Heat Genius have recently launched their new intelligent domestic heating controller. They say that heating accounts for 66% of household energy usage (an average bill of £750 per year for every home) and according to a study by Microsoft and Lancaster University an intelligent heating controller can save up to 35% of a UK home’s heating bill compared to a dumb thermostat.
In addition the £49.99 Radiator Valves are used to zone your heating system and the Room Sensors (also £44.99) are used to give you smart control of each room so the Genius Hub can learn when you use the rooms and automatically build a heating schedule for you. These PIRs use Z-Wave and HG say this means they will be able to incorporate support for new products into the Genus Hub in the future.
Heat Genius claim their system is the first “that learns when to turn on the radiator in each room of your house ready for when you come in, and to turn it off when you leave.” We asked them what aspect of their learning system was new compared to other heating controllers and they told us…
The Genius Hub is the first to take ‘Smart’ technology to the next level as it offers the automatic turning on and off of rooms within a house, rather then just the house as a whole.
On the subject of integration Heat Genius told us they have already written an API and are waiting for the right partner to work with.
The Heat Genius is manufactured in England and is available to buy exclusively from their website. Check out the video, links and exclusive photos of all the hardware below…
heatgenius.co.uk : More Smart Home Heating Articles : Our Heating Forums
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Sounds interesting… has anyone tried this yet?
I gave them a call yesterday as there’s limited info available- one concern is that it’s a “packaged” product and worried that my slightly erratic living schedule is not easily accommodated!
Torn between this and the new Evohome
I like the idea of what they are doing here. Not sure I want a PIR in every room.
I wonder if the have designed their own gateway hardware or is that a Raspberry Pi hiding in that case?
PIRs require movement so are incompatible with teenagers…
I too am very interested in this system or the Honeywell Evohome.
I’m unsure about the PIR sensors in each room although they are pretty small and I can’t see another way of it knowing when you are using a room.
I also like the idea of it learning your patterns, like the Nest thermostat.
Something that could swing me towards the evohome is that it has a nice touchscreen for the same price. This is the one thing the Heat Genius is lacking – good looks.
Well a few weeks in and my new heating system is working a treat! I have 10 rooms fitted with valves and PIR’s and I can already see a difference in the way we use the heating, I work from home so like my office nice and warm, so before I would have the central heating on all day heating all the rooms when there was usually just me in the house! What a waste of gas! Now with the new system the bathrooms and bedrooms are warm when we get up in the morning and at nine o clock every radiator except my office and the kitchen turn themselves off (The dogs live in the kitchen and I need it warm when I make a cup of tea don’t I). At 15:00 if the kids bedrooms are below the temp we have set (the PIR’s are temp sensors too you see!) the radiators turn on to bring them up to temp so it’s the right temp for homework (no more “It’s too cold” excuses) Other rooms heat up as programmed as we would usually use them (bathrooms, Dining room etc.) but the clever part is once the rooms are up to temp the valves close off again maintaining the actual temp we have set not just relying on our old thermostat in the hallway (which got used as an on/off switch).
Couple of niggles with the system, being zwave I thought my existing Homeseer install would have 20 new devices to play with, unfortunately not, this is a completely separate network so no visibility from homeseer (but I understand there is development work to allow this to be integrated), also a couple of dead spots in the house for zwave (it’s quite a large house) but a zwave repeater was shipped out next day and that was solved (great customer service by the way, new company so very quick to jump on any issues).
All in all I am very pleased with the install; it’s the way I have wanted my central heating to work for years.
Yes I too love the look of the snazzy Nest thermostat but at the end of the day all that can do is turn the whole house on or off.
I think these heating controllers sound fantastic! It would be so handy to only heat those rooms that are being used (hardly anyone goes into our spare room or laundry, so being able to shut them off would be fantastic) and also to turn the heating on so that the house is toasty when you get home (no more running from the bathroom to bed with ice blocks for feet!).
Looks very interesting, I would be interested about intergration with something like fibaro
i agree with deep c diver. had a small problem during install as controller could not see boiler controller. submitted a help request. on line. nodes were reset remotely with in 5 mins. my phone was ringing in 10 mins on a sunday morning and extremely helpful guy explained what he had done and all fixed. excellent customer service. they also shipped a z wave repeater FOC with the kit so i suspect they have been having comms issues. i have 3 rooms zoned now and will be looking to do the rest over the next couple of weeks. slight concerns are what happens if heat genius go under and disappear will you not be able to control your heating.
Ordered a new heat genius system a couple of days ago on the basis of free fitting. Now been emailed telling me the free fitting will cost me an additional £13 per valve, plus the cost of the plumber!
A bit of poor service here as no mention on the website of any potential additional costs. Have now cancelled the order and they did not even look to compromise or call me to discuss. Bad service and not how I would expect a new start up business to treat a new customer.
Would have been happy to discuss, should they have been bothered to pick up the phone to try and save a £600+ order.
Their loss, now to look at honeywell evohome, possibly more money, but not prepared to deal with bad customer service!
The Heat Genius has gone from strength to strength. They are undoubtedly the most advanced Intelligent Heating Control system on the market today. They have beaten the big boys at their own game like Honeywell and Nest to name only few.
Heat Genius has never stopped and sat on their laurels: they operate differently to large corporations who design something to a narrow specification and then sit back satisfied with their achievements and do not to make an effort to do anything else until declining sales give them a wake-up call.
It is like the Heat Genius Team are driven by a passion to make the Heat Genius System not only better than anyone else’s but at the same time to make it something that solves our individual needs.
When I first encountered Heat Genius I immediately spotted that they had something unique to offer. I was also captured by Alasdair and Simon believe in their creation and their passion to take Heat Genius where no-one else had dared.
I am not saying that the Heat Genius is perfect in everything but if you invest in their system like I did you will reap the benefit of their systems favourable ‘return on investment’. Based on my own experience you will not be disappointed either.
I look forward to the day when Heat Genius opens the gateway of their system to allow it to integrate with even more Z-wave devices.
JJ I really hope you are independent but reading your reviews it does really sound like you either work for them or had it for free. Sorry if that’s a bit blunt but your notes are just too good
Thank you for your comment on the quality of my notes – I don’t mind if you are blunt.
However, I can confirm that I am totally independent and I don’t work for Heat Genius and I did pay full price for my system. I am however, one of their more active Beta Testers and regularly give my opinion of their system and indeed in some instances they have acted on my recommendations.
I have had their system for one year now and their system has given my over $400 ‘return on investment’ and that is enough reward for me.
I have indeed been writing extensively about Heat Genius but that is becasue I do understand their system inside out out BUT I intend to write also about other makes of Home Automation systems and you should see many more articles from me here on Automatedhome.co.uk over the next few months.
Thank you for reading my articles and I do appreciate your feedback even though it was a bit blunt but I think I might have acted in the same way as you did.
I thought I’d posted this earlier but its not showed up.
JJ if this is true then I must apologize, it’s hard to read the enthusiastic comments you’ve made without questioning the reliability of the source but from reading the above I think I may have miss-judged you. Please accept my apologies and I will investigate their option on my short list. The z-wave interoperability sounds very very interesting and a shame its not there at startup but I will keep an eye out.
Regards
Michael (me)
Thanks Michael – You are a true gentleman. I accept fully your apology. My next article will again be on Heat Genius but this time I have done something very unusual and I am hoping to share my story sometime in early November. Don’t worry all my writing will not be confined to only one manufacturer. I have few projects under way that i would love to share with the readers of Automated Home.
We have just installed Heat Genius in our home, and have had it running for just over a week. We wanted more control; the house is large and has 2 boilers. Whilst some radiators had TRVs not all did. Also, even if we turned off some radiators, if we wanted to warm up that room later, there was no guarantee it would warm up as the thermostat elsewhere was telling the boiler that the house was up to temperature. Our initial experience has been pretty positive. True, it cost us quite a lot of cash, as we needed about 18 of the new TRV heads as well as 2 boiler controllers. We have had a couple of teething issues, but nothing of any consequence. We can now heat our bedroom for short periods, and because no other rooms are calling for heat at that time, the room heats up quickly. We did have a problem with one room being out of range and had to get an extra smart plug but that now seems to be sorted. We look forward to updates allowing better control of the 2 boilers as well as underfloor, but are promised them shortly. The app seems straightforward to use. The test will be whether we save any money on gas, but that will take some time to be seen.
I have just purchased a Heat Genius system and am very please with the level of control that it offers. Every time I ring there is someone willing to answer questions or to help identify the best way to control my rooms. I have standard radiators, fan radiators and even radiators under seats and boxed in.
These have always been difficult to control with one hall thermostat, I can now control each room as required, link rooms together and leave some with just manual thermostat control. The room sensors/thermometer are the icing on the cake to allow more intelligent control of some individual rooms, not all.
I wait with interest to see what the returns will be on my £800 investment.
Looks really interesting.
I’m guessing they’ve re-badged the Danfoos LC13 TRVs? Or did they build their own?
I guess I want to know if I can get the LC13’s separately and cheaper elsewhere but still use the HG system?
I have just bought a HG system. I install it next week so I can’t comment too much yet but I am very excited. I would like to integrate with an existing Z-Wave network and with openHAB but that is coming when the new API becomes availablle apparantly.
The eTRVs are just Danfoss Living Connect Z 014G0013 but I would be surprised if you can get them much cheaper elsewhere.
I will post again once the install is done.
Hi, I installed a HG system about 6 weeks back, we have 12 Rads, 8 valves, 7 room sensors and the controller and thermostat. Some rooms have multiple radiators in them so I have configures the system to control 7 zones – 6 rooms and ‘everywhere else’ (remeber you have an ‘extra’ zone that comes on when ever anywhere is heating – which is anywhere that still has a dumb valve on it!
I also bought the kit in stages (initially a 4 valves and a couple of sensors – then added to them as I worked out how it was working) and have used the sensors to get a more accurate temperate map – and then the valves to influence and control that map and HG have been great – the sensors are a v2 now (with a different firmware level) as HG have tried to hide some of the complexity of what they are doing you also loose the ability to (for instance) add different types (or firmware levels) of devices to the net. This does make it easy to setup and does mean it works! I ended up with a new version of the sensor in one of my orders – and it wasn’t supported by the app – but the HG guys knew what was wrong and sorted it in a few days – if I’d sourced the sensor independently I’m sure it would not have been that easy to sort out.
So – I also couldn’t find anywhere significantly cheaper for the parts (the sensors or the valves) and would therefore suggest there is little point in not buying it from HG. They are also (as has been said) very helpful – responding to cries for help at odd times (including a sunday – sorry guys)
as to how it’s working – it’s sometimes hard to guess what it’s doing as it does the predictive thing for room use and if your patterns of use change (new job, away for a holiday etc) when the system is new it can try and respond, it does settle down though and has made our house more comfortable – with radiators being warm – but not roasting hot only – for longer. It is also noticeable that even when heating the house it shuts the boiler down early in comparison to the ‘clock’ based system before (I think it’s because it know when up to temp – and previously the boiler ran for a fixed time with the trv’s mostly shut off – now it’s able to shut the boiler off.
It’s also noticeable that when I work from home it’s able to keep my office warm without heating the entire house – so it is more comfortable and controlled than it was.
It’s a neat trick being able to fit zoning to a house without replumbing it.
I’m please with the system so far – we’ll see how it performs over the cold spell just starting.