Drayton Wiser Smart Thermostat Heating Control Heating Only - Works with Amazon Alexa, Google Home and IFTTT

After 13 years we have a thermostat controlled oil heating system thanks to Drayton. Having previously owned houses that were built with thermostats wired in, I had forgotten how effective these can be. Leap-frogging over the lack of wiring has been accomplished using this smart Wi-Fi device setup. So, you need the controller on the wall that replaces whatever timer device you have been using. This links via your Wi-Fi router to your thermostat which sits in your room. The water pump can now continue to pump water that circulates but the boiler fire 🔥 system only uses oil at the rate it needs to maintain the temperature you set using your thermostat. This temperature control can be modulated via the Wiser app on your iPhone or Android device or Amazon Alexa. More than one person can have the app on your phone controlling the boiler over the internet via your Wi-Fi router. If the internet fails, your heating will not because the Wiser system simply uses your router whether or not it is connected to the internet. Our internet failed across the country (Ireland) after I installed the device but our system heating kept going and was connecting perfectly throughout the 4 hour outage. I had read where another user had praised Drayton for this ability to directly connect to the controller. Of course you still have an override button on the wall controller. So, finally you will need a 2.4ghz router to make this work. If you have a modern 5ghz (5G) router you will need a bit of help in the form of a bolt on additional 2.4ghz router. This is simple to set up and will enable all Alexa devices to work such as smart sockets or bulbs. I highly recommend the ASUS router which sends out both 2.4 and 5ghz signals and allows VPN to be added as Smartvpn —Amazon sells this! Anyway we love our Drayton system- our boiler central heating is oil fired and single circuit. The heated water always travels around the water immersion heater and around the radiators. Dual circuit systems have separate control for water heating-simples!-enjoy!

Replaced the wireless (not internet enabled) thermostat that came with my boiler with this system. I was lucky enough that that my switch over from old to new was straighforward, requiring only 4 wires at the side of the boiler to be wired into the Drayton Wiser Hub. Once this was done, connecting to the new system and setting up the phone app took a matter of minutes. I was also able to get it to work with Alexa very quickly and easily. Now that it's set up I can turn on, or adjust my heating from anywhere with an internet connection/mobile phone signal - not just in the house. Alexa can tell you how warm it is, and you can raise or lower the temperature with Alexa too. There are some smart features on the app, you have a weekly planner for how you want the heating to react, but you can also set it to eco mode where it adjusts itself automatically - I haven't tried this yet. So far, I only have one thermostat and the hub. I plan to get the Wiser smart thermostatic radiator valves so that I can control all radiators in the house from my phone too, as this will obviously incur savings on my heating bill if radiators not needed can be scheduled to be off and automatically come on at certain times of the day. Overall very pleased. I also had to contact support as I couldn't work out how to change the wifi (I have more than one wifi signal in my house and wanted to change the hub to a different one) - they responded within the day and were spot-on with their reply, and I was able to resolve my problem. Many thanks to Wiser Support! ;-)

I bought this product around two years ago so I am sufficiently familiar with its various functions now. There are a number of issues with it. In the first place it can be very difficult to open the app to see your actual system, for example to switch on or switch off. During 2022 this worked better, but there may have been some software updates this year and it now does not work well. It can take three to four times to close and try to reopen the app before you can access your controls. This is the opposite to convenient and is very slow. We are also having an ongoing issue with the heating randomly turning on at strange times, sometimes in the middle of the night so that we find the house overheated the following morning. I am not sure if I have got to the bottom of this yet, but it seems possible that this relates in some way to the eco setting, in so far as this setting gives you what it believes to be a good economic setting for your heating all day. I have deleted all schedules from the system, yet it still creates new schedules and switches on when it believes it is a good time. It looks like the eco setting overrides your desire to have it left off. One other limitation of the design is that there is no on off switch on the main wall unit controlling your heating, and there is also no on off switch on the app, only a slider to increase or reduce the temperature, and if you want it of you have to slide it all the way down to 0. Very bizarre that a heating control app cannot just be switched on or off. If there are further software changes which improve the working of this system, I will of course put an updated review, but for now I would not recommend this product for either convenience or energy saving as it is currently inconvenient and has cost us unnecessary wasted energy.

The wiring from the boiler to the hub is simple, live, neutral and two switching wires, I actually just wired the hub to a plug (the switching wires can wait until you install it for real) to set up while sitting comfortably in my living room. Here are some pitfalls you may experience; • The ‘setup’ light flashes green/amber, turn off/on and just tap the ‘setup’ button • Inability to pair your phone to the hub, ensure the phones data is off during this procedure • Ensure your router Wi-Fi channel is set to 1 or 11, to insure stability of connection When our boiler was fitted, we were given a basic, very basic remote which allowed only hours to be set, as a result I often extended it to constant and some nights forgot the put it back to timed, on all night. The other annoyance with that remote stat was its temperature ‘sampling rate’, this left the heating on till I was sweating and off when the sweat started to freeze (hyperbole) but really not good. To replace said stat was over £200, this cost me under a hundred on Black Friday Deals. The sample rate is excellent giving an even temperature by switching the boiler off/on more frequently. Be aware however that as this being battery powered, transmits the signal at a set rate. This means that although you change the setting, either stat or phone, it may not react immediately but it will soon. The apps default setting will not be to everyone’s taste but are so easily changed, see screenshot. A lot of controllers have a ‘boost’ button which does nothing but override for a predetermined or settable period of time, here however, boost means exactly that, by 2% over the current temperature for 30 minutes to 3 hours. I can’t help myself rambling on about this setup because I have lived with that horrible stat for some time so if you want ‘simple’ with a great Customer Service, I don’t think you can go wrong here.

The device is good and does exactly what it says. We installed two of these at different locations, both times unfortunately we did not have an electrician with appropriate knowledge. It turns out that you can potentially just take off the old controller and drop this right on if it has the stand plate, then turn your thermostat up to full so it shorts the connection, or bridge the wires if you want to remove it. We had to use tech support for the install and they are absolutely brilliant, I wish other companies would take a leave of their book. This is why we bought the second, because we know we could get a person on the other side of the phone or by email that was supportive and understood the product, and we could get them quickly. The only gripe I have is that the app is slow to load up and now and again it can't connect to the device (but that is rare).

I bought this to replace a WiFi thermostat which reset itself after a series of power cuts, resulting in incorrect timings. I considered various alternatives with mains powered hubs and battery powered thermostats, in the hope that I could overcome this problem. It was difficult to find out what would happen after a power cut for all the options considered, including the Wiser system. I took a chance and was not disappointed with the Wiser. After following the comprehensive installation instructions, it was up and running. So far I have been very impressed - the room thermostat is so simple and easy to use. Any temporary adjustments are dropped when the next scheduled event arrives - exactly as I wanted (but not implemented this way in all systems). It is easy to control our combi-boiler either using the room thermostat, the iPhone app, or Alexa. The app allows a lot of flexibility such as controlling individual radiator valves, although I haven't installed any of those yet. It also allows a complex schedule in case anyone needs it. In summary, I like this system a lot. Drayton (Schneider) has manage to balance flexibility with ease of use. It's too early to comment on the reliability, but I have high hopes from past experience with Drayton products.

Good item, purchased as a replacement for previous unit now defective. Purchased "New" item (not one of the cheaper seconds / returns listed) and item turn up in a state. Box was based in, missing instruction manual. Be cautious of buying from this seller. Contacted Aazon who offered a return but declined as item does work but not the condition I paid for, or a complete pacakge with missing manual.

Been using the Wiser for just under 6 months now - it's been a cheap(ish), reliable thermostat so far. Bought as I wanted an opentherm controller for my boiler. This was a fairly cheap option and given the manufacturers provide no indications of how they regulate in opentherm mode, I wanted to try it out without spending too much. The option to add individual radiator control in future was a plus for the Wiser too. Plumber had it installed in no time, only issue was a missing bus connector from my boiler (ATAG) which meant it had to be wired in normally rather than via opentherm to start with. When the wiring was switched the Wiser automatically detected the change and started operating in opentherm mode. Since then performance has been good, perhaps a modest reduction in energy usage by using opentherm and the comfort and eco modes compared to similar usage previously. The only issue has been the connection between the room thermostat and the wiring center which struggles if the stat is placed in the older part of our house. The boiler is in the extension and the signal struggles to pass through the external walls (~10m distance). Will have to try with a range extender in future but for now it's fine with the stat in the extension.