by Schneider Electric Multi-Zone Smart Thermostat and 2 Smart Radiator Thermostat Kit - Combination Boilers Only - Heating Control

Upgraded from a Drayton Digistat+2RF with SCR on an oil-fired combi boiler. The new Drayton Wiser HubR uses an industry-standard backplate, so it clipped straight onto the old one. Swap done in minutes, no need to rewire. The Wiser app works really well, easy to set up and control with no issues at all. The system integrates smoothly with Alexa voice control, and we’re really happy with the radiator thermostats, which give precise control in each room. If you’re wondering: Works perfectly with oil-fired boilers Direct SCR replacement, no rewiring Wireless thermostat, wall-mount or freestanding Great integration with Alexa and radiator thermostats App is reliable and easy to use

This is a review of the Wiser 1 channel smart heating control system. Facing ever increasing energy bills I had been looking around for a while at the various systems available. Then I discovered this one. After reading so many negative reviews about the Hive system I ruled that out. Many of the cheap Chinese smart radiator thermostats also had very bad reviews with breakages happening very easily, plus they only controlled the radiator so were not a complete heating control system. I started reading reviews about the Wiser system which were all mainly positive. So I decided on this system. I purchased a kit that came with the boiler controller, room thermostat and 2 radiator thermostats. I bought an additional 11 radiator thermostats and 2 range extenders. As all my valves were old I decided to replace all of those too. I then set work over the next couple of weeks installing everything. As we already had a wireless thermostat, the boiler controller was easy to swap over. Just make sure it’s in a good position to get a WiFi signal. Set up of the app was easy, so was adding each radiator thermostat, the room thermostats and the two range extenders. After a week it was apparent that one of the radiator thermostats was faulty, the battery had drained already. That was replaced without a problem. Since then the system has been brilliant. I can heat just one room if I want to. The system lets you lock out control of the radiator thermostats locally just in case you have children who like to fiddle. You can also create custom schedules which you can assign to a single or multiple rooms. The app works when you are away from the house too, so you can control your heating from anywhere. Make sure your routers 2.4Ghz radio is set to channel 1, 6 or 11 and is not set to Auto. Having an Android phone or tablet can help here. Install the WiFi Man app from Play store. The app lets you see which channels are the quietest.

I am at home most of the day and need to have some rooms heated but not all of them. I live in an old house that is expensive to heat and hard to insulate. Having done what could be done, I wanted to save further on fuel and began looking at the rooms that were empty all day but were still being heated because the heating was on. The Drayton Wiser system appealed to me because I can set schedules for every room that would benefit and only heat them when they needed to be heated. It was fairly easy to install: my radiators had non-standard TRVs (Thermostatic Radiator Valves) and the smart TRVs would not find and neither would any of the adapters. In the end I drained down my system and swapped the TRVs for some very cheap ones from Toolstation that were compatible with the new smart TRVs, and then I could easily fit the smart TRVs where I needed them. I did the wiring myself - that was trivial. My house is very spread out being a chalet bungalow and I found two of the smart TRVs were about on the limit of the range from the Wiser Hub, so I bought two Wiser Smart Plugs - these are very expensive compared with other Smart Plugs that I use but they also function as an amplifier for the Wiser Hub ensuring that those two zones always get a good signal. I'm not going to write here about all of the benefits of a smart system - if you're looking for a smart system then you'll already know most of those from their advertisements. I looked at several systems including Hive and Nest and felt that the Drayton Wiser system offered the best value for me because of the ease of setting up zones. It has all of the features of the others apart from Nest's ability to not have schedules instead opting to learn what you want by observing how and when you set your heating. Drayton not only had the best match of features for me, but it was the best price, and Drayton have been making heating control systems for donkey's years - they are a household name for heating. The app has some very interesting statistics (graphs) to show you how your heating is performing. It has intelligent modes that can shut off the heating for a room if there's a window open there. It works well with Alexa. With the help of Life360 and IFTTT it is easy to set up geofencing so that if nobody is home it goes into background heating mode and then automatically resumes the schedule when someone arrives back home again. Now on to why I only gave 4 stars when what I've written suggests 5 stars... [a] If there's a power cut, or the internet drops out, then often the hub gets "stuck" and cannot reconnect to the Wiser cloud - it sits there with a red light on. My son-in-law has the same system and also experiences this issue. The heating still continues to work, but you can't work it or monitor it remotely. The fix for this is to turn off the master switch for the heating, thereby shutting down the hub for 2-3 minutes and then turn it on again - but you need to be at home to do that UNLESS: I fitted a smart plug in the power feed to the Wiser hub so (remotely) I can cycle the power on and off. Fortunately, we don't get many internet outages or power cuts. [b] It's quite an investment in time to set up all of the schedules and I change them with the seasons [1] Spring and Autumn, [2] Summer and [3] Winter - I have requested (but had no feedback) that it ought to be simple to have the App store your schedules as a SET so that you could restore each SET as and when you need it. Bottom line: brilliant system but nobody's perfect.

In two and a half years I think I've built enough usage and testing in order to share an honest review of this Drayton system. To start - I was looking for a while to change old TVRs for a smart system in order to be able to maintain a stable temperature in the baby room. Turned to be so good that I later bought another 3 smart radiator thermostats and now have one in living, kitchen and all 3 bedrooms. Many advantages, few things to note to, so: GOOD STUFF: 1. Easy setup. Starting with the hub - you have instructions but nowadays everything can be found online too. Despite my old Honeywell hub being an awkward device that that battery, not mains powered (!) and sending just an on/off signal to the gas boiler for heating, as hot water heats "instantly" directly upon opening the tap (no hot water tank in the house) - despite this, I still figured out the right cables with trial and error and now the system works correctly, like a charm. The Smart TRVs themselves also super easy - screw on, for those who never changed one before, don't worry, no water leaks involved, you just screw off the old one (valve stays closed) and screw the Drayton one instead. I did mines even with a bare hand. You might want to add a half turn maybe with a corresponding key if you have it, but make sure to add something soft in it to not scratch the metal bezel. 2. Per room temp control. This brings up great flexibility. You can set up individual temperature for each room. This is exactly what I do, a bit higher for living room and kitchen and cooler for bedrooms. - So you have an option to maintain 24/7 same constant, comfortable to you temperature in any room, without overheating or overcooling it. - Otherwise you can set up a convenient schedule instead, to have particular temperature at certain time, which is also convenient - for example waking up in a warmer house and then switching it of while you're at work, but heating the house back while you're on the way home so that you get back in a cosy place. All this functionality is truly amazing and convenient, and really improves comfort. 3. Great value for money. If you're going to check other brands and try to get/build a similar kit (tado, nest, bosch, etc) - you will pay a lot more. Also, for example with google nest you don't have it's native TRVs so you get a smart thermostat, but one only, basically for the whole home. Also, money wise I am pretty sure in 2.5 years that I am saving money, as I'm seeing similar bills but after energy prices went up. All this while having constant temperature in every room 24/7 without any worry or plan, or need to heat & wait, etc. Basically set and forget. 4. Simple yet functional. Here to mention both TRVs and the app. Smart TRVs - Two AA batteries in and you're good to go.You have a plastic wheel / physical control with either + or - , which will send you're current temperature 2 degrees up or down. - Physical control lock. A very convenient thing for small kids. Mine were unlocked by default and I could not understand while heating was on several times and overheating a particular room - when I later spotted my little one just playing around with them :) so a simple "lock" from the app sorts this out. - Open window detection - to close the valve if a draft is detected. In fairness precision of this functionality is questionable. At least I did not feel it's reliable. Maybe if the temperature drops really fast, like a open window when outside is much colder - then maybe yes. Otherwise don't rely on it to save you :) APP I do like the app. It does not break any records or win app "grammys" but it's simple enough with decent functionality. - Easy add or reduce temperature to any rooms where you have a smart thermostat - Easy boost to any room, 30 mins, 1,2 or 3 hours + off. - Setting tailored schedules for both temperature and time that can vary during the day. Also, saving this schedules and being able to toggle on/off the usage of the schedule can also be very convenient sometimes. - Eco and comfort mode. With eco the app is trying to maximize efficiency of your system by learning your usage patterns, while in comfort the idea is simple - if you want for example 20 degrees when you wake up, the system checks the inside & outside temperature and makes sure it starts heating in advance so that 20 degrees are achieved when you wake up, and not just the heating starts at that time. - You get informative energy efficiency graphs and how the outside temperature correlates with the amount of time the heating was on - on a certain day - THINGS TO NOTE: 1. TRVs battery life. I've noticed that with constant temperature set 24/7 (no schedules) - the smart radiator thermostats go on and off much more often in order to maintain the set temperature. I don't know if it will reduce life of the thermostat itself, but it defo reduces life of 2 AA batteries :) Checking the app two batteries make it through the winter/cold season here in Ireland - but defo would need a change after that. 2. Recently I've seen some what I believe glitches in switching on/off temperature and heating beyond set temperatures. I'm pretty sure that's after I've disabled physical controls so my kids could not do it. My intuition tells me this is a "smart" mode glitch and more specifically the "Eco" mode one. Not sure if something changed or maybe app requires an update but after I switched eco mode off - seems alright for the past week. I will keep you updated on that. To wrap up: Overall, the amount of advantages for the price you pay makes it an amazing investment in your home. The comfort and convenience + long term saving you money & paying back for itself. Not many purchases give you this much value really. Not perfect but something that I've extensively tested and can responsibly recommend. Huh, took me a bit of time to write it, but I hope it helps! Stay warm and cosy friends! Cheers!

First things first, good effort from Drayton / Schneider Electric for trying to conceive a low-cost smart thermostat system with several types of add-on devices and wireless smart TRVs that aren't so expensive. The app seems to be developed by an amateur, interface seems to have been designed 10 years ago and buggy/laggy screens (e.g. when you make a change to a schedule, it doesn't update the times shown on screen until you go to another page and back to the schedule). Unfortunately, it also seems like the price point dictates hardware quality, and the part that I received simply can't see the any internet connection. The HubR controls the Boiler correctly, successfully connects to the WiFi network and even to the Android App flawlessly. However, at the 4th step of the registration (Cloud), it simply fails to identify any internet connection. And because the weather forecast also doesn't show up in the landing page of the app, I can tell it isn't only the cloud but all connectivity is missing. Contacted Drayton technical support and after 8 calls and over 2h on the phone, they just gave up and said I should return the product to Amazon. Needless to say that I followed all instructions from the support team, and tried 2 different WiFi routers and even hotspotting from my phone, all to no avail. This is currently the only working thermostat in my home, so I asked them to send me a replacement part, and I'd send the faulty one back when I received the new one - no deal from Drayton. I then had to buy a cheap standard thermostat, return the Drayton for a full refund and I'm definitely buying from a different brand this time.

Once connected, which took longer than expected, it’s an easy way to program the heating. Time will tell whether it saves any money, after factoring in the costs. I’ve added 5 radiator thermostats with the receiver panel, which I bought in the Black Friday sales. Had to move a wifi mesh signal booster into close proximity of the panel, switch it to only 2.4 ghz.,turn off Bluetooth on the phone as it may cause interference. Still it took several more attempts another hour, before it would connect and stay connected. That’s with super fast broadband and Bt mesh Wi-Fi through out the house! Patience and several coffees is recommended! That’s the hard bit,the rest was easy. The system seems to learn or adapt to the house in respect of the weather conditions and the amount of heat to reach and maintain a stable temperature. I think some how the insulation and exterior walls and windows heat loss is factored in. Only issue now is it’s to hot, and you have to go through the app turning every rad down and the room thermostat, as I have 3 rads without the remote valves. It would be handy just to turn down 1 thermostat or switch the lot off. Have found that the away mode can turn off the heating until you cancel it. Useful if you’re leaving the house when nobody else is there.

After being advised to get a Honeywell EvoHome system, I researched all options. The Honeywell system is very nice and gets good reviews, but so does the Drayton at way less than half the price, and can control more zones. It's a challenge to work out the components of the Honeywell system, and many are not available through Amazon now. I wanted Alexa control, OpenTherm (though not using it yet), room thermostat and 6 radiator valve heads. The cost for the Honeywell system was about £1050, and the Drayton was £382, BUT on Black Friday I paid £274! It costs more than that just for the Honeywell controller! Everything is easy to install, the hub comes with the industry standard backplate and cost me less than £50 to replace the old non-standard one; if your system has a standard backplate, you don't need a plumber or electrician for any of this! Download the Drayton Wiser app, connect the hub, press the setup button, connect to your network, done. Add the room thermostat, which is simple AND if it is assigned to the same room as radiator thermostats the room thermostat overrides, which makes sense as the temperature near the radiator is warmer. The radiator thermostats are simple too, connect to network, assign it to a room, allow it to calibrate itself, finished. BUT, be prepared to spend time adjusting the temperature to get it to what feels comfortable where you are in the room, OR buy a room thermostat for every room; I didn't. The app is clean and simple and provides some useful analytics that show what you have set the temperature to, and what it achieves by when; there's an eco mode that predicts when it's getting near temperature and shuts off a bit before, as the water is still hotter for a while; there's a comfort mode that will switch on early to achieve the set temperature for the time you set. If you're a geek, they provide an API so you can write or download programs to extract data and control the system. So, what's the benefit of spending the money? Before, like many, I had a wall mounted room thermostat that turned the boiler on/off, and manual thermostatic radiator valve heads to adjust the temperature in other rooms. The downside of this are many:- I don't sit by the wall thermostat, and I now know it's actually 5C warmer there than where I sit! The boiler was set at a temperature and was on unless the room thermostat or timer was off. Now, it can come on just to provide heat for the bedroom and bathroom a little before I get up, then mainly the lounge where I am most of the time, and the back bedroom which I don't use gets a low level of heat at times when the other rooms are up to temperature i.e. a flexible dynamic system. OpenTherm takes it a stage further and adjusts the boiler water temperature depending on what is required when, saving more energy.

I have used this product for almost a year now and like it. It is a lot better than Hive or Nest as it allows individual control of each room and does some real savings on heating. I live in a rented apartment, so I didn't want to make any too significant changes in the current system. The building has a central boiler but is allows individual control in each apartment. The wiser Central replaced the old thermostat in the wall, I needed only to add a power cord, as the previous one was battery powered, so I put a power cord and connected it to the wall socket. If this were my apartment, I would probably do something more elegant, but as I mention, I want to take this all out once I leave the apartment. That said, it is clear that I've installed myself; it is easy enough if you like DIY and have a basic knowledge of electrical installations. This kit is a good start, but I bought more devices to expand the system. The radiator heads (Drayton Wiser Smart Heating Radiator Thermostat) do have a thermostat in it, but it is not precise for big rooms (as it is only centimetres from the radiator). What I recommend is have one of their digital thermostats (Drayton Wiser Smart Heating Room Thermostat) on each room as well. The Wiser system automatically assumes its temp instead of the radiator's once they are mapped in the app to be in the same place. You should put the digital thermostat some meters from the radiator. I put one close to the baby's crib, so the central controls the temperature in that place. By the way, if you have a newborn baby, this is amazing, as you can guarantee that you have the correct temp all the time in his room. It is peace of mind as the digital thermostat is very precise. My set up: Radiators heads on 2 beds, 2 baths, living room(5 devices); 3 digital thermostats: 1 in the baby room, 1 in my room, 1 in the living room. Wiser support is also very responsive via email; they genuinely try to help you, asking for more pictures and prompting you if the problem was solved or need more help. My heating bill was definitively cheaper, as this winter I've only heated the rooms that I was in, all programmed to be on-off in different periods of the day and different temperature needs. Definitively worth the money.