Anyone thinking of Hive from British Gas?

[2SkodaFamily]

My inner geek finds this appealing, but I do worry about a company with the track record of BG having my heating controls connected to the internet......

[Macdemon]

You can get Hive even if you're not with BG.

 

I've thought of it, but how often have I wanted to control my heating away from the home in the past...........ummm none.

 

Nice idea, but not worth the expense IMHO.

 

Sorry about throwing cold water over your idea.  :(

[2SkodaFamily]

 

Sorry about throwing cold water over your idea.  :(

Not at all....as I said its only my geekness that finds it appealing. I think I came to the same conclusion as you tbh

[Macdemon]

Makes me feel a whole lot happier now, thanks.     :sun:

[blueR36]

You could turn the heating down whilst you are in the pub ! Instead of control of the tv remote it will be whose phone is connected !

[GentleGiant]

It's BG, if they dont burn down your house with it, they will probably burn down your neighbours!!!

 

After all, they cant even manage reading a new meter correctly; apparently, their computers wont accept ZERO as a meter reading, which is strange, because the meter reader had no problem rounding up 999999.9 to 000000.0 and landing me with a £0.32 bill (unpaid and re-billed every quarter since 2003/4).

[cheezemonkhai]

This might be an interesting read for people considering the hive and other such tech:

 

http://www.onzo.com/

[Aspman]

Dear Customer,

 

Sorry your gas bill was £1,000,002.59 unfortunately your Hive application must have been hacked.

Customers are responsible for securing their own computers and Centrica take no responsibility for having made the connection back to your boiler more open than a French Hooker's knickers.

 

Your bill is now overdue...

 

We now take payments viw Paypal and Contactless Credit Card for your convenience.

Edited 21 January, 2014 by Aspman

[2SkodaFamily]

Dear Customer,

 

Sorry your gas bill was £1,000,002.59 unfortunately your Hive application must have been hacked.

Customers are responsible for securing their own computers and Centrica take no responsibility for having made the connection back to your boiler more open than a French Hooker's knickers.

 

Your bill is now overdue...

 

We now take payments viw Paypal and Contactless Credit Card for your convenience.

Yes, that's EXACTLY what I'm concerned about.

 

That and the system leaving me with no heating or hot water at all.....

[ColinD]

It's a good idea and lets face it, possibly the future now google have invested in similar systems, or people.

 

Related though:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/21/fridge-spam-security-phishing-campaign

 

'Open' devices will be coming and will improve our lives in one way or another. We need these 'new' ideas to be pushed, adopted and broken/exploited to take the next steps.

 

If it was smart so it would know from my smartphone when I was on my way home that would be great, turn the heating on... plausible from gps and known location point data. Similar thing a while back on fridges, except it was bins. You scanned as you binned, automatically building a new shopping list /replacement orders... all clever stuff for the right people (elderly, infirm disabled), or could of been if it was not laden with mumbojumbo geek speak and £££. 

[curleybar]

I was at probably the very first meeting when this type of kit was mooted for use with gas appliances...

 

To clarify, I am no IT guru; but held a vital clipboard holding position !

 

The sales pitch was....

 

" Imagine flying back from your hols in sunny locales...you get off the plane , its really cold so.... hey presto I can turn on my boiler from here....!"

 

We all guffawed loudly and moved on to the next agenda item.

 

How times have changed in a few years..!

[DGW]

A friend of mine took a photo of me recently while I was walking past his bungalow and looking at it. He was on holiday in Australia at the time and was monitoring his home security system remotely.

[allan1888]

I'm getting this one installed in a week or two. I know a few people that have it and really like it but will wait and see for myself. http://www.tado.com/de-en/tech

[Macdemon]

OOOOO, that looks better than Hive.

 

Let us know how you get on with it.

 

Kitten and I are replacing our central heating controller this year because our old heating & hot water controller was 'old hat' when our heating engineer started in the business 30 years ago.  

 

I want to go 'modern and wireless' but Kitten can't be bothered.

 

As I'll be footing the cost, I will make sure I get what I want teehee

[allan1888]

Will do. From the people I know that have it they all like it, it learns your routine and how long it takes your house to get up to your set temperature and also checks the weather so that if it's gonna be a cold one it will put the heating on earlier so your house is at correct temp for when you wake up or get home.

[GentleGiant]

Anyone know when the letters were sent out to BG customers warning them of changes to the tarrif system??

 

I have just received a bill for umpteen odd pounds marked as "Standing Charge" that I have never seen before; since my total gas bill for the last 10+ years is £0.00 I am more than a bit miffed and thinking about refusing to pay.

 

BTW, anyone know of a supplier that is still standing charge free??

[@Lee]

Anyone know when the letters were sent out to BG customers warning them of changes to the tarrif system??

 

I have just received a bill for umpteen odd pounds marked as "Standing Charge" that I have never seen before; since my total gas bill for the last 10+ years is £0.00 I am more than a bit miffed and thinking about refusing to pay.

 

BTW, anyone know of a supplier that is still standing charge free??

as much as it pains me to help you, try Ebico. The UK's only not for profit supplier and no standing charges.

[Welsh_kai_boy]

Anyone know when the letters were sent out to BG customers warning them of changes to the tarrif system??

 

I have just received a bill for umpteen odd pounds marked as "Standing Charge" that I have never seen before; since my total gas bill for the last 10+ years is £0.00 I am more than a bit miffed and thinking about refusing to pay.

 

BTW, anyone know of a supplier that is still standing charge free??

I had this discussion just last week with my brother in law about SWALEC, it would appear now that "standing charge" has to be a separately charged item and not amortised inside the per unit charge. Similar issue, empty house, gas off (meter reading still the same) but still got a bill. He took it up with SWALEC and he was told the direction came from OFGEN (or whoever the regulator is).

[mannyo]

There was a whole article about it on the TV the other night. They showed a housewife who only has a gas cooker in her property, as a result of the change to standing  charge, her bill has gone up more than 100%. She is not happy of course, and I guess will move supplier to one that does not have a standing charge.

[GentleGiant]

I dont usually look at Lee's posts, but in this case I did, so thank you Lee, I switched this evening and will email a protest to BG tomorrow. Blaming OFGEM for forcing a daily standing charge is fine, but THEY are still liable to give fair notice to their customers before it starts.

 

And if OFGEM forced it, how come several other companies arent charging it??

[sparks03]

I purposely wouldn't entertain the idea due to their annoyingly idiotic advert. 

[Quinten]

If you just want to access your heating system remotely, I can really recommend the Heatmiser range of products. I've got two PRT-TS Wifi models installed and can turn on/off heating wherever I am.

[Neo_VR]

I dont usually look at Lee's posts, but in this case I did, so thank you Lee, I switched this evening and will email a protest to BG tomorrow. Blaming OFGEM for forcing a daily standing charge is fine, but THEY are still liable to give fair notice to their customers before it starts.

 

And if OFGEM forced it, how come several other companies arent charging it??

 

Because im not sure some of the smaller companies (Daligas) are fully OFGEM registered.

I agree it is all a PITA - Ofgems attempt at "simplifying" things also means the end of other fringe discounts like dualfuel discount and directdebit discounts are gone. So in reality, they have just made the savvy consumers worse off..

 

Also its funny how many people/installers miss the point entirely with these modern condensing boilers and how they need to be set up to get anywhere near the stated efficiency.

 

I did look into the hive and associated controls for my new boiler, but discovered that only the boiler manufacturers controls can modulate boiler output to help with efficency, hence i went for the Vaillant weather compensation system instead. 

[Macdemon]

Because im not sure some of the smaller companies (Daligas) are fully OFGEM registered.

I agree it is all a PITA - Ofgems attempt at "simplifying" things also means the end of other fringe discounts like dualfuel discount and directdebit discounts are gone. So in reality, they have just made the savvy consumers worse off..

 

Also its funny how many people/installers miss the point entirely with these modern condensing boilers and how they need to be set up to get anywhere near the stated efficiency.

 

I did look into the hive and associated controls for my new boiler, but discovered that only the boiler manufacturers controls can modulate boiler output to help with efficency, hence i went for the Vaillant weather compensation system instead. 

 

 

The loss of DD discount and dual fuel discount are all part of the proposals set out by OFGEM, and these changes are 'customer driven'.

 

Basically, energy companies are no longer allowed more than 4 tariff excluding standard tariffs, as well as other having to apply other 'regulatory requirements' it's up to the individual companies how they 'apply' these changes.

 

Although a DD discount is no longer offered by my chosen energy company, they are now offering 'discounted' unit rates which equate to approximately the same level as the old DD discount of 6%.  There are differing prices in different distribution area as there are different costings involved in the generation, storage, management and transportation of the energy, so some customers will be slightly worse off while others will be slightly better off.

 

The 'average' across the UK however is the same 6% discount that you received before these changes were implemented.

 

It's all part of OFGEMs RMR, or Retail Market Review to simplify the energy industry and also to build new trust & transparency between the customer and the energy companies. 

 

Much more & better detailed information on OFGEM's Retail Market Review can be found HERE.

 

I hope this helps

[Thecko]

Hive doesn't interest me, it's not even technically all that innovative, it's still a single room thermostat, with a single receiver to tell your boiler to turn on/off. All Hive is is a very basic system but with the ability to change the room thermostat's settings via the internet.

 

The inner engineer in me says "nice idea I suppose if you're not on a regular schedule, wait, £200? lol".

 

If the marketing people get their wish and the whole "internet of things" craze properly takes off, we're in for a wild ride of "my fridge/washer/oven/tumble dryer got hacked! omg!" stories. I'm not connecting any of my domestic appliances to the internet, and I've spent my entire professional life working on making good use of the internet.