Drayton Wiser Multi-Zone Smart Thermostat and 2 Smart Radiator Thermostat Kit – Conventional Boilers Only – Heating and Hot Water Control

Great set up, why didn't I buy this earlie
I’m glad I did the homework and selected Drayton over more expensive alternatives.

I purchased the Thermostat and a number of TRV’s, NOTE: don’t fit to all the radiators in your house, you need to keep one radiator uncontrolled as a heat load to allow your boiler to cool down – it wont be on all the time, only for a few minutes after the controlled radiators have reached their temperature – I’m only saying that to save you buying too many TRV’s (although Amazon where great in returning the one that I over-ordered), I also used a Drayton Wiring Centre LWC3 to make my life a bit easier, but you can get away without it.

The installation guides are very clear, and even when I got a bit stuck, the tech support from Drayton was prompt and clear. Drayton even offer a series of You Tube video’s to aid the installation process…combine this with videos from Bosch Worcester and you are on a winning streak.

The app is very easy to use, and although I have yet to compare energy use with previous year, I can immediately tell I am saving energy. Whereas before, the whole house heated needlessly to a comfortable level, as I walk around my house I can tell the “lived in” zones are still comfortable, whilst the spare room is cold and the bedrooms are only heated when we need them…..why was I heating these rooms before??

Ok ish not as good as hoped
Running for about 2 weeks now. Bought as part of start-up set. One wall thermastat, 3 rad thermastats and control box. The control system needs wiring into the boiler. Not as easy as the video suggests. If you’re ok with wiring then straight forward. I had a friend do that bit. The rest, fitting rads thermostats, if you already have manual thermostats, is straightforward. The app on the phone is straightforward. However, there is a 8 second delay between commands on phone and reaction of thermostat. Doesn’t sound alot but when you are programming every radiator for every day of the week if is really really slow. I can’t get the IFTTT bit to work at the moment that could be me or they no longer support Wiser.
The rad thermastats are noisy when they come on. Wake you up with a start noisy, for the one in the bedroom. Not horrendously noisy but you will hear it and I’m a heavy sleeper. In other rooms with TV or radio on it wont be a problem. Putting the heating on when in the car, on the way home from finishing work early is brill. Turning heating up or down from sofa brill. Not tried voice control yet so can’t comment. Had a couple of none responsive commands so system is not 100%. But I will buy further rad thermastats for other rooms. The pros outway the cons

Relatively Easy to install
Installed the system in a 5 bedroom bungalow with 13 radiators. Installing the control unit next to the boiler was simple. Removed old Drayton unit and installed new (uses the same mounting plate). Replacing the radiator thermostats was simple. System configured and now running.
Issues found was with a weak WiFi signal at the control unit next to the boiler configuring the timing and temperature settings was slow, slow to update. Had to move my WiFi booster closer to the boiler. To avoid thermostats not responding I also had to add two range extender/ plug units.
Ran the system for a few days to check if reliable which it is. Changed the mode to ECO mode so hopefully will start to make some savings.
It would help greatly if the App displayed the signal strength at the hub from each the thermostats. Determining the requirement for and positioning of the range extender/ smart plugs would be so much easier.
Also I don’t see the point of combining the range extender function with that of a smart plug in the same unit. The position of the range extender is determined by signal strengths and is unlikely to be where you need a smart plug. Drayton should make two separate units ie a range extender unit and a smart plug unit. It would make more sense.
Note: If you are someone not comfortable with modern technology and want a heating system which is simply on or off not involving batteries, wifi signals, thermostat signals, Apps, etc this may not be for you.

Had this nearly 2 years now with no faul
We bought this nearly 2 years ago when it was on Black Friday deals for 47 and thought for that money it’s worth a shot. This thermostat and app have not let us down. It was a bit hit and miss when we first got it but the app was quite young. Now we have zero problems. It was easy to install (you may have to get an electrician or boiler technician to install it if you don’t have any experience). Setting a schedule is so easy and you can just ask Alexa to turn the heating off when you go out and no longer need it or ask her to bump the heating or turn it down There is a feature where if you leave the house it will turn off automatically but I have not been able to work this out. The ECO MODE has been getting better and saves us some money every month as the thermostat learns how your house heats up and cools down and sets the temperature accordingly. We haven’t changed the battery in nearly 2 years and it has only lost connection to the app twice. A quick restart of the app fixes this. It’s not as pretty as a hive thermostat but it’s half the price, even at full price! Highly recommended.

Whats not to like.. I have 2 of them now!
These do everything that teh other well known brands do, and at a much more affordable price. Reliability is good.. I have had teh 1st system for just about a year now, never let me down. ECO mode is a bit hit and miss, in early Autum and late spring as it monitors the outside temperature and ovverides whether the heating should on or not. try telling that to somebody that lives in a North facing house!
The app could be improved, but its adequate, and you still get more info from it than the other well known brands. Can be integrated into IFTTT, but I dont.
All I will say, is dont hesitate, buy it, especially when its on sales prices… cheaper than a regular wireless thermosta

If you want accurate
The hub is simple and easy to install.
The room stat works well with previously installed wiser rad valves. Much more accurate than just the valves. I do think that the prices are a bit steep. Drayton should market a cheaper “dumb” rad valve which is network controlled but doesn’t have any thermostat functionality. You are paying twice if you use the room stat with wiser rad valves.
Hence 4 stars

Extend Range of Wiser Heating System
This was bought to extend the range of a Wiser heating control system in a large house. As a smart plug its does pretty much what other smart plugs do like turning a 3 pin plug device into a smart device by allowing you to turn the device on or off from a phone/alexa/google or setting up schedules to turn it on and off automatically. If you are just looking for a smart plug then this is an expensive plug as you can probably get 2 smart plugs at this price and they probably have a little more features like turning on at sunset, etc… (which this plug doesn’t).

If you have Wiser Thermostats and TRVs and you find some of them loose connection, this is the product for you as it will effectively repeat the wireless signal to the TRVs and Thermostats. It’s simple to integrate into the Wiser system and permits remote switch on/off and flexible scheduling of any electrical device.

Feels well made and rated a full 13 amps. Quality and worthwhile addition to a Wiser system if you have the need to extend the range.

Absolute game changer!
I had a new heating system installed this year which came with a Honeywell TR3 programmable wireless stat.
No smart connectivity or app.

I did a bit of research and went for the Drayton because of the cost and reviews.

I’m absolutely delighted.

I bought the starter kit which had a thermostat, control box and 2 wireless TRVs.

After an hour of thorough googling I decided to wire the control box myself, which was easy enough after going through a few forums.

The set-up was a doddle, as was adding the TRVs.
I ordered another 5 TRVs on the spot.

All my rooms are now wirelessly connected to both the app and Alexa.
So I can set room temperatures by voice.

The app itself is easy to use and links to IFTTT, so it’s geofenced and switches off when I leave the house, and back on when I get home.

Handily the app can aggregate temperatures, so where I have 2 radiators in one room it uses an average temperature.

The bathroom radiator is the only one that doesn’t have a TRV on it so I put the thermostat in the bathroom.

Basically I can individually heat any room in the house as long as I leave the bathroom radiator on.

At this price I couldn’t be happier!

Highly recommended.

Absolute game changer!
I had a new heating system installed this year which came with a Honeywell TR3 programmable wireless stat.
No smart connectivity or app.

I did a bit of research and went for the Drayton because of the cost and reviews.

I’m absolutely delighted.

I bought the starter kit which had a thermostat, control box and 2 wireless TRVs.

After an hour of thorough googling I decided to wire the control box myself, which was easy enough after going through a few forums.

The set-up was a doddle, as was adding the TRVs.
I ordered another 5 TRVs on the spot.

All my rooms are now wirelessly connected to both the app and Alexa.
So I can set room temperatures by voice.

The app itself is easy to use and links to IFTTT, so it’s geofenced and switches off when I leave the house, and back on when I get home.

Handily the app can aggregate temperatures, so where I have 2 radiators in one room it uses an average temperature.

The bathroom radiator is the only one that doesn’t have a TRV on it so I put the thermostat in the bathroom.

Basically I can individually heat any room in the house as long as I leave the bathroom radiator on.

At this price I couldn’t be happier!

Highly recommended.

Simple and attractive multi-zone heating
We recently replaced our boiler and decided to fit to fit Drayton Wiser at the same time. The plumber installed the hub and fitted the needed valves to the radiators, but left us to do the actual configuration and fit the actual TRV heads.

After reading some of the reviews on here I was a little concerned that given the size of our house we’d have issues getting the TRVs to pair. Thankfully the setup was very easy! Walking through the setup steps in the app I didn’t encounter any issues getting the hub to join the Wifi, and the TRV heads found the hub without issues. I did find that when joining to Alexa from an iPhone I had to turn off the popup blocker in Safari temporarily, but that was easy enough to sort.

Some people have complained that the TRV heads miss out on having an LCD display, but compared to the boxy looking Honeywell/Bosch TRVs I think they look a lot cleaner/more attractive for not having them (and that played a part in choosing this system). The twist to boost temperature up/down works well, and anything else can be done in the app.

Future wise, Drayton don’t advertise support for underfloor heating but it appears to be coming – the first time after I power cycled the hub the app sported an option to connect to an underfloor heating controller. It’s available elsewhere in Europe, so I think it might become available in the UK too.

I’ll keep an eye out on the reliability of the system, but so far so good.

(Excellent functionality and Easy to Use (but avoid the radiator thermostat)
Having just replaced our 20 yr old conventional boiler with a much more efficient one I decided to invest some of the projected savings in further enhancements.
Replacing an old freezer and rescheduling the hot water is already making substantial savings on electricity and Smart Heating is an obvious next step.
First I reviewed the available products and decided that Wiser was the best value for money and offers all the functionality that we need.
I considered iTRV’s but eventually decided that the additional cost was not worth the investment but the option is still available in the future (though our Giacomino TRV’s also require a special adapter).
The big worry was installation and a bit of research showed that our BG UP25 controller has exactly the same wiring as the Wiser Smart Hub so I went for it. It took only a few minutes to shut off the power, unscrew the old controller and replace it with the new one. The existing thermostat is now turned to 100% on and will be removed in due course when the boiler is serviced.

Connecting my iPad and programming the hot water and heating was very straight forward and there are some youtube videos available to explain the different modes (away mode, eco and comfort) which offer savings on top of setting the old style TRV’s in every room.

The system has now been commissioned and is working as expected.

I am thinking that I will use Away mode in the Summer so that the heating does not come on and for the Winter I have a schedule with 15C at night and 20C during the daytime.

A bit of research and I found the IFTTT site which links to the Wiser account and allows you to create a free account and automate the system even further eg) an applet that runs at a certain time each day to switch to Away mode in Spring and Autumn so I don’t need to keep altering the heating schedule.

I would certainly recommend checking out this system if your requirements are simple and you want good value for money.

Update:
so it’s been in place for 7 days and I have been closely monitoring the system and the power use.
As regards hot water, I have put extra lagging on the cylinder (12) and I am only heating water on ‘bath nights’ (x3 a week) giving a clear reduction in electricity usage. It actually seems sensible to heat to 65C so that the water is still usable even after three days.
Central Heating – I am not sure that Comfort mode is working with my new condenser boiler set on Economy so I have turned it off and forward scheduled my settings to get the full impact of heating when I get up in the morning. I have also scheduled a boost on ‘bath nights’ so that it doesn’t feel chilly getting out of the bath.
Overall the system is working exactly as I want and giving me control and feedback my major power usage. I already have some understanding of the time it takes the house to cool down and heat up.
It will be interesting to review this when it gets to freezing and sub zero temps later in the winter.

Wiser smart Radiator Thermostat
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Still very happy with the basic system so I tried adding a smart radiator thermostat.
My existing TRVs are Giacomini so I ordered the adapter which is available online from Conrad electronics or Amazon.
Fitting the adapter was ok but does requires a very small Allen key to tighten the nuts.
My experience is that the temperatures recorded by the smart radiator thermostat go wacky at the start of the day about 15 mins before the schedule kicks in and the heating fires up. (Photos attached).
I tried re calibrating and factory reset but the problem persisted and I’m still waiting for a response from the support team so I am looking to return this in the next few days.
Instead I am getting another smart thermometer which I will use as a sensor to record room temperatures and adjust the manual controls and existing TRVs. I could probably acheive the same with a simple digital thermostat but for a little extra cost the wiser smart thermostat will record the temperatures.

Update: 20/11/20.
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Overall I still have a very favorable opinion re: the Drayton Wiser Smart Heating system – as it is easy to install, performs well and allows me to control energy consumption in these difficult times.
The Smart Radiator Thermostat did not work for me at all and I returned the product which may have been faulty. As stated above, my strategy now is to have two Smart Room Thermostats and this is working very well. In truth I might have done the same by getting a cheaper analog max/min thermostat but it’s nice to have the data recorded and two rooms allows you to exceed the 8 event s a day limit on a schedule.

Excellent system
I’ve had two control systems from the boiler manufacturer, neither were cheap and both failed within two years. Won’t mention the manufacturer but they are one of the higher end domestic boiler manufacturer. The boiler is a combi but the wiser system would easily integrate with a heat only boiler system ( one with a hot water cylinder).
The system was very easy to install, the thermostatic radiator units simply unscrew and the wiser radiator unit screws straight on. I was replacing my old honeywell Thermostatic radiator controls. The kit comes with and adaptor which will allow the unit to fit most makes of radiator TRV’s without the need to drain the system. I found the unit very easy to set up and pair the TRV to the system. The only criticism is the system isn’t opentherm compatible so its simply a on/off but the way the system performs is very much like a opentherm system.
With standard thermostatic radiator valves these simply shut the water off to the radiator, this doesn’t interface with the boiler, only a room thermostat and time lock can turn the boiler on and off. With this system it is possible to turn the boiler on and off when any of the TRVs are calling for heat which is fantastic. For instance if your working from home and only want to heat say the living room and kitchen this system will allow these rooms to be controlled simply and efficiently without trying to heat the whole house, as long as each radiator has a wiser unit fitted. Instead of heating the whole house you can now control each room however and whenever you wish.
We have noticed a drop in the gas bill which is really why this system was fitted an long with reducing the CO2 footprint.
The house is small but WiFi is always an issue, ro the point the computer upstairs has trouble with WiFi so its hard wired, to date I’ve not had any issues with connectivity at all, this isn’t to say if you have a larger property or a poorly placed router a range extender maybe needed.
We have had this system. I have had to change the batteries in one or two units in that time, to be fair these are the ones that come with the unit so I don’t expect them to be the best, changing the batteries and reconnecting the TRV back to the system only takes a few minutes and probably will take less time now I know the procedure to rediscover the TRV.
Lots of data can be accessed in the app, so the tech minded gadget lover can see what the system has been upto.
Initial cost is a bit high but compared to the benefits this system provides is comparable to fitting a control system to a existing system, without the need to run cables to time clocks, room thermostats etc.
All in all I can’t recommend this system highly enough.

Seems very good after my disappointment with my previous Hive version!
I bought this on a whim really as I was about to put my old Honeywell, wired, programmable thermostat and Siemens time switch back into my system following the fiasco with the Hive I had for less than 6 months! Noticed this Kit 2 as a warehouse deal “like new” so decided to give it a try.

Very easy to install, with only 2 units – the combined boiler switch/hub/controller and the very small and neat wireless thermostat (the Hive had 3 units – the extra one required an Ethernet connection to your router).

One installation hiccup was although all three boiler controllers state they will fit straight onto your existing, industry standard, back-plate in fact the Hive would NOT fit (it has a couple of extra profiles on the side of the box) so I had to fit Hives own mounting (not very good quality terminals). When I came to fit the Wiser controller it would NOT fit onto the Hive back-plate – it would have fitted the Siemens original one though! So I ended up changing the back-plate on both installs – at least the Wiser version has better quality terminals.

A further problem arose when I was starting everything up on the phone app – it appeared the Hub was already registered to someone else – thanks Amazon! Strange as when I received the unit it seemed to be factory sealed,the batteries were shrink wrapped, protective film on screen ans even the clip in desk stand was included?

At this point I let go a few expletives as I knew that with the Hive system, once the hub is registered to an account, it absolutely cannot be re-assigned – you have to buy a new hub for about 70!

However I decided to ring Wiser support – not expecting much in view of my previous days call to Hive – nearly 2 hours long – 50% unintelligible audio, lots of resetting of my router, changing cables, standing on my head – all to no avail and when they said “advanced tech support would ring me within 72 hours” to sort it out I decided that was the taking the mickey – Screwfix refund beckoned!

My call to Wiser support was totally different – a very helpful, polite, friendly and knowledgeable lady, whom I could easily understand on a clear phone line, just needed to know where the kit had been purchased and the serial number of the hub. Within 5 minutes the previous user had been cancelled and the hub was now registered to me – excellent stuff, exactly how customer support SHOULD work!

Pros:
Easy to fit / very neat small thermostat unit with the option of wall mount or desk mount / so far the app works well (the ONLY way to program a schedule) and has lots of options and information / attractive colour display / simple 3 touch button control to adjust room temperature or select boost feature / possible to control the system from the app if your internet connection goes down – just press the “setup” button once then connect your phone/tablet WiFi to the built in Wiserxxxxxxx access point.

Cons:
No Hot Water display on the thermostat (HW boost or over-ride ONLY available at the hub or on the app) / often the flame symbol stays illuminated for a long time after the room temperature is satisfied and the boiler has turned off (very slow update) / no proximity sensor to briefly turn the display on when you approach it

Overall it seems a good workable system and if it proves reliable I might just shell out and fit the intelligent TRVs to all my radiators BUT, as I need 12 of these at a cost of around 480 I will have to be very sure of the reliability first – It would be nice to be able to schedule and temperature control various different rooms at varying times – almost like “zoning” without the extra plumbing and valves etc!

Just a last word on my previous Hive – when the hub failed it also managed to corrupt the time setting in the thermostat and although they say “you can still run the schedule without internet”, you probably could EXCEPT there is NO time setting function available in the menu so yes, it would run the schedule BUT about 8 hours out of sync with the actual time – useless!

Great basic smart heating controlle
We have a house with solid walls. Some rooms are warm and stay warm, others go cold really quickly.
We had a Worcester 34cdi with old drayton RF controller built in, and at night the bedrooms used to drop way below the setpoint of the wall thermostat – not great for kids bedrooms – especially when mold started for form in the colder rooms, so had been looking at Smart control systems. (Insulation is a few k so trying this option first)

This kit came on a treasure truck offer few months ago so bought it, plus 3 additional radiator valves.
Had to arrange an electrician to install the wall plate and the hub to the boiler… 60ish and less than an hours work.
The rest is done via the app on your phone.

Positives:
-Responsive accurate control of the system
-Able to have a temperature zone everywhere you have a sensor
-You can create a schedule of times/temperatures and assign multiple rooms to that schedule, or you can have a schedule per room (as we do as our use of each room fluctuates).
– Radiator valves (TRVs) *very* easy to install and setup (just observe the battery polarity markings!… as the typical “springs” arent the same as other appliances… I spent 30 mins trying to figure out why none of my valves was powering on…to see that the batteries were in wrong!). TRV up/down can trigger a 2c boost for 1hr for that zone.
– If you have a TRV and wall control in a single zone then the wall control automatically overrides the heating-demand on the TRV itself.
– TRVs are simple in that there is no pull out display like the honeywells. Just boost up/down twists to change current setpoint.
– Not too loud… slight whir for split second when temps adjusting… eg if too cold you hear the valve open, then the heating comes on. If the boiler is on and they dont want heat… then they whir shut.
– Make sure your valve-body pins are free… get pair of pliers and shift up down a few times with a little wd40 so the motors dont have quite as much work to do.
– We have solid walls, but didnt need the range extender. Furthermost valve needed to be connected to hub a bit closer, but always responds to control now connected.
– android app is intuitive and easy to make changes in; there are now also battery status bars for each device and alerts when getting low. Plenty of insights of how your house behaves thermally, compared with say the outside temperature and what rooms heat when. (Mine is saying to install a TRV in our lounge as we are overheating it constantly as its an “always on” radiator – which had suspected).
– comfort mode works out over time what your room takes to heat vs outside weather and turns on the heating before scheduled time so it reaches the set point when youve told it to. Works pretty well IMO.
– there is a “eco” mode but not tried it out. Apparently its turned our heating down quite a few times when not needed… time will tell if reduces bills, but we bought it more for comfort so that we didnt have to wake up in middle of night to turn heating up for the kids.
– hub range pretty decent. Our hub is in our outhouse round back of house and we still get 2/5 signal upstairs at front of house; the rad valves seem to maintain decent connection just the app sometimes struggles.
– each of the smart TRVs can be “locked” so can only be changed via the app… useful if you have little hands that like to fiddle with things that whirr and flash

Negatives:
ipad app:
– layout… doesnt landscape when you turn the screen
– doesnt have the “settings” options… for that I have to use my android phone… so wouldnt have been able to setup using our ipad. Also doesn’t work with older ipads (we have a mini it wont install on, which might have been useful to just put on a wall in the hallway)

Android app:
1. latest update… if low signal to the hub it sits waiting to connect to the hub before you can change any settings… previously you could go in, review and only when you came to change something would it complain about hub connection… now… it just blocks everything. Loathe to buy the range extender given its 1 corner of the house that has the problem and we are moving our boiler soon.
2. Initial setup – I couldnt create an account without the app being connected to my hub… so as such I couldnt do that side of things before my hub was actually installed

All access is via the “app”… that is you have to have a phone/tablet to control the system with any granularity; there is no way to login online and make changes, even though you can control the system via the app when away from home.

Only things missing IMO from the infrastructure are:
– TRVs dont have a temp display on them (see honeywell).
– a more advanced display control unit to upgrade to (see honeywell)
– underfloor heating manifold (again…Honeywell) (we are planning this on our extension next year, so if not available will have to change systems, but for the price “right now” this is a no-brainer)
– ability to login via a web-page and do all the same things the app can do

So far so good. Id **thoroughly** recommend and would buy again.

Update: replaced my lounge radiator lockshield with a wiser trv (for some reason this was our pass-thru, so moved them to the bathroom rad instead). Head registered then lights would randomly start flashing. +/- worked in opposite direction and then it disconnected and lights were flashing at random. Clearly a dud. Raised with Amazon who sent out next day replacement (which works perfectly) and now our lounge wont be epicly overheating whenever any other room demands heat.

If you have a smart meter you can also integrate with that, but my supplier (BG Evolve) doesnt do smart meters – not sure how it looks on the app.

I like the insights view shows you when heating was turned on or off during setpoint cycles. It shows external temp (from weather forecast) and internal temp in the room vs setpoint so you can see how outside temp influences internal temp and then when the system triggers. I guess it means you can look and see if its triggering when you arent using that room and adjust the schedule for that room – which I had done up front as our activity is fairly predictable

Super!
I’ve had the wiser kit in my cupboard now for over 18 months and just never got round to installing it.
I have an oil fired boiler and an unvented system. When I turned the heating on, all my radiators came on and my water heated too. There was (and still is) no separation of hot water from the heating…both come on simultaneously. We have a massive hot water cylinder so no issues. We have 16 radiators in the house…so as you can imagine we were burning a lot of oil, to heat a lot of radiators and we weren’t in all the rooms they were heating.
Now that I’ve installed wiser that has changed. I have schedules set for all the rooms that have wiser trv’s. The heat comes and for a set time as and when we need and we can control the heating from our phones whilst away! There are a few rooms (ie the bathrooms and a couple of rooms upstairs) that don’t have wiser trv’s…but we want the bathroom radiators on due to tiled walls and floors being cold and the other upstairs rooms aren’t used frequently so we will just manually turn them on as needed. I’ll add wiser trv’s to these at a later date though.
We never had any wired thermostats to worry about either.
We’ve only had it installed now for about a month and it’s terrific.
Our house has solid block walls so we had to buy two extenders but that’s not a problem.
On one occasion (when we had just one extender) the signal dropped to all wiser trv’s so I rang customer support and the guy was very helpful and we got the issue sorted. Turns out my extender was too far from the hub and was in and out of signal so I just moved it closer to the hub and bought an additional extender. No issues since.
Cannot really fault the system at all.
One thing I would like added to the app (and the customer service agent I spoke to agreed with me) was if the app could tell you the signal quality each TRV is receiving…
It’s 9/10 for me on this!

Simply fantastic
I got this as a Black Friday deal last year, and am incredibly impressed by how this has improved my central heating control. The house has 8 radiators – each of which now has a Drayton Wiser room thermostat (where I bought 6 more in addition to the two that come in this package) – with the room thermostat in the lounge.

I’ve noticed that the temperature in each room is a lot more stable than before – and the boiler fires up a lot less too – which should hopefully save me quite a lot on my gas bill! And the house has been lovely and warm during the recent cold snap, where the outside temperatures have averaged around -5C for a week or so.

Best of all, there is an integration available for Home Assistant – this is an open-source home automation system that I run on a Raspberry Pi 4. So I can control all my Wiser thermostats from within Home Assistant – as well as keeping track of signal strength and battery levels for each thermostat – and graphing the temperature in each room over time in Grafana.

So, to summarise, an excellent system, and fantastic value for money to boot!

Great solution - but limited unless you make further investment in radiator valves.
I bought this on a Black Friday whim when it was a crazily low price, and that’s a big reason for my score. It’s easy to forget once you’ve installed it, which is great in that it hasn’t caused us any problems – but, I question just how useful it really is compared with a modern wireless thermostat like the one it replaced unless you fully invest in smart radiator valves too.

If you have an existing standard control panel backplate, installation is incredibly simple – one of the key reasons to buy this over something like Nest which would’ve involved very complicated wiring changes, particularly in a multi zone house like mine.

The ability to ask Google Home to warm up a zone is great – though again I wonder whether this just encourages laziness when I could get off the sofa and press a button instead.

Super simple to activate away mode, even if you forget before you leave home, easily switching off the heating until you return and saving energy costs. Doing this via the app remotely is great (and easier than having to go into the boiler cupboard) but it lacks a calendar function to set when it should come back on (e.g. a few hours before returning home), which my old thermostat did have.

The mysterious eco mode is also apparently saving many hours of energy use according to the app, but I have absolutely no idea how it’s determining when / how to do this, so some simpler info in the app would be great. Time will tell whether this is really reducing energy costs.

The app itself isn’t the prettiest, and there are times it feels unintuitive – but it generally gets the job done. There’s a novelty element to it to start with, but after a few months I now tend to just use the thermostat controls, or Google Assistant.

But the key thing I’ve realised is that, dependant on property layout, the truly smart solution would be to warm up the house room by room – and in my case this would mean spending quadruple the price on radiator valves too. This is a cost I simply couldn’t justify based on convenience alone, and I doubt the energy savings would be significant enough to warrant the extra investment either.

In summary, a good purchase if you can find it at the right price, but be well aware of its limitations and whether it’s worth it compared with what you already have.

More Stable / Comfortable House Temperatures. Happy.
Very happy with this, but I’m not using it with the radiator valves, so that’s probably why. Replaced a basic programmable timer and Sunvic radio-based thermostat controller – and that change has been great. A thermostat that can now be anywhere in the house instead of needing to be close to the boiler, fine-grained temperature controls and a level of intelligence in ECO mode, multiple temperature settings per day (instead of one) and convenient app control have meant that we now have much more stable and comfortable temperatures in the house. I tend to use the app more to change the temperature than the thermostat unit, and the app graphs are a nice touch. Would recommend as a controller upgrade without the radiator valves. Problem free, haven’t needed any tech support.

Tentative recommendation - while it's working it's grea
Bought the two sets of the multizone (heating+water) controls on the recommendation of my plumber, so two room thermostats and 4 TRVs, plus a spare Hub. Written after 4 months of use though winter:

Pros:
– Easy enough to install and add new components.
– The Wifi range of the Hub is weak, but adequate in a thick-walled brick house as long as the hub is central, otherwise you’ll likely need some range extenders.
– The app works well whilst on WiFi and still seems to be getting improved. The boost function is great, adding a couple of degrees heating to a room.
– The app heating reports are very useful in seeing which parts of the house need more attention with regards to draughtproofing or insulation, or simply more heating
– Hot water schedule has been great, and very easy to give it a quick boost if needed.
– It occasionally fully opens and closes the TRVs around the house so they don’t get stuck through lack of use. The TRV motion is audible, but not overly loud.
– The granular control over the heating times and zones has halved my gas bill, recouping the cost of the system in just 2-3 months.

Cons:
– Rooms occasionally heat up or cool down randomly, rather than following their set schedule. Drayton Wiser support offered no explanation so my solution to this was to add more identical time points throughout the day, so they check every couple of hours and hopefully reset themselves accordingly. Seems to work.
– One of the TRVs has failed already, locked in the open position so an unused room was being heated towards 30 degrees – only noticed as the gas smart meter buzzed a budget alarm. Drayton Wiser support tells me this is not their problem, so doesn’t come under any sort of warranty. Thankfully Amazon exchanged it without question.
– Connecting to the hub remotely whilst out and about is very slow. Support tells me this is my phones fault and the home wifi networks fault despite all the other smart devices in the home being absolutely fine remotely.
– Support is patient with simple queries but do ignore any support tickets they don’t want to answer.
– The Alexa integration is a bit hit and miss. Asking for current temperature or extra heat works perfectly, using a simple routine to turn the heat off in a single room inexplicably sets the whole house to boost mode.

Suggestions:
– Set up a dedicated 2.4GHz SSID for your heating. Should be possible in your router settings.
– Let the hub update automatically to the latest firmware. There’s nowhere online that will tell you what that might be or what the changes are, and if it fails (due to network congestion or whatever) it gives up so it’s worth checking with support that it’s reached the latest version. They can also remotely restart the upgrade process if necessary.
– The warranty with Drayton appears worthless as they won’t accept that parts might fail. Buy it from a retailer that has a decent returns policy.

Despite all that I do like the control aspect and it is saving a lot of money, but do wonder if I might have had a better overall experience with another manufacturer.

Insights - the hidden genius behind Wise
After four nights of broken sleep recently, I decided to investigate the Insights Heat Reports.
I’ve looked at these before, and dismissed them as just fancy graphs to make the system look all techy… how wrong I was!
With four radiator stats, and the weather turning colder over Christmas, I realised the temperature in the livingroom was dropping below the 16 set point at around 4am every morning and causing the boiler to fire, raising the temperature in the bedroom and disturbing my sleep.
Set point reduced. Restful sleep resumed

Great smart radiator thermostat for Wiser System
Having already set up the Drayton Wiser Smart boiler control hub with just the thermometer I was interested to see how well the thermostats worked.

Initially I had issues in fitting to existing old TRVs which necessitated buying separate 3rd party adaptors. But after that it was literally a 2 min job per radiator to register and set up the valve. Very simple and easy with clear instructions and guidance through the mobile app.

I can also recommend these based on the excellent tech support service which Drayton provide that answered a phone query regarding the hub immediately without being placed in a long queue.

The system allows for each thermostat to be controlled with separate daily schedules which means that each room can be tailored to our needs, and avoid wasting energy. They are also quiet, and unobtrusive.

I haven’t had them long enough to review battery usage though

Flexible Control
After my previous heating controller started giving problems time came to replace it. How things have changed since my last upgrade from mechanical controllers to a digital controller to now where I can operate my heating from my smart phone and Alexa. I chose the Drayton Wiser because it was the best fit with my heating system, 2 heating zones and hot water, all I had to do was remove the old controller change the wiring around a bit and install the heating hub and fit 2 wireless room thermostats one in each zone. I remember I did find it difficult to get the heating hub to connect to the wireless router but that was most likely me rather than the hub but I eventually got it sorted. I am very happy with the system and I have added 8 radiator thermostatic valves to the rooms we spend time in. What I am able to do with this system is to set a threshold of 18 deg centigrade for all the room and radiator thermostats and the heating will start up if the temperature drops below this threshold, you can adjust this up or down as you choose, now the house is at a constant temperature, so much better. The system has open window detection to save heating a room and loosing all the heat out the open window and you can let the system know when you are not at home so it is not heating the home when no ones home wasting oil/gas. From the basic system I had before to now has been a great improvement, there are other systems available from other suppliers but this one was the best fit for my needs and installation was easy if you have the confidence to tackle it yourself, if not professional installation would be advised.

This thermostat makes the entire system so much better, even not being that good
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.

Mostly straighforward installation.
This would have been a very straightforward installation had not the electrician who installed our original CH controller made such a dog’s dinner of it. I carefully read the installation instructions and determined that it was going to be easy. However… firstly, my original model controller did not have a compatible back plate which I knew before I started. Secondly, what I did not expect was that it had been installed by someone with a penchant for connecting a wire (or two) to every single one of the nine terminals. Some led to a dead end at a junction box next to the boiler in another room, others simply doubled back on themselves and were connected back at the same terminal. The good news was I found a local electrician who came out, scratched his head, took some photos (which are probably on some electricians blog somewhere) and stripped out all the extraneous leads. After that the installation was a doddle.

The controller found my internet first time and set up was really easy. As the room thermostat was some distance from the heat hub with several thick brick walls between, I knew I would need a Smart Plug to facilitate a decent signal path. Finding the best location for the plug was ‘interesting’ due to the nature of the building layout, but here Drayton Wiser support proved to be excellent. As I tried various locations for the plug they were able to see the strength of the connection being made and their advice, patiently delivered, was invaluable. A few weeks later when I had a query, a call to their support was answered promptly and professionally.

The Wiser system has now been running flawlessly for several months and the control from the hub, thermostat or app has been very straightforward. Setting schedules is easy, and the variable boost function has proved far more useful than I imagined.

Downsides? As I spend hours each day at my computer it would be good if there was a web-based app to control the system rather than my iPad or phone and given that customer support could see the signal strength between the heat hub and thermostat it would be useful if this facility could be extended to users. Maybe a future enhancement.?

In summary, I’m really pleased with the unit. The thermostat is small and neat (and mobile), the app such a doddle to use that my technophobic wife (who never managed our previous ‘old-school’ controller) is very confident to use and the customer support has been exemplary.

Mostly straighforward installation.
This would have been a very straightforward installation had not the electrician who installed our original CH controller made such a dog’s dinner of it. I carefully read the installation instructions and determined that it was going to be easy. However… firstly, my original model controller did not have a compatible back plate which I knew before I started. Secondly, what I did not expect was that it had been installed by someone with a penchant for connecting a wire (or two) to every single one of the nine terminals. Some led to a dead end at a junction box next to the boiler in another room, others simply doubled back on themselves and were connected back at the same terminal. The good news was I found a local electrician who came out, scratched his head, took some photos (which are probably on some electricians blog somewhere) and stripped out all the extraneous leads. After that the installation was a doddle.

The controller found my internet first time and set up was really easy. As the room thermostat was some distance from the heat hub with several thick brick walls between, I knew I would need a Smart Plug to facilitate a decent signal path. Finding the best location for the plug was ‘interesting’ due to the nature of the building layout, but here Drayton Wiser support proved to be excellent. As I tried various locations for the plug they were able to see the strength of the connection being made and their advice, patiently delivered, was invaluable. A few weeks later when I had a query, a call to their support was answered promptly and professionally.

The Wiser system has now been running flawlessly for several months and the control from the hub, thermostat or app has been very straightforward. Setting schedules is easy, and the variable boost function has proved far more useful than I imagined.

Downsides? As I spend hours each day at my computer it would be good if there was a web-based app to control the system rather than my iPad or phone and given that customer support could see the signal strength between the heat hub and thermostat it would be useful if this facility could be extended to users. Maybe a future enhancement.?

In summary, I’m really pleased with the unit. The thermostat is small and neat (and mobile), the app such a doddle to use that my technophobic wife (who never managed our previous ‘old-school’ controller) is very confident to use and the customer support has been exemplary.

Wish I'd Got This Soone
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).

Need to know this
This is a good internet thermostat and the support was v good from Drayton. Unfortunately it doesn’t work with my Huawei B535 4g modem. The system works by pairing the hub to an account run on Drayton servers via your WiFi/Internet set up. Your mobile phone must also be connected to the same WiFi network. The system uses the 2.4g WiFi band so you will need to have separate 5g and 2.4g networks – usually a simple modem setting if not on by default. The support engineers explained this and emailed me some info for my Huawei modem on using channels 1, 6 or 11 rather than auto. Sadly this didn’t work so I have lost the ability to use the app to control the system. Not too critical for us as this is installed in a Static Caravan and not in constant use. We can however still use the desk thermostat which comes with the system.