado, will give you control over your entire home but a good way to ensure you never waste heat on rooms you're not using is to control the heat in each room individually.
To do this, you can either buy a multi-zone smart heating system, like Drayton Wiser, or opt for smart TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves). You can buy them individually and fit them to radiators anywhere in your home. This can really help with particularly chilly or overly warm spots in your house, as well as ensuring you're only heating rooms when you use them.
Being able to see the temperature clearly on your phone screen or on the device itself, instead of crawling around trying to decipher the lines on a standard radiator valve, gives you much more control over the heat output. Plus, many smart TRVs allow you to use voice control, via your Alexa or Google Assistant.
They’re also a great option for people in rented accommodation, or those who don’t want to get a full smart home heating system installed.
There’s one thing to bear in mind: some valves will still require you to buy the company’s smart home hub or smart thermostat to work properly.
To make your life easy and minimise the number of apps you need to use, you should choose something that’s compatible with your existing smart home ecosystem. Or, if you don’t have one yet, choose a brand that has other smart products (like home security and lighting items) that you might like to use in conjunction with your smart TRVs.
When buying, look out for bundled products, as purchasing together can be a money saver.
1. Eve Thermo
- £59.49
The new generation of the Eve Thermo fixes the flaws of previous versions, which didn't allow the device to be used without the app. It's now a very flexible addition to your home heating system. As long as you have an iPhone, you can control it from the intuitive and free-to-download Eve app, setting a heating schedule and hopefully saving yourself some money on electricity bills.
However, to unlock the full potential Eve Thermo, you really need an Apple hub or product – such as an iPad – that can be used as one. The Thermo is fully HomeKit-compatible and can be used in conjunction with other Apple and Eve items.
We could see this being very useful for people in rented accommodation who want some of the convenience of smart home technology without installing a full smart home heating system.
2. Devolo Home Control Radiator Thermostat
- $129.99
Even though it was designed with the whole home in mind, the heating accessories make Devolo a great smart heating system. Unlike Nest and Hive, you don’t need an engineer to install it – in fact, it only took us minutes to do it ourselves. However, to control the boiler you'll need the smart thermostat as well.
The app experience lets it down a bit, but the full website more than makes up for those frustrations. Devolo’s additional accessories can turn a dumb home smart, and it can be a gradual process as all accessories are sold separately.
The Devolo Home Control Thermostatic Radiator is currently only in stock at Conrad Electronic for £58.62, although you can still find secondhand products on Amazon and eBay.
3. Lightwave Smart Radiator Valve
- £54.99
The Lightwave smart radiator valve has a few downsides - it's bulky, pricy, and requires the Lightwave hub to work - but once you get it up and running it's a solid, reliable smart heating setup for room-by-room control.
The app itself is a little fiddly at first, but if you can't get the hang of it you can always just use voice controls anyway; the kit is compatible with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple HomeKit, so it'll fit right into any existing smart home setup.
This is undeniably a better buy for people who are already invested in Lightwave's ecosystem of smart light switches and plug sockets, or are considering the investment, but if you don't fancy the rest of the Lightwave range you can probably do better elsewhere.
Read our full Lightwave Smart Radiator Valve review
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