A New Boiler as Part of a Smart Home Heating System

Although new boilers are efficient and cheap to run, there is a way to save even more money on energy bills by embracing new technology. Early adopters of the concept of Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Home. It is early days and apart from a few interesting smart wearables, virtual reality gadgets and smart home devices, there doesn’t seem to be that much to choose from. However, hooking up your new boiler installation with a smart thermostat might be your first step towards a smart home.
The way the technology is developing right now, it seems that a typical smart home will be controlled through a smart home assistant or a home hub. There are two major products on the market like now – Amazon Echo and Google Home. Currently, a typical home hub allows you to stream music, get answers to basic questions, like “what’s the weather” and control a limited number of IoT devices around the home. It does sound basic, however, the technology is advancing quickly.
As far as the smart thermostats are concerned – Nest is usually the main go-to choice, at least for the UK. The Nest thermostat will replace your old-school manual thermostat and allow you to control the heating in a smart way to optimise the internal environment and save money on energy bills at the same time.
Although Nest is owned by Google and obviously will be compatible with the Google Home hub, it has also recently opened up to include support for Amazon Echo, which is by far the most popular choice in the UK.
A Nest thermostat costs from £160 up but you may be able to get a deal with some boiler installation packages.
There are also other smart thermostat models available such as Tado featuring smart radiator thermostats, Ecobee4 which costs extortionately high in the UK and is not covered by manufacturer’s warranty, and a “home-brew” system called Hive which is on the rise thanks to its recent decision to open it up for external systems allowing people to integrate it into their smart home installations.
Overall, a smart thermostat paired up with an efficient gas boiler is a great way to save money and trial out the new and exciting IoT technology.