With such a single zone, a smart thermostat has the power to control the heating system throughout the entire building. It is not possible to regulate certain rooms (with the use of automatic dampers at least, which are not common in a residential area). The fact that smart thermostats have this flaw is, in my opinion, one of their many shortcomings.
Is it possible to have intelligent radiator valves? When it comes to controlling your home’s heating, how might they possibly save the day by giving automated, intelligent, and fine-grained oversight?
Using smart radiator cylinder valves instead of smart thermostats can save you money and allow you to control the temperature in any room of your house. However, the number of items and integration possibilities that are now accessible is rather limited.
How do smart radiator valves work?
Please allow me to first go through the various types of radiator valves before moving on to smart radiator valves.
As a result, roughly a decade ago, the majority of radiators simply had the following features:
A standard radiator valve that is not smart (and hence not thermostatic).
As a result, any hot water pushed from the boiler will pass through the radiator, keeping it heated.
With increased awareness of the environmental change throughout the world came an increase in the number of thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) being installed in many nations, including:
A non-intelligent standard thermostatic radiator valve. When the surrounding temperature of the room is low enough, this type of thermostat will only enable hot water to enter the radiator (i.e. enable the radiator to switch on) and the radiator will not turn on otherwise.
Because of the higher frequency of operation when the TRV is set to “4” or “5”, the radiator will operate substantially more frequently than when the TRV is set to “1” or “2.
Smart radiator valves, on the other hand, go a step farther in terms of efficiency. Instead of depending on a crude “1-5” temperature scale, a smart valve might assess the precise temperature and relative humidity of the space and only allow hot water to flow into the radiator whenever a pre-defined temperature is attained.
A numerical system is used to identify whether or not a radiator should be turned on (in relative terms).
Aside from that, because they are intelligent, you can easily operate the valve by using an automation rule, app, or voice control to close and open it, allowing you to heat or cool the room according to your needs and desires.
You’ll need to change the battery in smart valves on a regular basis because they’re battery-powered; otherwise, they’ll return to their default function of working as a typical radiator valve, which is inconvenient.
Can smart valves save you money?
Yes, in the fullest meaning of the word.
To save money, you might use a smart radiator valve that allows you to control the temperature in each area of your home individually.
In the event of a very hot room (for example), you might want to consider installing a smart valve that will decrease the length of time that specific radiator is left on.
A thermostatic radiator variable may provide the same function, but a smart valve will enable for remote management of the system as well as integration with automated operations.
For example, you would have a SmartThings schedule that detects when you arrive at your destination and then executes a number of actions, such as activating certain smart radiator valves as needed.
It is claimed that you would save between 10 and 12 percent on your heating bills by using the eqiva smart radiator valve. This figure is significantly higher than the 10 to 12 percent savings that Nest claims you will experience by using its Learning Thermostat, as seen by their website.
In certain respects, this makes some logical sense. One of the most useful features of a smart thermostat is that it regulates the temperature of your entire home, allowing you to modify the temperature in any room in your house at any time.
If you do not have TRVs (which is what most houses don’t provide), you may find that certain rooms grow overly hot, causing money to actually be burnt away in them.
Rather than a smart thermostat, a smart valve may be able to give you with perfectly alright administration over the heating system in each individual room, perhaps saving you significantly more money than a smart thermostat would have been possible.
Can you integrate smart valves with a smart thermostat?
Having a good electric heating system has the ability to become really smart when you unite a smart thermostat that actually understands your schedules and routines with intelligent valves. Individual rooms can have their own temperature settings that are independent of the rest of the home.
The system is actually useful (as you may guess, I’m not a supporter of smart thermostats that just operate in a single zone!) and it’s easy to use.
As a consequence, your smart thermostat may learn that individuals spend the majority of their time in spaces A, B, & C in the morning and then in spaces D and E in the sunset – and then heat each room accordingly as a result.
This is hard to achieve with a smart thermostat without resorting to a pricey multi-zone configuration setup.
What do you think? Could this be something that can be done, or is it even somewhat feasible?
What you can do now is determined by the sort of smart thermostat you are using.
The Nest Learning Thermostat provides a help page dedicated to radiator valves, which simply advises that they should be kept at a standardized or comfortable configuration and that the Nest thermostat should be in control of all other aspects of the heating and cooling process.
To look at it in a different way, it would be incompatible with intelligent valves.
Ecobee besides does not resemble to a support page on radiator valves, notwithstanding the fact that they do not expressly declare that they do not – they just do not converse of it.
Moreover, their room sensors are meant to act in place of individual valves by identifying when individuals are already present in specific rooms.
The only authentic choices for those who have a Nest or ecobee thermostat are to combine them with their smart home hub and then acquire a smart valve that is fitted with them.
According to what I’ve witnessed, several smart radiator valves are agreeable with HomeKit, which indicates that you could build bespoke automation systems that hold your smart thermostat and smart radiator valves.
This is not a straight connection, but it is a vital step towards a genuinely smart (and programmed) warming system, which is what we are striving for.
The condition in the United Kingdom (and other states of Europe) is, on the other grip, more convenient.
The Hive Active smart thermostat is meant to work in conjunction with the Hive Smart Heating Thermostatic Radiator Valve to execute a seamless degree of smart heating operability.
These Hive smart devices can be used externally with a smart thermostat, but if you have the Hive Active placed, you can additionally use the smart valve to shift on the heating in a particular room without the rest of your house’s heating switching on.
This is a remarkably useful characteristic:
The Hive Smart Heating Thermostatic Radiator Valve, with 27% giving them a 1/5 grade and insisting that they did not operate correctly.
Installing and configuring them correctly appears to be the most prevalent issue (along with the rare software glitch), but many customers have stated that they work effectively in combination with their Hive Active smart thermostat after they have been developed and implemented correctly.
Can’t you just use TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves)?
To be really honest with you, this is an issue that I’ve been debating with myself for a long time now.
TRVs have been the only radiator valves that are currently accessible in my home, and I have no urge to rush out and acquire a bunch of smart radiator valves right once.
In a TRV, numerals ranging from 1 to 5 will be used to identify the temps at which they should be engaged, and the number 0 (and maybe the letter *) will be used to indicate that the device should be switched off or only active on occasion.
It is worth noting that the meaning of the numbers 1-5 vary based on the producer of the TRV, but generally they represent:
- 1 – make sure you wear it while the temp is between 10-15°C.
- 2 – put on in temperatures between 15 and 17 degrees Celsius
- 3 – wear under 18-20°C (about 68°C).
- 4 – put on in temperatures between 21 and 22 degrees Celsius (about 77 degrees Celsius).
- 5 – characters are limited to a maximum of five (valve is always active)
Consider that most of the rooms in my house are set to “4”, with a few rooms being modified to “3” if they seem to become a little too warm.
This works fairly well, and it is a huge improvement over the usual radiator valves, which are continuously open..
Among the differences between TRVs and smart valves, the following are the only things that stand out to me:
- The capacity to intelligently manipulate the valves is a key feature. Nevertheless, as we’ve seen, the current integration options are, at the very least, mediocre at best. If I was able to link smart valves to an ecobee thermostat, I am confident that I would instantly go out and get a complete smart heating system. Nonetheless, since this is not now achievable, I do not believe that having “smart” radiator valves is of considerable benefit to anyone.
- It is now feasible to have more accurate control on when the valves reopen. No matter how many times I try, I can’t choose “this valve should be open below 18°C in the daytime and under 19°C at night.” This is something I don’t have with my TRVs, which is unfortunate (as opposed to smart valves). It is not something I feel would be advantageous to me at this time, though, and I am being completely honest.
For the time being, the majority of the rooms in my house are utilized equally throughout the day, and the majority of them warm up (and cool down) consistently – so I don’t require this level of fine-grained control at this time.
On the other hand, if I didn’t have TRVs, I’d very likely go out and get a set of intelligent radiator valves.
However, because I currently have thermostatic valves, I do not believe that it is necessary to update to smart thermostatic valves at about this time.
Recommended smart radiator valves
Because the great majority of people all over the world use either an ecobee smart thermostat or a Nest Learning Thermostat, neither of which is compatible with smart radiator valves, it is difficult to suggest specific solutions that will work for all of them at the same time.
Therefore, I’ll group my recommendations into groups based on some possible use cases, which I’ll describe below:
You live in Europe and have the Hive Active thermostat
If you find someone in this circumstance, the Hive Smart Thermostatic Valves are an excellent alternative to explore.
No doubt, their evaluations are mixed – so I’d suggest taking a look at them to find out what is troubling the majority of people (which makes it appear to be a buggy installation procedure) and then checking to see if there have been any latest Hive upgrades that make the whole process less awkward and irritating.
The Hive valves (which cost £42.50 apiece) are more expensive than normal TRVs (which charges less than £8), but the fine-grained control they provide is likely to compensate for the higher price tag in this situation.
You have a Nest or ecobee thermostat, and a smart hub
The option you choose here is entirely dependent on your smart hub.
The Eve Thermo, for example, is HomeKit-compatible, so if you’re already a user of Apple’s smart home network, these Eve valves could be a good fit for you (especially since both Nest and ecobee support HomeKit too).
If you have a SmartThings hub already, you might want to choose one of the smart radiator valves listed below:
- Netatmo Smart Radiator Valve
- Danfoss Thermostatic Radiator Valve
You have a Nest/ecobee thermostat, but no smart hub
You will likely not obtain great (or any) contact between your valves and your smart thermostat, making it more difficult to manage this.
The fact that you must manage some components of your heat pump manually does not make much of a difference, though.
If you are aware that the two back bedrooms grow fairly hot as the day continues but that your basement is much cooler, your smart thermostat may be set to turn on at 5-6 p.m. every day as a result of this awareness.
This problem may be solved by installing smart valves in only the two back bedrooms, which will turn off their radiators (or only switch them on at temperatures lower) at the same time each day – for instance, at 5 p.m. – to conserve energy.
This will prevent overheating of these areas whenever your smart thermostat, which is tracking the temperature in the hallway or living room below your staircase, triggers your heating system and turns on the heat.
Several smart valve alternatives exist in European Amazon shops, including the following: Despite this, there are much fewer selections accessible in Amazon shops in the United States. To avoid making specific recommendations for products that you might or might not be able to purchase, I’d recommend that you search about at local merchants to see what smart radiator valves they have available in stores.
