Can smart heating save you money and keep you warmer?

We check out the latest in smart heating control technology and apps so you are prepared for autumn and winter

Heating controls, even those clever thermostats are only as good as your habits and choice of the technology. Ensure you have a real prospect of saving money and increasing your home comforts. Picture: iStock

Properly deployed and over-ridden only when necessary, the latest smart heating controls clean up the flabby habits that routinely and unnecessarily kick up energy bills. Intelligent, app-prompted heating technology I scoffed at five years ago, is supremely useful in fighting back the cost of fossil fuel heating in particular.

Those carbon taxes and kilowatt prices are only going to get more penetrative over the next ten years, even with time-of-use tariffs and smart metering.

Sometimes one control can rule an entire space. For simplicity and proven performance choose the Nest Learning Thermostat (a mesmerising tilted globe). 

The ultimate expression of loose living, is the manual immersion switch and a hurrying teenager. Without any form of finesse to the system, the bath switch gets slammed before an urgent outing, and the light is left glittering in a dark corner of the utility room for hours. Just keep re-boiling the kettle, you couldn’t do worse. Throw in radiators with no TRVs, and we have a money pit in the making.

Digital heating controls confronting us with real-time energy usage, (weekly/monthly/annual bar charts) on a highly visible control pad or blinking on a mobile device, can galvanise us into much better use of the CH and hot water. A smart energy monitor will also allow you to smugly track effortless savings.

A nudge down to 20C from 22C could save you 20% on bills for LPG, oil, even natural gas– we’re reaching the hundreds of euro here, folks. Empty children’s rooms and back corridors don’t have to be Ibiza when you’re downstairs. Without any zone control whatsoever on the CH, I’m guessing you’re hovering miserably over a space heater, or stressing out every time that eBill waves at you from the Inbox.

The Honeywell Evohome thermostat will support up to 12 radiator zones, screwfix.ie.

Smart thermostats can detect and alter current temperatures in multiple areas of the house, poke hot water into play and even pick up weather conditions outside (look up Tado products with integrated AutoAssist). However, even if they can adapt to you boosting the system regularly, or react to your physical comings and goings — ultimately, they cannot think for you. It’s an interactive relationship to wring savings and by continually over-riding a schedule or temperature, you can make a learning thermostat as delinquent as you are.

Intelligent heating controls that split up and tailor the warmth of various parts of the house, once demanded zoned, wet CH loops in the house to be in place. In most modern homes this would take the form of a division of the hot water and CH supply, plus multiple thermostats linked to heating loops (radiators and UFH). We can upgrade an older master heating control with a new master control. The surprise will be the first time Alexa for example, chirps out the news headline from your new heating hub.

If you don’t have zoned heating, entry-level app-based heating control is aimed primarily at turning the heating on and off at pre-set temperatures for set periods over the course of a day or week, and wrangling your water heating times. There’s a novel sense of spontaneity too, as you can instantly alter the schedule or pop on the heating and hot water from your device.

In a smaller home, already tuned with manual TRVs, single-zone control may be all you need to make your heating controls flex around your life. If you don’t have a smartphone or other mobile device linked to the Internet, ensure your new thermostat can be alternatively controlled from a PC or laptop (website control functionality). You should be able to pick up most thermostats and bring them with you around the house too.

Irish suppliers of smart heat technology include The Hub Controller and Climote. C

The third-generation Nest Learning Thermostat (Google) is offered by Electric Ireland with installation as standard. Once you get beyond the basic settings and have tweaked the thermostat manually, Nest Sense will pick up on your schedule and can behave in an adaptive way, changing the time and/or temperature settings and even following your journeys away from home with a GPS tracker. The kit includes one Nest Learning Thermostat (a mesmerising tilted globe), a Google Mini (hub) and a stand, plus a tutorial from your installer to get you started, all, €130 with the Google Mini valued at €59 for free. For zoned homes, extra Nest Learning Thermostats are required and come at €270. shop.electricireland.ie.

There’s even free (single-zone) products and/or installation dangled with new home energy contracts. Energia delivers an Energia Smart thermostat by Netamo, installing it for free, once you sign up for specific new customer offers. They claim the thermostat can save you up to 37% on your home and water heating and monitoring your consumption, you can prove it to yourself. The economical Blue Light setting is great for longer absences, as it will keep the temperature of the home at 16°. Offer worth €329, energia.ie. Bord Gais have a similar Hive Echo Dot Bundle, worth €344 with some of their paperless billing packages, bordgaisenergy.ie.

Where you don’t have the joy of zoned, digital control in newly installed heating controls, there’s the option of retrofitting the latest smart radiator valves to deliver a zoned, scheduled, app-tickled environment to any old wet CH system. Granny can be cosy in the Annex, while your kitchen/living area is cooled down to 18C while you’re out. For the best prices, look up whole-house kits first. Build on one platform or compatible components to get the whole house singing to the same hymn sheet, with a hub, app and a compatible radiator valve set.

Honeywell Home Evohome multizone kits include four wireless, battery-powered radiator heads with valves that simply screw down where your manual TRVs once sat. They open and close to a schedule or the tap of a forefinger on your mobile.

There’s a multi-zone signal booster for homes with thick masonry walls to ensure the Wi-fi can reliably control the radiator on command. The Evohome thermostat (smart hub required) will support up to 12 radiator zones, with packs of four radiator valves from €310, screwfix.ie.

To build that smart-home feel outward from your new app-based thermostat, add some app-operated plugs from the same branding. Now you’re turning your large appliances on from the office or the mattress — clever you! You could add 3, 13A plugs from Hive for around €100 with 6 daily time-slots, presuming you have a Hive Hub or Hive Active Heating in place. Compatible with Amazon Alexa - Google Home - iOS App - Android App. Multiple suppliers.

Some intelligent thermostat systems are even greater monitors with added smarts that detect your movements, acting in a predictive manner to adapt the heating to keep you comfortable in the rooms you are present in.

For this, you will need GPS tracking, geo-fencing and motion sensors engineered into the system. I imagine perimenopausal women fleeing from room to room in a sweat, pursued by an over-zealous heating prompt.

If you have a combi-boiler, providing instant hot water, you don’t need a controller fashioned to perk the water temperature (the Nest Thermostat E does away with water control, €239 at suppliers including Currys). Don’t invest in more complicating smarts than you actually need.

Buying Irish? Cork-based Smartzone includes smart heating controls in its well-priced suite of intelligent home bundles. Its Smart Thermostat has all the essentials and is sensitised to occupancy (geofencing), activity and weather conditions.

Its current Smart Heating Control offers includes three zones, a courtesy BER, 2 Smart plugs, and is designed to be compatible with SEAI grant aid. €399 with a €10 monthly fee after the first month, smartzone.ie.

Climote remote heating control starts from just €399 (installed) with annual remote access service for €19 after the first year. Climote is also offered by Electric Ireland.

This nicely detailed control is no-muss, no-fuss and can boost up to three heating zones, including water, from a single wall-mounted switch. It’s equally at home with text commands and ideal where the internet is dodgy, working directly from your home PC, climate.ie.

Another Irish offering, The Hub Controller, around since 2017, offers a package with innovative Automatic Energy Reduction to scold the over-zealous boiler from €380, including installation. thehubcontroller.com.