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Hive Heating Review
Over the first few months Hive kept loosing connection. Fortunately it was during summer so heating was not required. If it had been during winter no heating would have been more of a problem. After many calls to Hive they must have got fed up with me because they sent me a free Signal Booster. Since I installed the Signal Booster, Hive has been great.
Hive gives me much more control over my heating system than previous when the heating could come on and go off at the same 2 times every day. I don’t live my life like that. With Hive I can set it to come on and go off up to 6 different times each day. Each setting can be a different temperature. Going to be home late, I can just delay the time the heating comes on using the app on my phone. It even has a holiday mode where it switches the heating off while you are away. It can learn how long it takes to warm up your home to ensure that your home is warm when you arrive. The heating can be set to come on if the temperature drops too low so that the pipes don’t freeze. Feeling a bit cold, it is simple to boost the heating. How did I ever get along without it.
Installation
A British Gas Engineer installed the Hive System for me. He was very efficient and cleaned up afterwards. From start to finish it took him about half an hour, but part of this time was spent trying make his way through the garage to turn the power off.
The Hive heating system that British Gas installed for me contains three elements. The Hive hub, the Hive receiver, and the Hive thermostat.
The Hive hub is the heart of the Hive system. Without the Hive hub your Hive devices would not be able to talk to each other. It also enables your smart phone to control each Hive device.
The engineer asked me to download the Hive app to my phone while he connected the hub to the broadband router via an Ethernet cable and plugged in the hub. Simples as Compare the Meerkat says.
The Hive Receiver is the only part of the set up that needs a qualified electrician. The old thermostat had to be disconnected before the receiver could be connected to the boiler. The receiver is a small plastic box with a green light. It receives instructions from the hub to turn the boiler on or off. When it receives instructions, the green light flashes.
The Hive Thermostat is the final component. It has a large LCD screen that displays the current temperature. A central dial allows you to increase or decrease the temperature. The engineer put the batteries in and it was ready to use. Simples again.
I do not touch the thermostat. It is just there telling the hub what the temperature is so that the hub can tell the receiver whether to turn the boiler on or off. If I want the temperature higher I just tell Alexa on my Echo Dot and Alexa tells the hub.
On the Hive app the engineer entered the hub id which was on the bottom of the hub, entered my email address and the system was up and running.
As I said earlier, initially I had problems because the hub and the receiver kept loosing connection. Hive sent me a signal booster. This was also easy to install. I plugged it into a socket about half way between the hub and the receiver. On the app I searched for hive devices and it found the booster. I selected the WiFi, input the password, and everything is fantastic.
The Hive App
The Hive app is available on both Apple and Android and is very easy to use. It can control all Hive devices not just the heating system. From anywhere in the world you can turn your heating on, off, up, down.
It is with the Hive app that you can set the heating to come on and go off up 6 different times each day. And it is the Hive app that allows you to override this. It is on the Hive app that you can set up the holiday mode to turn the heating off while you are away.
Conclusion
The advert says that Hive Heating will save you money. I can not say for certain that it has but I find it easy to believe the better control has saved me money. I would not go back to the old way of doing things. If my next house does not have Hive heating then it soon will have.
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