And figuring out the temperatures that different rooms needed to be at to feel comfortable was something of an issue for the first few days. It’s definitely a more labor-intensive process to figure out the heating requirements of each room and the schedules, and we didn’t get it right for the first few days, leading to some cold evenings and hot nights. The Honeywell Evohome is an interesting device. In so many ways it’s been left behind by its recent competitors, but it’s still the best we’ve seen in terms of simple, effective zonal control. My final plea (before I have to return this whole system) - has anyone solved this problem? Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how to silence the noise from the HR92? Any ideas would be gratefully received. Each radiator valve is also capable of Window Detection (configurable through the clunky on-device menu that you’ll want to use the manual to decipher), turning heating off to a radiator when you open a window or door. The option – called Win Type in the menus – is turned on by default, but you can configure how long it takes to trigger, and even the temperature fall rate to turn it on. To be honest, you’re better off leaving the defaults alone. In contrast to the hardware, the app is beautifully designed. It’s very clearly laid out, with color coding for temperatures allowing you to identify at a glance the temperature for each room of your house. Performance

At its most basic, Honeywell Evohome requires the Wi-Fi controller and the boiler relay. Depending on your boiler, you’ll either need the kit with the standard on/off relay, or the OpenTherm Bridge, which provides modulating heating control. The latter is the best option if your boiler supports it, since you’ll increase your energy savings as a result (see, What is OpenTherm?). Although each HR92UK can measure the temperature in any particular room, you can in fact use compatible wireless room thermostats to take the temperature instead. This may be required if your radiator sits behind furniture, since this can throw off the HR92UK’s temperature sensor. Another thing worth mentioning is that the thermometers aren’t entirely accurate. Depending on the size of the room you may get different actual temperature for the same temperature reading. This isn’t a massive problem, it just means you have to take each temperature measurement with a pinch of salt and adjust each room accordingly. We liked The only one I find a bit noisy in actual use in our house is the one in the hallway which is probably due to the empty, hard reflective surfaces in the room and it does tend to be heard quite loudly when operating. So if the bedrooms are un-carpeted or bare I could see them being a bit noisier than in a room that is carpeted and has plenty of soft materials around the room causing sound deadening.

must have ‘time and temperature controls’ namely a programmable room thermostat or a thermostat with separate programmer. You can still opt to install an advanced control. Existing boiler installations: You mention that there are other noisier auto-TRVs out there. I'm sure that's the case but it would appear that at least one of these can be silenced using grease - see these before and after videos: One of the major draws of Evohome is that it can control not only radiators, but, with additional kit, hot water and underfloor heating. Our installer found it hilarious that our flat was so small we only needed to have three radiators hooked up – the Evohome is designed for big houses with complex heating and hot water systems.

It’s not that the design is unpleasant; it’s just clearly been designed to be functional rather than fashionable. It does mean that it’ll probably be able to fit in with a wide range of interior design styles, but for our taste the range could do with a bit of an image upgrade. Custom mode lets you control what happens. For example, I had it as a Guest mode, which turned the heating on in the spare bedroom and bathroom for when guests came round. The Evohome also doesn’t offer the more advanced features that we’re a fan of in other smart thermostats, like motion sensor-activated routines, geolocation-activated routines (turning your heating on if it registers, via your phone, that you’re on your way home), or learning routines and self-adjusting based on your routine to optimize your heating. Radiator valves are the primary way of controlling your heating in one room, but this system also supports underfloor heating, giving you full control over your home. Installation of the Evohome system is a little more involved than with some other smart thermostats available due to the fact that each radiator in your house needs to be fitted with an individual thermostat.By not having to heat the entire house, Evohome will save you more money on heating bills than other systems; however, the initial outlay means that the system will also take longer to pay for itself. What are smart radiator valves? Can they work with your current heating controls? How much are smart TRVs? They mention gearing - if they seriously wanted to fix this issue they would use a far more favourable gearing ratio. This would mean it would take longer to open and close the valves but that wouldn't matter at all and the stress on the motor and the gearbox would be far less. Even if it took 1 minute to open or close the valves, this would have no major bearing on the performance of the system. Your first job is to set a schedule for each zone. A setup wizard helps you, but we found it easier to take each room and control it separately. For example, you may want your bathroom to heat up early so it’s warm when you get up; you can fire up the kitchen a little later, so it’s warm when you get downstairs. If you use the boiler manufacturer's own smart TRVs you only have to deal with one manufacturer for all your heating system products

Schedules can conveniently be copied between zones and days, so you don’t have to program every single change. We found that it took us a few weeks to get our schedules right, but we ended up only heating zones as we needed them. Once your rooms are configured, you have to set up schedules. Each room can have a different schedule: you can have your bedroom, bathroom and kitchen warm up first thing in the morning, for example, with the living room coming on later in the day. We found the TRVs a little loud, and you can hear a small mechanical whine as they turn on. It took us a few weeks to get used to this in the bedroom, but we could sleep through the noise in the end.

Smart temperature control 

This was something of a revelation when we got it to work. The apartment we were testing the Evohome in is one of those properties where every room is a different temperature, and what this means is that we always heat to the right level for the living room, but then go through to a cold bedroom. Not so with the Evohome – it was the first time since we moved in that the bedroom had been warmer than the living room. I am really happy and really disappointed in equal measure with Honeywell Evohome. A few weeks ago I installed 10 x HR92 units throughout the house. Two of the radiator valves required adapters and all went fine. On the flip side is Cold Weather Boost, which can apply a boost to the rooms that you select when it’s cold outside. Typically, cold weather can cause drafts that make a room feel cold. Rather than having to keep turning up the temperature, Cold Weather Boost lets you set the temperature boost you want to apply automatically. The default setting is 1.5-degrees, but you can override this with your settings. You can also choose the zones that you want the boost to apply to. In my house, I have the boost on the rooms that I know are colder generally, but leave it off on the new kitchen, which has much better insulation. Some manufacturers have produced a wireless TRV that can be controlled and adjusted from a smart phone, however unlike smart TRVs they do not communicate with the thermostat to bring the boiler on and off. The thermostat will have to be on anyway and the only real benefit is that you do not have to physically adjust the TRVs, they can be done from your phone. The products below are only wireless TRVs. The Tado TRVs can work in the same way. Smart TRVs