Heatmiser Neo 4+

Bought a WiFi thermostat to add to my multi-zone system. This disappointingly needs a new location, as if it’s a new home! The features of the app are great and can’t be duplicated in Apple Home, so to have your devices split across “Homes” makes it hard to understand their thinking. On the positive side, it could not be easier to add it to Apple Home. I’m happy with the reliability recently, really good considering the early days…An upgrade to an Apple iOS would often degrade Homekit integration, it doesn’t now. Some things have not improved, I want to set up users and give them permissions to change temperatures on zones I select. The history graph is so useful as you can see how quickly your zone heats up and set your optimum preheat time accordingly. The app has certainly improved, it looks cleaner and is easier to use. Overall, I would recommend it to anyone who needs a multi-zone system. A feature request would be to have a self-tune function where it sets up the preheat time and the night set back temperature by looking at history. I can do this myself, but it has taken a year of occasional tweaking, as I have a mix of underfloor, plinth heaters and radiators, all with very different response times.

There is quite a lot of work needed to improve this system. I am a big fan, but the reset process for the Neo stats is cumbersome and the interface needs a lot of work. Unfortunately heat miser seem to have stopped supporting the online version of the software and setting it up on the phone takes a lot longer because you haven't got a mouse and a keyboard I would strongly urge them to get back with the online version, and it would be helpful if all of the information about the thermostats could be stored in the online cloud login so that if they fail, you can just download the information to new thermostats. I've just spent about three hours programming four of these because the system went off-line and the Neo hub can be a bit temperamental. Another two thermostats failed when there was a power failure and I then discovered they have batteries in them which need changing every now and again as well. There's quite a lot of time overhead to keep your heating system working over the years and personally I would've done away with the batteries within the units because if there's a power failure you've got no heating anyway, and if the information was stored in the cloud and was able to be downloaded back to the units when they came back online that would be enough. Getting rid of the batteries means you don't have to unscrew the unit every few years. Putting the information in the cloud makes life much easier.

I have been using Neos since they came out, first with the v1 hub and now with the v2 hardware and, once setup, the system runs with no problems controlling a 3 zone heating system and a bunch of neo plugs for lighting.

I use recipes so can turn on or off the whole heating and then separately the loft, for example, and I find them useful. Once set I generally don’t change things much, albeit the temperature profiles I do amend between summer and winter as the levels need to be altered. The one issue I do have is that I strongly feel Recipes should also be capoable of being stored at hub level as getting them out to multiple devices is a right pain if they have to be setup from scratch.

I also just had my first hardware failure. The back plate for a V1 thermostat stopped swicthing. I have replaced it with a v2 device (nice lights) and that too was a pain. In linking up the new thermostat the system lost all the others and I had to start the whole process from the beginning, thermostat by thermostat, plug by plug, profile by profile and recipe by recipe. Not fun.

I would reiterate though that day by day for 5 years it has been really good and has just worked. Remote access has been useful too. JUst some setup and main issues that I wuod like to see changed for the better.