Guides4Homeowners Useful Information & Guides
Are you tired of going to your boiler every time you want to turn your heating on? Perhaps you simply want the house to be warm when you arrive back from work. If this sounds like you, then you should consider a smart WiFi controlled thermostatic radiator valve, which sounds fancy, but they’re not as expensive as you might think.
Smart radiator valves are amazing, you can control your heating from your phone, set different rooms to be at different temperatures (which is amazing for those sun-facing rooms that get a little too warm when the heating is on) and some even work with a Google Home or Amazon Alexa, so you might not even have to pick up your phone if you want a truly minimal effort option.
As you may be able to tell already, there are a lot of different functions and options to choose from when it comes to picking a smart WiFi controlled thermostatic radiator valve, so I can help you decide on the best option for your home. In this article, I’ll go through a complete buying guide, what some of the popular brands are, the current best sellers and my top picks.
It’s a rather long article, so you can use the section below to quickly navigate through to the section that best suits your query:
- Smart WiFi Radiator Valve Buying Guide
- Popular Smart WiFi Radiator Valve Brands
- How it Works (Packs & Addons)
- Best Selling Smart WiFi Radiator Valves
- Top WiFi Radiator Valves With Programmable Heating Controls
Smart WiFi Radiator Valve Buying Guide
Are you a bit of a novice when it comes to smart tech? Don’t worry, I’ve done the research for you in this buying guide section. I’ve gone into depth on what exactly a smart WiFi radiator valve is, whether they are worth it, if they actually save money, controlling your heating from another room and what the best option I could find is, so keep reading to get clued up:
What is a Smart WiFi radiator valve?
Smart thermostatic radiator valves are just one of the smart home features you can have installed in your home, along with other gadgets such as smart heating thermostats, radiator valves & even boiler diagnostics, but what exactly are they?
Smart controls are devices used to hook up to things like your boiler or radiator, and you can control them from your phone, often without even having to be at the property. The radiator valves or smart TRVs as there often referred to, work in conjunction with thermostatic kits and create heating “zones” around the house, allowing you to set different temperatures in different rooms from the comfort of your couch, through your computer, tablet or smartphone.
Are smart radiator valves worth it?
Smart radiator valves, just like other smart technology can be a good way of saving on your energy bills, but you need to use them in the right way. You won’t benefit from smart radiator valves if forget to use the app, don’t use your smartphone regularly or rarely use your heating. The people that are likely to benefit from these radiator valves are:
- Tech savvy smartphone users who will regular use and monitor the app
- If you have a busy lifestyle and want to be able to control your heating whilst on the move
- If you have a regular routine, so you can program them for specific times
- If you use your heating a lot, rather than just stopping and starting it through the day
- If you have specific rooms which are warmer than the rest and general don’t require heating
Do smart WiFi Radiator valves save money?
You can use smart wifi radiator valves to save money, but you have to be smart in the way you use them. Like I touched on previously, in a house you will usually find that some rooms get warmer than others, for instance in mine, the living room is sun facing so warms up throughout the day even in the winter but the rest of the house stays cold.
Smart radiator valves are good because you can actively and quickly control which rooms or “zones” you want the heating on at any given time. That means that there is less demand from the boiler if it’s not required to heat all the radiators around the house.
How can I control my heating from another room?
Well, as you may have guessed, get smart radiator valves! The way that this typically works is that you download an app on your smartphone, and you can log in and control the zones you set up in your home, turning them on and off as you please.
You can do this from another room, or even from the other side of the country, as long as you have a mobile signal that is. An exception to this would be to use a Bluetooth based smart radiator valve, then you would need to be in the range of the device in order to use it.
What are the best smart radiator valves?
Now that’s the golden question and what I’ve been looking to answer in this post. There are a lot of different ones to choose from, and a lot of the time you need to buy the complete “pack”.
If you want a budget option, I would suggest the: eqiva Bluetooth Smart Radiator Thermostat
Or if you want to go for a full smart heating pack including the radiator valves, I would choose the: tado° Smart Thermostat – Multi-Room Control Starter Kit V3+
Popular Smart WiFi Radiator Valve Brands
When looking into smart radiator valves there were a few reputable brands that came up time and time again in the search. There are hundreds to choose from, but generally here are the top ones that you’ll most commonly see:
- Hive These are a well known smart tech brand and one of the first and largest in the UK, they work closely and are often installed by British Gas Engineers.
- Google Obviously, you’ve heard of Google, and they now have there finger in pretty much every pie when it comes to tech. Google also acquired Nest who where a large smart solutions company.
- tado° A slightly cheaper brand than the above too in general, but a good quality smart home solution none the less. There a German technology company with a growing presents in the UK market.
- Honeywell Home Honeywell are more of a smart home heating solutions company, and they come from the US. They’ve had substantial growth in recent years and their products have really come along.
- Drayton Another leading brand when it comes to UK domestic heating, with their mostly smart heating based products. They’re a trusted name and a little cheaper than the likes of Hive & Google, usually.
- Salus This brand specialises on smart home heating controls and have been in the market for years. They boast several award-winning heating products in their time.
- MOES I had never heard of Moes before this, and as a company, I could find out very little about them. However, their products are generally well-reviewed, cheap and I’ve been seeing them regularly in my searches, so I wanted to feature them.
How it Works (Bluetooth, Packs & Addons)
Looking into getting a smart WiFi controlled radiator valve? Well it can all be a bit confusing, with some looking like they cost around £30 and others seemingly £150-200+, so what’s the big difference?
There is certain terminology that you need to watch out for because they’re all different.
- Bluetooth: These will typically be devices that you fit straight to your radiator, with no additional requirements. They tend to be the cheapest ones, but you can only control them within a certain distance of the device, and you can’t control them out of range. The benefit to this is you can control the device from your couch, but not from work for example.
- Packs: These are the expensive ones you see. They usually include a smart thermostat which you will need to install and connected up to your boiler, they will give you full control of your heating. In these packs will also be the radiator valves, so you can add the areas as zones, instead of having all the heating on at once.
- Add-ons: Be careful, because it’s not always clear. These add-ons require you to have the smart thermostat from the same brand installed. For example if you bought a Tado Smart Radiator Valve, you would need to already have a Tado smart thermostat installed in your home in order to actually use it.
Best Selling Smart WiFi Radiator Valves
As you might have guessed, with technology things are forever changing & smart tech is no exception to the rule, there are constantly new products and innovations, it can be hard to keep on top of them all.
Not to worry, you can keep up the market with the below tool, it picks out the 3 most popular, best selling, smart wifi radiator valves:
- Geofencing for Free: Introducing geofencing support-your home warms as you...
- Device Group Control: Group several smart radiator valves and control them...
- External Temp Sensor Supported: With external temperature sensors (Tapo...
- Open Window Detection: KE100 now auto-shuts the heat and enables Frost...
- Control from Anywhere – Control all your radiators in each room from your...
- SAVE MORE ENERGY AND MONEY: The more radiators and rooms you control with...
- ADD-ON: Enhance your tado° home setup by adding extra smart radiator...
- COMPATIBILITY: Smart radiator thermostats replace your existing...
- REQUIREMENTS: Works only with a tado° Starter Kit (V2, V3, V3+) available...
- EASY INSTALLATION: Install the smart radiator thermostat yourself in...
- 【Smart Thermostat - Hub Required】Note: Be sure to use the latest meross...
- 【Voice/APP/Remote Control】The WIFI Smart Home Thermostat compatible...
- 【Separate Control & Timer】1 smart hub can support up to 16 smart...
- 【Smart & More Energy Efficient】Open windows/door are recognized and the...
- 【Easy Installation & 24-month Warranty】meross offers 2 year warranty...
Top WiFi Radiator Valves With Programmable Heating Controls
Now you’ve found out more about WiFi radiator valves with programmable heating controls, and understand what your after, I’ve picked out a few of my top choices for you. I’ve looked into the product descriptions, features, user feedback (reviews) and perhaps most importantly, price, and using all the information pulled together the best products for you to look through.
Without further ado, here are my choices:
Product Description
tado is a well-known name in the smart heating industry, and they’re one of the more affordable brands in comparison with some of their other competitors like Hive or Nest. As you might be able to see, this is a complete smart heating pack with the thermostat & multi-room control, which comes with two smart radiator valve thermostats.
This pack will give you full control of your heating from your smartphone, allowing you to have a comfortable and healthy climate in your home, whilst also reducing your bills. You can control your heating from anywhere and you can use the smart radiator valves to control the radiators individually for maximum efficiency.
It’s easy to control your heating from another room, or even another country!
Main Features
This full smart heating pack comes with a lot of fantastic features, and we’ve highlighted some of them below for you.
- The app provides you with regular reports and statistics on your heating whilst also showing the current temperature
- You can set up a smart schedule for each individual room
- It comes with frost protection, meaning if the temperature drops significantly it will activate the heating to prevent damage
- Open window detection – allowing you to know when a window has been opened in your home to prevent loss of energy
- Easily add-on excess tado smart radiator valves
Product Description
One of my personal favourites just because of its simplicity and low price. This radiator thermostat by eqiva is controlled by Bluetooth, meaning you need to be within proximity of it, but it can all be done via a free app on your phone.
You don’t always need access to the app, because you can set weekly programs with switching allowed up to 7x a day. You can buy multiple of these devices and manage up to 10 rooms via the single app, up to 5 radiators in a single room. They also claim an energy saving of around 30% and have several energy-saving functions, like the holiday function.
If the temperature falls below 5 degrees, it activates the heating to protect it from frost, as well as protecting against calcification by regularly closing and opening the valves. It is very easy to mount, with no specific required tools and fits most popular radiator manufacturers.
Main Features
This may be a budget option, but it has lots of fantastic features to shout about which I’ve highlighted for you below:
- Bluetooth controlled
- Automatic frost protection when the temperature falls below 5 degrees
- Child lock preventing tampering
- Easily fits most popular manufacturers with no special tools required
- Can manage up to 10x rooms, so multiple of these devices work together
- The app on your phone is completely free
Product Description
Now you’ve probably heard of Honeywell, right? There another big brand in the smart technology scene and this is one of their products, the evohome Wireless Radiator TRV head which allows you to control your radiators remotely.
The evohome smart Wifi thermostat is required for these to operate, although they say you can use Amazon Alexa or a Google Home. It fits a wide range of radiators and if it doesn’t and you have a lesser-known radiator then there are often adapters you can use. It’s very easy to fit, you just unscrew the current TRV and replace it, no tools required. You can do it if you don’t have a TVR in place, but you should contact a professional.
The head allows you to create a single zone but with the full evohome unit you can manage up to 12 different zones. There are also timing programs so you can set it around your routine & you can set up to 6 points per day. It’s powered by a battery and has a battery life of around two years, and it has an easy to view screen so you can see the temperature in passing.
There are also some great additional features like the open window feature, which detects if there are any windows open meaning you don’t lose any energy unnecessarily.
Main Features
This Honeywell product is a great buy & comes with a lot of great features, which you can see as a snap shot below:
- Very easy to set up
- Manage through the evohome smart Wi-Fi thermostat, you can also use Google Home & Amazon Alexa
- Custom program modes like holiday, eco, day-off & 24/7 comfort
- Two year battery life
- Great visual display for instant temperature reading
- Open window temperature drop detection – meaning no loss of unnecessary energy
Product Description
Danfoss is yet another well-known name in the heating industry, and they have several heating products. This device is simple and easy to use, it works via Bluetooth which you can control from your smartphone or tablet. The app is also completely free.
It’s very easy to install and has an adaptive learning process which allows it to work with great efficiency, it learns during its first week of operation and applies it to necessarily heat the rooms to reach the correct temperatures by the dictated time. It also features include weekly scheduling, easy pausing, holiday mode, child lock and frost protection.
Also – just to keep the valve running at optimum conditioning, every Thursday at 11AM it will open and close the valve, this is to stop calcification.
Main Features
This Danfoss product would be a great addition to your heating if you want to control your rooms temperature without harming the pocket too much. Here are some of it’s main features:
- Bluetooth operation
- Easy to control via the free to use application
- It has an inbuilt learning process so it knows how long it take sto get up to your desired temperature
- Frost protection
- Child safety lock
- Weekly scheduling
- Holiday pausing
Product Description
Hive is another large smart heating brand, and they enter the market again with these smart WiFi controlled radiator valves that will allow you to manage your heating in each room from the comfort of your smart home & save energy whilst doing so.
These smart devices will manage each room, but they won’t be able to go any higher than your main thermostat which is something to keep in mind. This product works best if you buy multiple & you can control them all in their zones using the free Hive app.
Although this is a great product, you don’t require a smart Hive thermostat, however there quite sneaky and only mention at the end of the description that it requires a Hive Hub which is a smart automatic device.
Main Features
If you are planning on buying this Hive Smart Radiator Valve device, then here are a few of its main features for you to look over:
- Works even if you don’t have Hive active home heating – but you will need a Hive Hub
- Easily manage each individual radiator or room, by your smartphone using the Hive app
- Set the device to turn the radiator to an exact temperature – although it can’t exceed the set thermostat temperature
- Install quickly, all you have to do is unscrew your current TVR and screw the Hive one on
