Drayton Wiser Smart Thermostat Dual Zone Heating and Hot Water Control – Works with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT

Where to start. Well swapping over the controllers was an absolute doddle, and the smart room thermostat did all the work itself. It all seemed so simple. And then the problem hit. Trying to connect the controller / hub to my WiFi. So many times it said it connected but then the app couldn’t find it, red lights flashing, green lights flashing. It nearly went back in the box and to the UPS returns point. However I swapped some emails with Drayton Support and they suggested I try a different phone to the Huawei P30 I had been using. I tried an old Samsung S7. This time during the connection the setup light went solid red so I contemplated an unopened bottle of whisky. As I contemplated for about 10 minutes, the light went solid green. The app still wouldn’t connect. I had set the guest wifi to 2.4GHz having previous experience of smart things. Eventually in despair with thoughts of a hefty hammer I changed the 2.4 GHz WiFi back to 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz auto. Closed the app, restarted. At first it still refused to register / find the hub. And then a miracle – it found the hub after a few tries. It all works now. Only 6 hours later.

So the secret to not spending 6 hours. Set your guest WiFi to 2.4 GHz. Run through the connection routine as far as the register page and remote control. At this stage you are directly connected to the hub on a temporary network. On your phone “forget” the passwords to your home WiFi networks or your phone may switch networks when it shouldn’t. At the end of setup, tell the hub the name and password of your guest WiFi. It should turn solid red. Make sure the hub setup light changes to solid green – can take 10 minutes. At that point, change your Guest WiFi back to 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz auto. Give it a few minutes to settle. Connect your phone to the guest WiFi. Complete the registration and click to remote connect. You may need to try a couple of times. If not return to the register screen, skip, logout, restart the app, try again. Perseverance seems to be required. Put your hammer and bottle of spirits away, relax with a nice cup of tea. You can now reconnect to your main WiFi and test whether the hub can be controlled from a different WiFi. Test with mobile WiFi too. Drayton support come back quickly if you need them but hopefully my experience will help you complete the process a lot quicker.

Once set up you can control both central heating and hot water remotely from your phone. On that basis I would give the product 5 stars but the setup instructions only 2 because whilst it is easy when you know what to do someone needs to tell you how when it doesn’t work first time. Switching WiFi networks around a couple of times – not in the manual, not intuitive unless you’ve gone through the pain before. Changing phones – never would have thought of that. Drayton support were good, 4 stars. So overall a 4 I think.

Where to start. Well swapping over the controllers was an absolute doddle, and the smart room thermostat did all the work itself. It all seemed so simple. And then the problem hit. Trying to connect the controller / hub to my WiFi. So many times it said it connected but then the app couldn’t find it, red lights flashing, green lights flashing. It nearly went back in the box and to the UPS returns point. However I swapped some emails with Drayton Support and they suggested I try a different phone to the Huawei P30 I had been using. I tried an old Samsung S7. This time during the connection the setup light went solid red so I contemplated an unopened bottle of whisky. As I contemplated for about 10 minutes, the light went solid green. The app still wouldn’t connect. I had set the guest wifi to 2.4GHz having previous experience of smart things. Eventually in despair with thoughts of a hefty hammer I changed the 2.4 GHz WiFi back to 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz auto. Closed the app, restarted. At first it still refused to register / find the hub. And then a miracle – it found the hub after a few tries. It all works now. Only 6 hours later.

So the secret to not spending 6 hours. Set your guest WiFi to 2.4 GHz. Run through the connection routine as far as the register page and remote control. At this stage you are directly connected to the hub on a temporary network. On your phone “forget” the passwords to your home WiFi networks or your phone may switch networks when it shouldn’t. At the end of setup, tell the hub the name and password of your guest WiFi. It should turn solid red. Make sure the hub setup light changes to solid green – can take 10 minutes. At that point, change your Guest WiFi back to 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz auto. Give it a few minutes to settle. Connect your phone to the guest WiFi. Complete the registration and click to remote connect. You may need to try a couple of times. If not return to the register screen, skip, logout, restart the app, try again. Perseverance seems to be required. Put your hammer and bottle of spirits away, relax with a nice cup of tea. You can now reconnect to your main WiFi and test whether the hub can be controlled from a different WiFi. Test with mobile WiFi too. Drayton support come back quickly if you need them but hopefully my experience will help you complete the process a lot quicker.

Once set up you can control both central heating and hot water remotely from your phone. On that basis I would give the product 5 stars but the setup instructions only 2 because whilst it is easy when you know what to do someone needs to tell you how when it doesn’t work first time. Switching WiFi networks around a couple of times – not in the manual, not intuitive unless you’ve gone through the pain before. Changing phones – never would have thought of that. Drayton support were good, 4 stars. So overall a 4 I think.

This is just first impressions in terms of a diy-er installing the smart hub, two roomstats and a couple of smart plugs.

The actual upgrade of the controller to a smart hub was very easy. The backplate had to be changed but the instructions were easy to follow as I had the wiring diag of the old controller. That probably took less than 30 minutes after which I could use my central heating and hot water via the boost buttons. Pairing of the roomstats was also fairly straighforward.

What was extremely difficult was connecting to the cloud. The app is buggy and idiosyncratic and I was getting repeated failures. There is nothing on line or via the app to help.

Tech support though were superb. I twice got through on the phone straight away – and on a Saturday.

Eventually they resolved the issue and it was extremely complex to diagnose.
1) I have a 5g mesh network but the hub only works at 2.4g.
2) It doesn’t like vpn so that had to be disabled.
3) There were issues with randomly losing the wifi connection to the hub – it was resolved by putting in some smart plugs to boost the internal signal from the hub but there was no way of knowing in advance whether that would cure the problem as there was no indication of signal strength through the house

So bottom line on the hub install is, Tech Support was the saviour and I needed smart plugs.

TRVs, once installed seem fine – just a little too easy to upset the smart install process when physically installing the valves on the rad (just dont turn the top of the TRV by accident as you do it as it seemed to switch to another function.

Overall though I’ve got a pretty good smart heating system with no installation cost 🙂

After 13 years we have a thermostat controlled oil heating system thanks to Drayton. Having previously owned houses that were built with thermostats wired in, I had forgotten how effective these can be. Leap-frogging over the lack of wiring has been accomplished using this smart Wi-Fi device setup. So, you need the controller on the wall that replaces whatever timer device you have been using. This links via your Wi-Fi router to your thermostat which sits in your room. The water pump can now continue to pump water that circulates but the boiler fire system only uses oil at the rate it needs to maintain the temperature you set using your thermostat. This temperature control can be modulated via the Wiser app on your iPhone or Android device or Amazon Alexa. More than one person can have the app on your phone controlling the boiler over the internet via your Wi-Fi router. If the internet fails, your heating will not because the Wiser system simply uses your router whether or not it is connected to the internet. Our internet failed across the country (Ireland) after I installed the device but our system heating kept going and was connecting perfectly throughout the 4 hour outage. I had read where another user had praised Drayton for this ability to directly connect to the controller. Of course you still have an override button on the wall controller. So, finally you will need a 2.4ghz router to make this work. If you have a modern 5ghz (5G) router you will need a bit of help in the form of a bolt on additional 2.4ghz router. This is simple to set up and will enable all Alexa devices to work such as smart sockets or bulbs. I highly recommend the ASUS router which sends out both 2.4 and 5ghz signals and allows VPN to be added as Smartvpn —Amazon sells this! Anyway we love our Drayton system- our boiler central heating is oil fired and single circuit. The heated water always travels around the water immersion heater and around the radiators. Dual circuit systems have separate control for water heating-simples!-enjoy!

I have Drayton Wiser system for more than a year, and I love it, I can thank it enough for the comfort it added to my life. I have done another review of the entire system.
For the thermostat, I think they are essential for comfort. Each bedroom has one, and I think this is how it should be!
The automated radiator heads from this system are great, but they are not precise with the temperature. Of course, they are 2 cm from the actual heat source. It is impossible to be precise. It is like trying to measure your kitchen temp with a thermometer inside a heated oven.
I placed those 2m from the radiator, and when you add it in the system and select the room, the system knows that from now on it will use this thermostat temp instead of the radiator head. And oh boy, it does make a difference. The temp control is far more stable and smooth. No more getting too cold or too hot. If you set 21C, it will be 21C all the time.
The thermostat itself is not the best piece of hardware; it is sometimes slow; there is no visibility of the temp without clicking on it and has minimum functionality for the price. It is only to change the temperature or give a boost. Nothing more! For the price, it should offer more, in my opinion.
So, I do recommend this piece, as it makes the system as good as it can be and definitively adds a lot of comfort to the room that it is located.

I have Drayton Wiser system for more than a year, and I love it, I can thank it enough for the comfort it added to my life. I have done another review of the entire system.
For the thermostat, I think they are essential for comfort. Each bedroom has one, and I think this is how it should be!
The automated radiator heads from this system are great, but they are not precise with the temperature. Of course, they are 2 cm from the actual heat source. It is impossible to be precise. It is like trying to measure your kitchen temp with a thermometer inside a heated oven.
I placed those 2m from the radiator, and when you add it in the system and select the room, the system knows that from now on it will use this thermostat temp instead of the radiator head. And oh boy, it does make a difference. The temp control is far more stable and smooth. No more getting too cold or too hot. If you set 21C, it will be 21C all the time.
The thermostat itself is not the best piece of hardware; it is sometimes slow; there is no visibility of the temp without clicking on it and has minimum functionality for the price. It is only to change the temperature or give a boost. Nothing more! For the price, it should offer more, in my opinion.
So, I do recommend this piece, as it makes the system as good as it can be and definitively adds a lot of comfort to the room that it is located.

I took the plunge in to smart heating and considered the pros and cons of a few systems but this ticked all the boxes at a price that was affordable and I’m glad that I opted for the Drayton kit over the others. It was a breeze to install and configure through the app (I had an existing Drayton controller that I simply lifted off from the bracket and slotted the Wiser hub in its place). Although I have a small flat, for the first few weeks it couldn’t keep a consistent connection to my router which was situated only a few metres away behind a wall but I now believe it was an issue with the router as it became clear that my other smart devices were dropping off randomly – router was replaced and have enjoyed months without a single drop-out.

I love that it offers a comfort mode meaning that you set a room schedule and it learns how far in advance to begin heating to reach the desired temperature before the scheduled on time – I just set a schedule and forget about it – and I love that the bathroom is always cozy ready for my morning shower without having to remember to turn up the thermostat at night. Also a bonus that it has an eco mode so it learns when to stop heating before the scheduled off time.

The valves themselves were simplicity itself to install and didn’t need the adapter for my radiators – simply unscrewed the existing TRV’s, screwed the Wiser ones in place and the app found each straight away, and they make very little noise. The app itself is great but it’s a faff setting it up for geofencing as you need to install 3rd-party apps to make it work and have Away Mode activated when you leave the house, but once set up I just forget about it. Alexa integration is good but could be better – I can use my voice to check and control the heat in individual rooms but have yet to find a way to have the heating off everywhere without manually turning on Away Mode in the app.

Overall though, I’d highly recommend this system for anyone considering a smart home heating system that can control heating per room and that doesn’t tie you in to a subscription for basic functions (like geofencing).

A direct replacement for the old controller – simple removal and a replacement of the controller (hub). Followed the connectivity instructions and connected quickly and easily. App downloads & works OK, all features I need are there. I would like an ‘off’ setting for the heating (during the summer) but this is possible by using the ‘Away mode’ option with the hot water switched on. You can also use the ‘manual’ option but each device needs setting, so a bit more hassle. I found that the temperature readings on the TVRs (radiator valves) to be low but after contacting Wiser, did a reset and they are pretty good now. Thought about knocking off a * but as the support was quick and effective so I didn’t.
I have moved one of the TVRs around the house and it connects OK (with out an extender) at my furthest radiator ~8m away and through 3 walls. My walls are lathe and plaster. Will be buying further TVRs.
I have tested out of the house (3G) and it all works as if I am in the house.

Bought as an addition to a Wiser kit that I installed with 2 rad stats provided, these made up for the other rooms. I love the whole set up although its important to get the installation tight on the rad taps before calibrating otherwise performance can be poor.
Delighted now I can individually set a room to off whilst others are on a schedule and can boost a room with a simple twist of the rad stat and rely on it going back to its original setting. I also like the fortnightly self operating maintenance feature that keeps the things in good shape.
The system monitors battery life so no fear off unnoticed failure although changing batteries looks a bit fiddly.
Overall a great buy, if rather expensive when bought as a standalone purchase without a kit.

eview for the 2 zone + hot water system. Installed in October 2017 and initially the servers were struggling and had intermittent control from outside the property, but not had any server issues that i have noticed in the last 6 months or so. its a new build house so has two zones and not had any connectivity issues with either the wifi or the thermostats to the hub, but the walls aren’t solid stone by any means but signal strength reported in consistant and appears solid and robust. probably 10m straight line from hub to stats, and 10m hub to wifi router.
The Good, schedules and remote control work really well and temperature control is great (at least as reported by app vs the set point) the graphs and visualisation in the app are informative and useful. haven’t changed the batteries in either thermostat since install so 2 years+ at this point – which is a pleasant surprise.
the not so good, heating can be triggered by placing the mobile thermostat somehwere cold – which is a sneaky way of putting the heating on without changing the set points ! but thats a husband and wife discussion point rather than technology related.
the smart start or eco mode (starts boiler early to reach set point by the time the schedule requests) is a bit hit an miss (as reported by the app. doesn’t always reach temp target by schedule time, but once at target temp it controls really well.
improvments recently – record of number of hours call for heat activated, temp vs setpoint
would like to see – call for heat timeline vs temp, download of data from app.

really happy with the system, other family members have hive, and for me this is more flexible. I have purchased a TRV but not yet fitted it so will be interresting to see how well that integrates with the app.

eview for the 2 zone + hot water system. Installed in October 2017 and initially the servers were struggling and had intermittent control from outside the property, but not had any server issues that i have noticed in the last 6 months or so. its a new build house so has two zones and not had any connectivity issues with either the wifi or the thermostats to the hub, but the walls aren’t solid stone by any means but signal strength reported in consistant and appears solid and robust. probably 10m straight line from hub to stats, and 10m hub to wifi router.
The Good, schedules and remote control work really well and temperature control is great (at least as reported by app vs the set point) the graphs and visualisation in the app are informative and useful. haven’t changed the batteries in either thermostat since install so 2 years+ at this point – which is a pleasant surprise.
the not so good, heating can be triggered by placing the mobile thermostat somehwere cold – which is a sneaky way of putting the heating on without changing the set points ! but thats a husband and wife discussion point rather than technology related.
the smart start or eco mode (starts boiler early to reach set point by the time the schedule requests) is a bit hit an miss (as reported by the app. doesn’t always reach temp target by schedule time, but once at target temp it controls really well.
improvments recently – record of number of hours call for heat activated, temp vs setpoint
would like to see – call for heat timeline vs temp, download of data from app.

really happy with the system, other family members have hive, and for me this is more flexible. I have purchased a TRV but not yet fitted it so will be interresting to see how well that integrates with the app.

I’ve had this running for about 6 months now. Although in my use-case it is working fine, I am finding the feature set pretty limited (given that what is missing is generally software).

There is no ‘Work from home/holiday’ setting. Actually, in my case, I’d really like to have an option of A or B week. You can force ‘away’ mode to keep the heating on, but then it stays on till you remember to turn it off.
There is no CSV save/restore for settings.
Away mode doesn’t have a ‘away until’ setting. So this means I can’t easily say I’m going to be out for most of the day.
Comfort mode can mean the heating coming on rather too early in the morning (and mine is noisy).
There is no data export for easier analytics (although there is a HomeAssistant plugin, so this has a viable workaround).
Alexa can’t ‘boost’ the temperature or turn on the hot water.
A hot water thermostat would be nice (although a little hard to use).
Proper multi-account design is rather sad to see absent.

I have installed this on my Bish Junior – straight swap of the control unit took me whole 5 min – amazing!!!

The radiators were super fast to change and pairing thermostats was super easy. I have this unit setup with Google home and it works like a treat. Hey Google, what’s the temperature in my loving room 😉 I love it. I can setup each radiator with separate schedules and different room temperature. If for some reason you need to boost heating in one or more rooms you can twist the radiator thermostat and it will power up or simply use app or tell your smart home to boost heating in any rooms.

I think this is way better than Nest or Hive – I had both of them in previous houses but Drayto (shneider) is super easy and you can install it yourself without a fuss.

Highly recommended and massive bill saver as you heat rooms that you want.

Short version
Drayton Wiser is one of the cheapest internet-enabled heating control systems available but in many ways, it is the best, regardless of price. I’ve only been using it for a few weeks, but so far it has been brilliant. Only 4 stars, as Drayton say it doesn’t currently support underfloor heating, but more on that below.

Long version
Why Wiser? At this time it appears to be the only system which can control multiple heating zones and hot water from a single controller. When I say “zones”, I mean truly separate plumbing zones, each with its own independent motorized value. The controller, or “Hub”, can also control many wireless thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs), giving individual room control, as well as offering wireless room thermostat control.
By contrast, the Honeywell Evohome seems overly complicated, requiring many components to make a comparable system work. The TRVs are too big, and while it might seem nice to see a temperature reading on the TRV, it isn’t necessary and will just cause the batteries to run down faster.
By contrast, the Wiser thermostats and TRVs are minimalist, but provide all the functionality you need.
The Hive thermostats also appear overly complicated and likely to drain their batteries quickly if you use all that functionality frequently. The Hive system would also require a second Hub to control a second zone. It also requires yet another unit to receive the wireless signal from the Hub and connect to your WiFi modem via a cable. The Wiser Hub connects directly to the WiFi modem wirelessly.
So Wiser was a clear winner for my needs. What tips would I give to anyone thinking of buying Wiser?

Hardware Installation
This was simple in my case, as I already had a Drayton LP722 controller for the hot water and central heating. I had a separate Danfoss TP5 controlling an underfloor heating zone. Wiser Kit 3 is required for two zones plus hot water. The Wiser Hub uses the same UK industry standard backplate as the LP722, so it was just a matter of removing the LP722 panel (2 screws), moving the two wires for hot water and central heating from terminals 3 and 4 to terminals 2 and 1 respectively, attaching the output wire from the TP5 to terminal 3, and finally attaching the Wiser Hub to the existing backplate using the same two screws. Drayton could have made this even simpler by using terminal 4 for a heating channel, terminal 3 for the hot water, and terminal 1 or 2 for the second heating channel. The screws are on the underside of the Hub, so you need some clearance below to get a screwdriver in. If there isn’t much clearance I recommend a mini-ratchet, like this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002VJ7K88/ref=pe_3187911_185740111_TE_item

After installing this I discovered a statement on the Drayton FAQ page that Wiser does not currently support hydronic underfloor heating. This was disappointing, as it wasn’t mentioned anywhere on their product selector or other pages at the time. The reason is that the software in the Hub uses a “load compensating” algorithm, designed for radiators. In other words, it will start to switch the demand for heat on and off as it gets close to the required temperature, whereas underfloor works best with a simple on/off algorithm. That said, I’ve left the Wiser controlling the UFH zone, and it seems to be working fine so far. Their support team also informed me that they will be adding official UFH support in a software update later this year.
I didn’t install any smart TRVs at this stage, but I have done this subsequently and they work well. It was easy to replace the old Danfoss TRVs as the Wiser ones come with a Danfoss adapter collar. One small hex key was the only tool required to remove the old TRVs and attach the new ones.
The Hub is in a cupboard and the WiFi modem is in a different room, so the signal has to go through three wooden doors and round some corners in a Victorian house with thick walls. I haven’t had any problems with WiFi connectivity to the Hub. One of the smart TRVs is 3 rooms away and just out of range. This was easily fixed by using a single Wiser range extender plug at half distance between the Hub and far radiator. The Hub communicates with TRVs, room thermostats, and plugs using the Zigbee wireless standard. This is completely separate from the WiFi but does use a similar carrier frequency. Its range seems to be similar to the WiFi in my house.
If you have a large room with multiple radiators it will work best if you also place a room thermostat in this room, as it will give a more accurate temperature reading than the TRVs. In this case the Hub will use the room thermostat reading to control the TRVs. You should also use a room thermostat if you have radiators with TRVs inside a radiator cover.
The price can start to mount up as you add more TRVs, room thermostats, and plugs; however you can do this gradually, and it is still much cheaper than trying to achieve the same functionality with other systems.

Software Installation
I read a lot of negative reviews about the software app set-up process, as well as many positive ones, so I was a bit worried about this stage. I shouldn’t have been. The process was very slick and the whole thing was up and running in 5 minutes. Having read some of the other comments I did a couple of things to prepare for the installation that might have helped make it a smooth process:

1. Make sure your phone is connected to the 2.4GHz carrier on your WiFi modem. Most modern phones will try and connect to the 5GHz carrier if they can, as it can potentially have a higher data rate; however most Internet of Things devices that don’t need high data rates (e.g. heating Hubs) will use the 2.4GHz carrier, as it has a better range than 5GHz. The Wiser Hub uses 2.4GHz WiFi to communicate with your WiFi modem. During the set-up, your phone will need to be connected to exactly the same WiFi channel as the Hub. You can check if your phone is connected to 2.4GHz by looking in the WiFi settings. If it’s 5GHz you might be able to get it to switch by moving the phone further away from the modem. The best way is to log in to your modem settings page and change the WiFi name (SSID) for the 2.4Ghz channel to something different to the 5GHz carrier. You can then “forget” the 5GHz WiFi in your phone WiFi settings and connect to the 2.4GHz WiFi. This should also give you the advantage of a more reliable WiFi connection around your house, as some phones don’t seem to be very good at auto-switching from 5GHz to 2.4GHz when they start to lose signal.
2. In your WiFi modem settings, make sure the modem is not blocking any ports.
3. Have another device such as a laptop close by with your email open. You will be sent an account registration confirmation email during the set-up process. You need to click something in this email but apparently this might not work if you try to do it on your phone during the set-up.
Apart from that I just followed the instructions on the app. Within a few minutes I had all the rooms and hot water configured with daily schedules. It has worked flawlessly since then.

Operation
The app seems intuitive to me. It is easy to set up schedules for different rooms and copy them from day to day. The heat report feature is nice to see graphs of temperature over time for each room. The graphs also show the schedule target temperature. It would be useful if the graph could display when the Hub is calling for heat as this isn’t as simple as when the actual temperature is below the target temperature. They could use a small icon on the header bar for the heat report rather than taking up a lot of screen space with the button for this, outside temperature, and reminder of where you are, in case you forgot.
I haven’t used the eco or comfort modes, which try to predict when to turn the heating off and on to reach your target temperature by the scheduled times. I have a good idea about this myself already and just set the schedule to come on early enough.
I use the app for all control and checking the room temperatures. It works well wherever I am in the world, on WiFi or mobile data. I find I never need to touch the room thermostats or TRVs. I suppose those controls might be handy if the internet is ever down, but it is also possible to connect your phone directly to the Hub WiFi by pressing the Hub setup button.
In summary, it looks like Drayton has really thought about the design of this system. It is very powerful, but very simple to install and use.

I’ve just moved to a Wiser system and needed an extra thermostat. They’re easy to install and add proper heating zoning across the house far more cheaply and far more effectively than trying to add a dual zone valve into the system. So far… I’m impressed. The app allows you to control the temperature in each room that has a thermostat installed, setting schedules as well as very easy manual override (and you can also manually override from the radiator thermostat as well). So far, I’m impressed.

One thing to note is that you do need the thermostatic valve on which to connect the thermostat. Mine were a like-for-like replacement so no plumbing was involved.

I’ve just moved to a Wiser system and needed an extra thermostat. They’re easy to install and add proper heating zoning across the house far more cheaply and far more effectively than trying to add a dual zone valve into the system. So far… I’m impressed. The app allows you to control the temperature in each room that has a thermostat installed, setting schedules as well as very easy manual override (and you can also manually override from the radiator thermostat as well). So far, I’m impressed.

One thing to note is that you do need the thermostatic valve on which to connect the thermostat. Mine were a like-for-like replacement so no plumbing was involved.

Not yet as refined as Tado (which I’ve had for 18 months and am running in parallel currently) but it’s clearly improving. Having less reliance on the internet is a significant plus over its competitors, particularly the locally held programme control of the heating and hot water, which is what has attracted me. The app can access and update the schedule locally too, even post setup, by pushing the setup button on the hub and connecting your phone to the setup network again – this could be better advertised. It’s a shame geofencing isn’t native to the app given the ‘green’ potential and focus of the system; although the IFTTT and Life360 option works (most of the time) it’s clunky and requires additional apps and accounts.

Google Home and Alexa integration works as advertised (although fractions of a degree don’t seem to be possible.)

Overall (although I’ve only had it for two weeks) it’s proved to be totally reliable and is likely going to be what I stick with.

Not yet as refined as Tado (which I’ve had for 18 months and am running in parallel currently) but it’s clearly improving. Having less reliance on the internet is a significant plus over its competitors, particularly the locally held programme control of the heating and hot water, which is what has attracted me. The app can access and update the schedule locally too, even post setup, by pushing the setup button on the hub and connecting your phone to the setup network again – this could be better advertised. It’s a shame geofencing isn’t native to the app given the ‘green’ potential and focus of the system; although the IFTTT and Life360 option works (most of the time) it’s clunky and requires additional apps and accounts.

Google Home and Alexa integration works as advertised (although fractions of a degree don’t seem to be possible.)

Overall (although I’ve only had it for two weeks) it’s proved to be totally reliable and is likely going to be what I stick with.

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.

This is really good system and installed in a 1930s bungalow with 13 radiators. Mistakes I made on the first install:

Trying to be clever and keep things tidy I initially installed the base unit very near the boiler. This was a mistake as you should put it in as central location as possible in order for it to see your router/TRVs. (and preferably away from large metal white goods that are going to interfere with signals).
Naively I assumed that the new smart TRV(thermostatic Radiator Valves) would be compatible with the old lockshield(tap) valve controls. You require compatible thermostatic Radiator valves and I had to install 4 new ones for the planned system. (cheap units are available for around 7 each – and you don’t seem to be able to buy just the valve body). These require the system to be drained and a bit of plumbing work.

Good points
While it takes a while to get used to the philosophy behind the new control, its great being able to switch individual radiators off. We have noticed that the system heats up so much faster and each radiator gets hotter.
I’ve found the app very intuitive and relatively clear.
The integration with Alexa is seamless and brilliant.
The thermostat is very accurate and the TRVs accurate enough.
You have the option for the system to switch on at fixed times (normal mode) or to be clever and use ambient temperature to determine start times (comfort mode)

Bad points.
Sometimes it takes a while for the boiler to be requested to fire despite the indication of Flame ON displayed on the app.
An indication of the position/status of each TRV would be useful.
It would be nice if the thermostat was non-backlit LCD with the display on all the time rather than having to wake it up to display the current temperature. I also assume that only the thermostat temperature is used in its assigned room rather than the associated rooms TRV — does the system just ignore the TRV temp?. (I also wonder if you can have a cheaper system without the thermostat as I’m not sure it adds much.)

Things that still confuse:
The app has too many ways to change room temperature. E.g
* There is a boost function which has a time limit. (also enabled from the TRVs control). Does enabling from one radiator automatically apply the same boost to others assigned to the same room?
* You can also change the room temperature without the boost time limit.
* You can also set the room to MANUAL (shown as a HAND on the app) control.

I’m still unsure if ALL or any of these settings are automatically overridden by a scheduled temperature change?

Word of warning for those with an older system. I had planned to smart control just 4 of 13 radiators in rooms only used part time. I did this but noticed how much warmer the whole house was. The problem being that 6 radiators/towel rails in my house do not have TRVs (just lockshield taps). The living areas would get up to temperature with bedrooms ‘smart controlled’ off, then prior to bed these would switch on but request the boiler ON for prolong periods to get them up to temperature. However, obviously the 6 radiators/towel rail with lockshield valves would then get very hot in rooms already up to temperature. So I’m now having to convert these to TRVs or smart. In summary — your house requires TRVs!

This is a very good system and I’m not entirely sure what features are missing or that you’d ever need. Only concern is the longevity of the motorised TRVs at 40 a pop.

This is really good system and installed in a 1930s bungalow with 13 radiators. Mistakes I made on the first install:

Trying to be clever and keep things tidy I initially installed the base unit very near the boiler. This was a mistake as you should put it in as central location as possible in order for it to see your router/TRVs. (and preferably away from large metal white goods that are going to interfere with signals).
Naively I assumed that the new smart TRV(thermostatic Radiator Valves) would be compatible with the old lockshield(tap) valve controls. You require compatible thermostatic Radiator valves and I had to install 4 new ones for the planned system. (cheap units are available for around 7 each – and you don’t seem to be able to buy just the valve body). These require the system to be drained and a bit of plumbing work.

Good points
While it takes a while to get used to the philosophy behind the new control, its great being able to switch individual radiators off. We have noticed that the system heats up so much faster and each radiator gets hotter.
I’ve found the app very intuitive and relatively clear.
The integration with Alexa is seamless and brilliant.
The thermostat is very accurate and the TRVs accurate enough.
You have the option for the system to switch on at fixed times (normal mode) or to be clever and use ambient temperature to determine start times (comfort mode)

Bad points.
Sometimes it takes a while for the boiler to be requested to fire despite the indication of Flame ON displayed on the app.
An indication of the position/status of each TRV would be useful.
It would be nice if the thermostat was non-backlit LCD with the display on all the time rather than having to wake it up to display the current temperature. I also assume that only the thermostat temperature is used in its assigned room rather than the associated rooms TRV — does the system just ignore the TRV temp?. (I also wonder if you can have a cheaper system without the thermostat as I’m not sure it adds much.)

Things that still confuse:
The app has too many ways to change room temperature. E.g
* There is a boost function which has a time limit. (also enabled from the TRVs control). Does enabling from one radiator automatically apply the same boost to others assigned to the same room?
* You can also change the room temperature without the boost time limit.
* You can also set the room to MANUAL (shown as a HAND on the app) control.

I’m still unsure if ALL or any of these settings are automatically overridden by a scheduled temperature change?

Word of warning for those with an older system. I had planned to smart control just 4 of 13 radiators in rooms only used part time. I did this but noticed how much warmer the whole house was. The problem being that 6 radiators/towel rails in my house do not have TRVs (just lockshield taps). The living areas would get up to temperature with bedrooms ‘smart controlled’ off, then prior to bed these would switch on but request the boiler ON for prolong periods to get them up to temperature. However, obviously the 6 radiators/towel rail with lockshield valves would then get very hot in rooms already up to temperature. So I’m now having to convert these to TRVs or smart. In summary — your house requires TRVs!

This is a very good system and I’m not entirely sure what features are missing or that you’d ever need. Only concern is the longevity of the motorised TRVs at 40 a pop.

This is really good system and installed in a 1930s bungalow with 13 radiators. Mistakes I made on the first install:

Trying to be clever and keep things tidy I initially installed the base unit very near the boiler. This was a mistake as you should put it in as central location as possible in order for it to see your router/TRVs. (and preferably away from large metal white goods that are going to interfere with signals).
Naively I assumed that the new smart TRV(thermostatic Radiator Valves) would be compatible with the old lockshield(tap) valve controls. You require compatible thermostatic Radiator valves and I had to install 4 new ones for the planned system. (cheap units are available for around 7 each – and you don’t seem to be able to buy just the valve body). These require the system to be drained and a bit of plumbing work.

Good points
While it takes a while to get used to the philosophy behind the new control, its great being able to switch individual radiators off. We have noticed that the system heats up so much faster and each radiator gets hotter.
I’ve found the app very intuitive and relatively clear.
The integration with Alexa is seamless and brilliant.
The thermostat is very accurate and the TRVs accurate enough.
You have the option for the system to switch on at fixed times (normal mode) or to be clever and use ambient temperature to determine start times (comfort mode)

Bad points.
Sometimes it takes a while for the boiler to be requested to fire despite the indication of Flame ON displayed on the app.
An indication of the position/status of each TRV would be useful.
It would be nice if the thermostat was non-backlit LCD with the display on all the time rather than having to wake it up to display the current temperature. I also assume that only the thermostat temperature is used in its assigned room rather than the associated rooms TRV — does the system just ignore the TRV temp?. (I also wonder if you can have a cheaper system without the thermostat as I’m not sure it adds much.)

Things that still confuse:
The app has too many ways to change room temperature. E.g
* There is a boost function which has a time limit. (also enabled from the TRVs control). Does enabling from one radiator automatically apply the same boost to others assigned to the same room?
* You can also change the room temperature without the boost time limit.
* You can also set the room to MANUAL (shown as a HAND on the app) control.

I’m still unsure if ALL or any of these settings are automatically overridden by a scheduled temperature change?

Word of warning for those with an older system. I had planned to smart control just 4 of 13 radiators in rooms only used part time. I did this but noticed how much warmer the whole house was. The problem being that 6 radiators/towel rails in my house do not have TRVs (just lockshield taps). The living areas would get up to temperature with bedrooms ‘smart controlled’ off, then prior to bed these would switch on but request the boiler ON for prolong periods to get them up to temperature. However, obviously the 6 radiators/towel rail with lockshield valves would then get very hot in rooms already up to temperature. So I’m now having to convert these to TRVs or smart. In summary — your house requires TRVs!

This is a very good system and I’m not entirely sure what features are missing or that you’d ever need. Only concern is the longevity of the motorised TRVs at 40 a pop.

Replaced the wireless (not internet enabled) thermostat that came with my boiler with this system. I was lucky enough that that my switch over from old to new was straighforward, requiring only 4 wires at the side of the boiler to be wired into the Drayton Wiser Hub. Once this was done, connecting to the new system and setting up the phone app took a matter of minutes. I was also able to get it to work with Alexa very quickly and easily. Now that it’s set up I can turn on, or adjust my heating from anywhere with an internet connection/mobile phone signal – not just in the house. Alexa can tell you how warm it is, and you can raise or lower the temperature with Alexa too. There are some smart features on the app, you have a weekly planner for how you want the heating to react, but you can also set it to eco mode where it adjusts itself automatically – I haven’t tried this yet. So far, I only have one thermostat and the hub. I plan to get the Wiser smart thermostatic radiator valves so that I can control all radiators in the house from my phone too, as this will obviously incur savings on my heating bill if radiators not needed can be scheduled to be off and automatically come on at certain times of the day. Overall very pleased. I also had to contact support as I couldn’t work out how to change the wifi (I have more than one wifi signal in my house and wanted to change the hub to a different one) – they responded within the day and were spot-on with their reply, and I was able to resolve my problem. Many thanks to Wiser Support! 😉

Replaced the wireless (not internet enabled) thermostat that came with my boiler with this system. I was lucky enough that that my switch over from old to new was straighforward, requiring only 4 wires at the side of the boiler to be wired into the Drayton Wiser Hub. Once this was done, connecting to the new system and setting up the phone app took a matter of minutes. I was also able to get it to work with Alexa very quickly and easily. Now that it’s set up I can turn on, or adjust my heating from anywhere with an internet connection/mobile phone signal – not just in the house. Alexa can tell you how warm it is, and you can raise or lower the temperature with Alexa too. There are some smart features on the app, you have a weekly planner for how you want the heating to react, but you can also set it to eco mode where it adjusts itself automatically – I haven’t tried this yet. So far, I only have one thermostat and the hub. I plan to get the Wiser smart thermostatic radiator valves so that I can control all radiators in the house from my phone too, as this will obviously incur savings on my heating bill if radiators not needed can be scheduled to be off and automatically come on at certain times of the day. Overall very pleased. I also had to contact support as I couldn’t work out how to change the wifi (I have more than one wifi signal in my house and wanted to change the hub to a different one) – they responded within the day and were spot-on with their reply, and I was able to resolve my problem. Many thanks to Wiser Support! 😉

Got this up and running quickly, well I thought I had…
The main receiver simply replaced my existing timer unit next to the boiler – the standard UK backplate meant no fiddly rewiring (but do check that your backplate is wired suitably for it – there’s details in the box, or get a professional to fit it)
I easily connected 1x TRV and the room thermostat to the central unit, then created an online account through the app. I was turning on and off the heating and hot water from my phone in no time.
I had an issue with a faulty TRV – Amazon customer service was great – after a bit of nudging – to replace the TRV only, rather than un installing the whole kit.
I spent several days phoning and emailing Drayton’s Liverpool-based support centre because the TRVs, while appearing to operate correctly, were not physically opening the valve on my radiators. I have oldish Danfoss valves – their fitting type is supported (there’s an adapter in the box for such values), but eventually we ascertained that the very small distance of travel of the pin in my Danfoss values were incompatible with Drayton TRVs, which expect a distance of travel of >5mm or thereabouts.
I almost kept the system, but without TRVs. The online app is great, and the room stat worked a treat. But zonal control at a great price was what sold it to me, and I wouldn’t get zoned control without TRVs. Reluctantly I uninstalled the whole kit and returned for a refund – excellent customer service as always from Amazon. Looking to Nest or Hive as an alternative non-zoned system.
The price of this kit rises and falls quite dramatically – I was gutted when I realised it wasn’t compatible with my rad valves because I got this at a great price – 140 quid.
If you have Drayton values, or modern Danfoss valves on your radiators, I seriously recommend giving this a go, particularly if you can grab it at a good price.
Well made, UK support, solid wifi and proprietary communication. (and no separate unit requiring a mains plug and LAN-cable connection to your router like Hive, or some other systems. I think only this and Nest are the only systems which connect to your home wifi and don’t require hard-wired cable and a separate unit)

Originally had a 2nd Gen Nest thermostat, but it became problematic and was always losing connectivity to the Heat Link box by the boiler despite being installed practically right below it. Problem was when the thermostat lost connectivity, you had no heating which occured a few times. Also disliked the fact that despite the thermostat being wireless, it needed to be constantly plugged into the mains meaning portability was lacking (wasn’t like you could easily carry it from room to room for e.g.).

Being that the product cost alot of money and also wasnt that old, was very disappointed. Rather felt as though it was all show and no go.

In the end decided to rip and replace for the Wiser Heat system and on the whole couldnt be happier with it. Had some initial niggles with the control box losing connectivity with the WiFi but it transpired it was a WiFi problem (or not enough of it!). Once that was sorted its been pretty rock solid.

The system is pretty easy to set up (though the control box really needs professional installation), easy enough to configure and by and large does what it says on the tin.

We bought the pack with the single TRV included and used it in our main bedroom. To begin with I was disappointed as it didnt seem to fit the valve properly and subsequently failed to control the rad properly……several months later after trying it again have found that I hadnt installed it correctly and now seems to control the radiator OK. They arent the quietest things (if you are a light sleeper the opening and closing process could wake you) but do the job. Only issue I have encountered is that the TRV set temperature has a few times dropped down from what it was set to (was 18, falling back to 15 degrees) meaning we’ve woken cold a few times but having disabled Eco mode now seems OK.

I will probably eventually install the TRV’s in all the bedrooms, but at 40 quid a pop it’s not really a cheap exercise (though far cheaper than Honeywell’s offering) but it’ll be nice to have temperature control in the bedrooms in order to run the house a bit warmer and the rooms cooler for comfortable sleeping in the colder months. Test will be whether a range extender will be required as our house is fairly large….time will tell I suppose.

In summary, I imagine the Honeywell system is probably better but at the cost it ought to be. For the money this seems very good value for money as whilst arguably not quite as polished as the likes of the Honeywell offering it offers nice, reliable functionality at a relatively low price. Certainly knocks a single Nest thermostat into the weeds in terms of reliability and overall functionality, from my own experience anyway.

What should be a straightforward install, took ages as the instructions are woeful. They miss out key steps and details. i.e. switching from the hub to your own wifi at the point you want to create an account. Password appears to require upper and lower case and special characters (!”$%^&*) in order to work (when you get it wrong and it fails, it just says error and not whats wrong!). Wifi hub has a rubbish range and you will probably need the range extender plug which is more money!

In the end I have sent this all back. The radiator thermostats would not control the radiators and I’m fed up faffing with it. Looking at the reviews for Hive and Nest, I don’t think they will be any better, so I will just fit a traditional heating controller and room stat.

Our house was always incredibly difficult to heat properly despite having conventional thermostaic valves on all rads. To get the living room hot enough the rest of the house was too hot. But then in the morning if the bedroom was warm enough the living room was too hot. I am sure this could have been sorted by splitting the house into zones but with the Drayton Wiser system I have a smart thermostat on almost all of the radiators. If one of the kids wants their bedroom heating when the rest of the house is empty that can be done. we now have a warm living room and do not waste energy heating the whole house to heat one part.

A full review would take ages – I will just say that I do a bit of DIY and found the whole thing very easy to fit. The rad valves are simple to do if you have TRVs already. The only problems I had using the system in a large house was some of the rads lost signal with the control unit. I have ended up buying two smart plug extenders that have solved the problem but probably could have got away with one carefully positioned. The second problem is that I needed an adaptor to fit each of the Drayton thermostats to my rads. The advice from the Drayton hotline was unimpressive and suggested buying from a European company at vastly inflated prices. I bought suitable adaptors from Amazon – no problem. Had the system running now for a few months nd am very happy with it !

This is a very good system that has already saved me heating costs even after a few months. I estimate it will pay for itself in my house in about 3 years but I would still use it just for the features it provides even without the cost saving.

The devices all connect together easily and let me control the heating room by room from my mobile phone whilst away from the house so perfect for heating when needed. I can see on an app on my phone the actual temperature in each room and can program the target temperature room by room. It also has the normal programmable on off times day by day schedules for the house and rooms but I no longer use these as have found better ways to manage the house heating.

You do not need a on going contract to use the device via internet to access the system when away from the house – it does depend on logging on to Draytons servers but the company has been going for years and it’s unlikely their service will end in the next 20 years. The system is accessed directly via the house WiFi when inside the house so no dependency on the internet or their servers.

A really useful feature is the radiator controllers allow each radiator to be turned on individually for 1 hour (it fires up the central heating) then will turn off automatically. It means occupants can heat selected rooms on demand and not need have the central heating warm the whole house e.g. when kids want to be in their bedroom they can heat their room themselves just when they are in it and it turns off automatically when they are away. I would say the precision in targeting the heating of this feature trumps many more complicated features for convenience and saving heating costs.

I could not fit a combi boiler in the house so have a high quality hot water storage tank in the loft – I have the tank on a separate heating circuit so can control hot water heating on demand from the Drayton app on my phone or on a timer programme or by using a boost button on the central heating controller unit so no hot water goes to waste.

The online technical support team is superb – I had a problem getting the main heating controller unit to connect via wifi to the internet which turned out to be a fault with my talktalk broadband router. Drayton worked patiently with me providing technical advice to help get talktalk to understand and accept the issue and replace the broken router then everything worked.

The Drayton system has fewer features than other systems e.g. hive but is significantly cheaper whilst being very functional and well designed.

Have no words to express how good this product is for its price. Whilst competition is at least 3 times more expensive, Drayton was the perfect fit for our home. Have to be honest and say it helped having a programmer from the same company, therefore the transition to this one was extremely smooth, just had to shut off the energy, remove the old unit, put the new unit in place (it is using the same frame) and turn the power on again. 2 minutes tops! Therefore no money spent on installation. Also having TRV valves helped as I just screwed the Wiser ones in after removing the old ones, 1 minute max.

The app can be improved, but it does exactly what I need it to do and more. Schedule as many periods based on the temperature I need is so convenient. Also being able to turn heating or water on and off whilst not at home is very handy. And it helps saving money too as I don’t need to have the water heated if we’re not in for the weekend.

Best spent I have ever made on a product for home!

Initially I thought I was going to have problems with this product (I did) I live in 1930’s 3 bed bungalow with brick internal walls, my heating system was already fitted with a Drayton wireless RF thermostat, so it was simple to remove and replace the base unit with the smart base unit.
My Boiler is situated at the back of the property in the kitchen, after fitting the radiator stats all seemed well except that some of the units were showing very low Wi-fi signal strength after a day the lounge thermostat lost its connection altogether, I started to worry.
I phoned Drayton and they sent out the free extender, after fitting this and finding the best position for it the signal strength improved and all is well.
Be aware that valve head adapters may be required if your heating system has 28mm valve threads, these can add to the overall cost (approx 10/12 per adapter)

This is a good economical system but it has its faults, the app might confuse some, when it displays the rooms and devices it shows the room name then a line, then the device assigned to the room then the next room name then a line, I’d have thought the room name and device could have been included in the same box. Hopefully these things will get looked at in further updates.

Bottom line I’m happy….so far.

UPDATE. Drayton have updated the app (March) the update states that it has made improvements to the signal strength and this seems to be the case, still a few things about the app UI that I personally don’t like but the system seems to be running very well now

Bought this Drayton Wiser Multizone kit a couple of months ago but have delayed writing a review until I had had some time to see how well it works. I have to say I am very pleased with the system and have just bought two more radiator valves to extend the system. Wiring it in was straight forward and setting it up went well, once I had read the instructions. The full manual that you download is much better at explaining the process.
Once it is set up controlling the system from phone or tablet is very easy and convenient. Does it save money? Don’t know yet but since each room can be controlled I cannot think it will anything other than save.
Did have the batteries in a radiator valve go down and it took some time before I sorted that out because the explanation for the central red light showing that batteries are down is buried a bit in the manual. It would be better if this indication was shown in the table or light indications at the back of the manual.
If you want a heating control system that you can run from your phone or tablet and does not break the bank then I would recommend the Drayton Wiser system.