'Bargain' smart radiator valves could 'save a small fortune' on heating bills - Liverpool Echo

As we enter the cold winter months, many of us will be cranking up the heating at the expense of increasing energy bills. But there’s a way to keep warm without paying more than we need to for those looking to keep costs down.

Many Brits already have smart meters and smart thermostats installed at home, but you can take things a step further by investing in a smart thermostatic radiator valve. Our Senior Consumer Tech Review Writer previously Gareth Butterfield tried a selection of the gadgets earlier this year and said they could help ‘save a small fortune’ on energy bills.

Explaining how a smart radiator valve works, Gareth said: “Many homes will have basic thermostatic radiator valves on their radiators already. They’re a little dial you can twist to regulate the amount of hot water that is sent from your boiler to the radiator. If you want it hotter, you turn it up, if you want it colder you turn it down.

READ MORE: Amazon cuts price of 65 inch 4K smart TV by 46% in early Black Friday sale

READ MORE: Amazon shoppers love £11 'magic' answer to cold feet that lasts hours

“Essentially, all a smart radiator thermostat does is automate this process. But it can get a lot cleverer than that. Because of the smart tech built into each valve, they can be set up to respond to routines, schedules, or even changes in household temperature.”

Gareth also said the nifty little devices are ‘a doddle’ to install, writing: “You usually won’t need any tools, and it takes minutes to set them up in an app. You can even control them through Alexa or Google Home. Once you’re up and running, it can take a few days to get the settings how you like them. But you’ll soon have more control over which rooms are warm when you need them, and which rooms can be left cooler until you use them. And that – in theory – is how you save money, by only heating the rooms you want to use.”

Amazon stocks a range of smart radiator valves, including the TP-Link Kasa Smart Thermostat Radiator Valve, which is currently a third off at £29.99, down from £44.99. Gareth sampled this model, which he said was up and running ‘within about 10 minutes’, ready to be calibrated and linked up to the included hub.

He said: “The Kasa app walks you through the process, so you don’t need to be technical and, once it’s all configured and calibrated, it’s a case of letting the app know what temperatures you’d like your room to be and when. The app also sets itself up to some extent, with a smart control system that learns from your routines.”

You can also see daily or monthly reports on the Kasa app to see exactly how often a radiator is used, allowing you to identify times when the heating could have been turned off, or turned up. Gareth continued: “While I found it really handy to have a smart valve in my home office – the room I spend most of my time in – it soon dawned on me it would be more effective to use it in our spare bedroom, which is a room we don’t use that often.

“This means the room could stay cooler until we have guests over – and it’s very easy to set this up, just by creating a more frugal routine. The app will build in a frost protection barrier to ensure it’s never too cold, but effectively we could just leave that room alone and control its temperature manually when we needed it.

“And that’s where the money-saving aspect comes into its own. While all the valves I'm using will respond to changes in the ambient temperature to keep your rooms at your desired temperature constantly, by not filling the spare room radiator every time the heating comes on, I’m using less hot water and therefore less gas.”

Gareth also tried the Aqara Smart Radiator Thermostat E1, which Amazon offers for £40.14 with the voucher on the product page – down from the usual £54.99. This model also requires the Aqara Smart Hub E1, which is sold separately and currently available for £25.19 with Amazon’s 10% off voucher.

At a total of £65.30, the Aqara kit is more than double the price of the Kasa, but Gareth said the build quality makes it ‘feel like it has a slight edge’. He said: “Once up and running, they work in a very similar way to the Kasa valves, with a nicely-designed app and a similar smart scheduling feature.”

He also felt the Aqara app is ‘more configurable’, writing: “There’s more you can do with it, including setting up automations and scenes. I had a play with these but found it easier just to balance the temperatures manually and let the valves do their thing.

“While the features on the app are certainly more diverse, it does make it a little more complicated and it takes longer to get your head around. It is well-designed though, and you can ignore some of the smarter features and just use it in a basic form.”

Aqara also offers several add-ons that work with the radiator valve to make the system even smarter, including the Temperature and Humidity Sensor for £17.99 with Amazon’s 10% voucher. This can be placed anywhere in a room to monitor the temperature and humidity, with the radiator valve responding accordingly to a more accurate temperature.

Despite the higher price point, Gareth said the Aqara system works ‘as well as you’d need it to’, writing: “In my dining room, I have a smart routine set up that ensures the room will never get too cold, but it’s not being heated when we’re not using it. If we’re having a meal, I can either give the valve a twist, tap into the app or just bark an order at my Google smart home devices and the room is warmer.”

If you’re unsure which model to go for, Gareth said it’s ‘a really tough call’ as both kits ‘work extremely well’ and ‘do everything you need them to’.

“The Kasa valves are a little bit more innocuous, they’re slightly cheaper to buy, and I do think they’re easier to set up,” he explained. “However, the Aqara system is the one to go for if you really like to keep a watchful eye on more aspects of your heating.

“Especially with the sensors added on, they do give you more accurate control and feedback, and that can be really useful in a busy household. If you just want to set up the thermostats and forget it, both devices will let you do this, but I’d probably say the Kasa system is the less intrusive, and its app is slightly easier to learn.”

Elsewhere, Debenhams has slashed the price of a range of electric heaters ahead of its Black Friday sale. The Living and Home Digital Ceramic Heater is now £110.19 off at £45.69, while the Living and Home 40” Wall Mount Electric Fireplace is now £220.01 of at £169.99.