Hive Smart Home

Every Hive link has failed. Useless!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s part of the technology of the future ( all those 70/80’s movies were everything was controlled remotely ) and it is well done. I won’t buy into the Smart meter nonsense though, it gives no benefit to the customer whatsoever because it’s a data gatherer, beyond the heating system or energy in general. My bug bear is the “Ready By” function in Hive ; it’s basic premise is that the heating system will be primed and ready to have the desired temperature met when the chosen ON time has been selected in the “Schedule”. It does nothing of the sort, it switches the boiler on a full hour before the selected time. I’ve now worked out, I have paid for unnecessary gas usage for 720 hours in the last 2 years. I’m at a loss as to what to do next other than contact the ombudsman.

PAY ATTENTION

Select your hive app , go to Heating, tap the top right hand gear wheel icon, deselect Ready By. Savings galore and the Pirates lose another one.

ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE! I haven't even opened the packaging and used the thermostat. Upon realising that it does not support Opentherm software (by the way thanks Hive for clearly displaying that on the website, within the FAQ's, within the installation guide, literally anywhere. Just displaying it anywhere. Anywhere visible at all where the consumer would be able to gauge this BEFORE purchase), I sought to get a refund for the product so I could instead purchase a thermostat that was actually compatible (this is the part where Nest yet again steal market share from you guys).

In order to get the Refund going, you need to call them for a 'Returns Number.' No problem at all. I have now called 4 separate times and this annoying IVR system continues to cut me off because the options are so limited (on the rare occasions that it actually understand what you're saying) that it is impossible to state that I need to talk about a Return. Your only options are Buy, Install or Something Else. You say 'Something Else' and you get 'sorry, unfortunately as this is not an emergency situation we are unable to advise you at the moment.'

Fine. That's okay - I'll go to your online chat system. Nope. Doesn't seem to be anybody home on that front either.

Hive. Can I get my money back please? You can't only give a 14 day refund period and then proceed to ignore your customers for the entirety of that 14 day period. A lapse in those circumstances is not fair at all.

Feeling incredibly frustrated. None of this was worth 185 quid.

Easy app to use and to control my heating.

Connection to Hive from my phone and PC has stopped working the Hub ID when I enter it is showing "no data available" "error" i have been onto the call centre who can only advise that it is working at their end and cannot offer any more advice.

I should have gone with Nest
However the Hive option was cheap and they finally have thermostatic valves, unfortunately just after I had all mine replaced.

I moved from a hot water to combi system. I searched online and nothing said you needed to call them to get them to reset the system remotely. So that was an hour wasted.

My expectations for HIVE were very high but to be honest I’ve been left very disappointed. I have the hub, thermostat, 5 radiator valves and 2 colour changing lightbulbs in my lounge. My devices frequently disconnect from the system which is not due to my fibre broadband and often have difficulty re-connecting and re-calibrating devices. I had better temperature control of my heating before installing HIVE At one point both my hall & lounge radiator valves were running at 34* even when they were set at 23* and re-calibration of these valves continually failed! My spare bedroom is set continually at 7* but is often in the 20’s range and I do not have ‘heat on demand’ activated for any of my valves. My latest problem tonight is my light bulbs disconnecting and again they will not reconnect. I deleted them off my app but they are still not even recognised when attempting to pair.
If you are considering purchasing HIVE, which is not cheap, please think twice. With what I know now I would not buy it again and definitely do not recommend it

With the surprisingly short lifespan of some of their components, even shorter warranty periods, the high price for replacement of even a single faulty unit eg room thermostat £100, and a mocking two-fingers to you attitude from their call centre, i find myself happily shelling out only £70 more for a fully featured brand new, top-rated alternative system.

Good system pretty straight forward to install.

Few issues with the hub at first but a replacement soon fixed that.

Now works great

Really loving my Hive! Feel like I can’t quite give it 5 stars yet though as I haven’t been able to use it to its full potential with it getting warmer! But would definitely recommend!

I think products are highly over priced & if were cheaper more people would buy. I personally can't afford any unless I get a deal on eBay. Which is disappointing

Nice easy to use system just use your phone or alexa to turn the heating on and off.

App and devices work well but ...
would like an option allows the user to turn all sensors off (when everyone is home) and with one click turn them all on when everyone is out.
Instruction re door monitor refers to align stripe - but barely can see stripe
Also more info on range - needed to go back and get range extender - ie additional hassle.
Finally no windows 10 / desktop option (that I can find)
.

Hive app is so poor I have been trying to connect thermostat with the app For 2 days now and u need a degree in physics to work it out and customer service is not much help, it should of been a simple push of the button to pair the app but no and after spending days online For a solution and looking at peoples reviews everybody seems to have some kind of problem, I want my money back coz it’s crap

I'm so sorry i chose Hive over all the other cheaper ones.The power supply Dosnt work half the time and when it does it keeps going of line.I have bough everything witch was so expensive compare to other brands and as soon ad the shops open again I'm taking them back as there are nothing but pure rubbish.Do not buy this brand you will be really let down.

Connection drops regularly and unable to get any support from Hive other than online assistance that just does full system reset so you have to reprogram from scratch

First hub was faulty and in total I was on various helplines for in excess of 10 hours to sort it out. Terrible customer service and demoralised call centre staff. Also don't send a replacement until they have received the faulty return so was over a month from me paying for the hub to me getting a working system.

I was invited through British Gas (who own this) to install and entered into a procedure that wasted days of our time for non-attending engineers who could not bring the correct parts or tools and who finally stopped calling. Money was taken from our account and has still not been returned (8 months). The company did not respond to any of the web contact (3x) or emailed complaints (5x) and British Gas did not respond at all (2x). Impossible situation that caused unnecessary stress and ill feeling for a company that doesn't care.

Hive offers absolute control of our heating wherever we are. We were pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to use.

Hive heating controls are designed focussing on the Smart Home concept, rather than as intelligent heating controls. The heating control architecture appears to have started as a 1960’s heating control system which you can access and control from your mobile phone, with no thought as to how modern technology can be used to design an efficient heating control system. The core is a programmable master room thermostat in a single room that must not have a TRV on the radiator. This is used to control the boiler and the temperature of the whole house based on the temperature of that room. They have subsequently addressed this in part by adding active radiator valves which are programmable TRVs that should be designed to demand heat from the boiler, but they don’t. If any room with an Active Heat TRV demands heat, it demands heat from the master room thermostat by issuing a boost command of 22⁰C for 30 minutes for the room with the room thermostat in, thus cooking that room while trying to heat up the room from which the heat demand is coming. Why isn’t the system designed to combine the Active Heat TRV heat demands with the output of the room thermostat in a logical OR, rather than combine the demands with a logical OR to the boost input of the room thermostat? Why use a single master room thermostat at all, which is a 1960’s concept, and not simply active heat TRVs on every radiator? The result is that in my house, I gain efficiency by not having the bedroom radiators on until later in the evening, then they provide heat in the bedrooms, even if the rest of the house is up to temperature, or even off, but the hall and landing where I have my room thermostat heats up to nearly 22⁰C all late evening, wasting much of the energy I have saved. The other problem I have is that in rooms with a high temperature gradient due to lots of outside walls, the Active Heat radiator thermostats read 2⁰C or 3⁰C higher than the temperature in the part of the room you live in. Offsetting the radiator thermostat to a higher temperature provides poor control of the room temperature. Why isn’t there a remote temperature sensor option for the radiator valves like the HomeMatic IP system which was clearly designed as a heating control system, rather than a mobile phone gadget?