Smart radiator valves — also called smart TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves) — are one of the most practical smart heating upgrades you can make to a UK home. Unlike replacing your entire heating system, you simply swap out the existing TRV head on each radiator and gain individual room-by-room temperature control, scheduled heating zones, and often significant savings on your gas bill. In 2026, the best smart TRV systems for the UK market have matured considerably, with better apps, longer battery life, and improved compatibility with the wider smart home ecosystem.
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A traditional TRV is the numbered dial you’ll find on most UK radiators — turn it to 3 and the radiator heats the room until it reaches a set temperature, then closes. It works, but it’s entirely manual. A smart TRV replaces that dial with a motorised head controlled via an app and/or your voice assistant. It reports the actual room temperature, lets you set schedules per room, and can automatically reduce heat when a window is opened or when you’re not home.
The key benefit for UK homes is zone heating without rewiring. With a conventional boiler setup, your programmer controls when the whole heating system runs. Adding smart TRVs to individual radiators means you can have the bedroom warm at 7am without heating the whole house, or turn off the heating in rarely used rooms entirely. According to Which?, well-implemented smart heating can save households up to £130 per year depending on home size and usage habits — though the actual saving depends heavily on your current habits.
It’s also worth noting that smart TRVs work differently with heat pumps than with gas boilers. If you have or are considering a heat pump, heatpumpblog.co.uk has a detailed guide on smart heating controls for heat pump systems — the short version is that heat pumps prefer lower, steadier temperatures rather than on/off zone heating, so TRV strategy needs some adjustment.
Price: ~£79 per TRV (starter kit with Internet Bridge ~£129); additional TRVs ~£69 each
Tado is the most polished smart TRV system available in the UK and has been for several years. The V3+ hardware is compact, the app is excellent, and the feature set is genuinely impressive. Geofencing is the standout capability: Tado tracks your phone’s location and automatically starts heating your home as you approach, then turns everything down when the last person leaves. In a UK household where people leave and return at unpredictable times, this is genuinely useful rather than just a tech novelty.
Hub requirement: Yes — the Tado Internet Bridge (included in the starter kit) connects to your router via ethernet. Each TRV connects to the bridge wirelessly. This is the main friction point: you need one Bridge per home, and it must be ethernet-connected. The Bridge retails separately at around £49 if you need to buy one after the fact.
Battery life: Approximately 12–18 months on 2× AA batteries per valve, which is competitive. The valves use a low-power radio protocol rather than Zigbee or Z-Wave, so they communicate reliably through walls.
App quality: Best in class. The iOS and Android apps are fast, well-designed, and give you a clear overview of every room. The energy reports are genuinely useful. Tado also integrates with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Apple HomeKit.
Negatives: Tado introduced an optional Auto-Assist subscription (~£2.99/month or ~£24.99/year) for geofencing and open window detection automation. Without it, these features still exist but require manual confirmation in the app rather than running automatically. It’s not essential, but it feels like a feature paywall on a premium-priced product. Tado also now offers a Tado+ subscription for energy insights — again, optional, but worth factoring into the total cost of ownership.
Price: ~£69 per TRV (requires existing Hive Hub)
If you already have a Hive smart thermostat and Hive Hub, the Hive TRV is the natural extension. It integrates directly into the Hive app alongside your existing Hive heating controls, giving you a unified view of your whole heating system without managing two separate apps or two ecosystems.
Hub requirement: Yes — the Hive Hub is required. If you’re starting from scratch, this means buying a Hive Heating Starter Kit (~£199) before you can add any TRVs. That’s a significant upfront cost compared to Tado or Danfoss. However, if you’ve already got a Hive Hub, the TRVs are a clean add-on.
Battery life: Approximately 18–24 months on 2× AA batteries, which is among the best in the category.
App quality: Hive’s app is solid and consumer-friendly, though it lacks some of the granular scheduling options of Tado. It does integrate with Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
Negatives: No Apple HomeKit support. The Hive ecosystem is owned by Centrica (British Gas’s parent company), which means support infrastructure is robust, but future-proofing depends on British Gas’s continued investment in the platform. Geofencing exists but is less refined than Tado’s implementation.
Price: Starter pack (controller + 2 TRVs) ~£259; additional TRVs ~£69 each
Honeywell’s Evohome is the most comprehensive smart heating system available for UK homes with a conventional boiler, and it shows in both the capability and the price tag. Unlike Tado and Hive (which control TRVs but still rely on your boiler running), Evohome talks directly to your boiler via a wireless receiver, coordinating the TRVs and the boiler together. This means the boiler only fires when a room actually needs heat — a concept called demand-based heating — which reduces short-cycling and can improve efficiency.
Evohome supports up to 12 independent heating zones, making it genuinely suited to larger homes (4+ bedrooms) where basic TRV systems start to feel limited. You can schedule different temperatures for every room, every day of the week, with easy override modes for when plans change.
Hub requirement: Yes — the Evohome controller is the hub. It sits on your wall (or on a stand) and acts as both the display and the coordinator for all TRVs.
App quality: Good, though less polished than Tado. The controller unit has a physical touchscreen display which is a genuine advantage — you can adjust heating without reaching for your phone.
Negatives: High upfront cost. Installation is more involved than Tado or Hive — you’ll need to fit the boiler receiver and potentially have a plumber or heating engineer set it up correctly. No native Apple HomeKit support; Alexa and Google Home are supported.
Price: ~£45 per TRV; no hub required
The Danfoss Eco is the most affordable smart TRV option and has a crucial advantage over every other product in this roundup: it works completely standalone, with no hub, no bridge, and no subscription. Each valve has Bluetooth built in and is configured via the Danfoss app directly over Bluetooth — you set your schedules, sync them to the valve, and then you’re done. The valve runs the schedule locally without needing any internet connection.
This makes it perfect for people who want the basics — scheduled heating per room — without committing to an ecosystem or spending on a hub. It’s also a good option for rental properties or situations where you want heating automation without a permanent smart home infrastructure.
Battery life: Approximately 2 years on 2× AA batteries — the best in class, partly because it’s not constantly transmitting to a hub.
Negatives: No remote control (Bluetooth range only, so you must be near the valve to make changes after initial setup). No geofencing. No voice assistant integration. No energy reports. If you want to turn a radiator on from your phone while you’re at work, the Danfoss Eco can’t do that. It’s a scheduler, not a full smart TRV system.
Price: Starter kit (hub + 2 TRVs + room thermostat) ~£189; additional TRVs ~£55 each
Drayton Wiser sits between Hive and Tado in price and capability, and represents excellent value for homeowners who want a full smart heating system without paying the Tado or Evohome premium. The Wiser system includes a hub, works with a room thermostat for main heating control, and individual TRVs for zone control. It uses Zigbee for device communication, which means solid reliability and low power consumption.
Hub requirement: Yes — the Wiser Heat Hub connects to your router via ethernet. It’s compact and unobtrusive.
App quality: Good and improving. The Wiser app covers scheduling, energy usage reporting, and away mode. Amazon Alexa and Google Home integration is supported; Apple HomeKit is not.
Battery life: Approximately 12–18 months, on par with Tado.
Negatives: The Wiser ecosystem is smaller than Tado or Hive — fewer third-party integrations and a smaller community. Drayton is a well-established UK heating brand (part of Schneider Electric), so support is solid, but if you want the widest possible smart home integration, Tado or Hive may be more future-proof.
| Product | Price per TRV | Hub Required? | Battery Life | Geofencing | Voice Assistants | Apple HomeKit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tado Smart TRV V3+ | ~£69–£79 | Yes (Internet Bridge) | 12–18 months | Yes (Auto-Assist sub for automation) | Alexa, Google, HomeKit | Yes |
| Hive TRV | ~£69 | Yes (Hive Hub) | 18–24 months | Yes | Alexa, Google | No |
| Honeywell Evohome TRV | ~£69 | Yes (Evohome Controller) | 12–18 months | No | Alexa, Google | No |
| Danfoss Eco | ~£45 | No | ~2 years | No | None | No |
| Drayton Wiser TRV | ~£55 | Yes (Wiser Heat Hub) | 12–18 months | Yes | Alexa, Google | No |
Prices correct at time of publication — check retailers for current deals.
The good news: fitting smart TRVs is a job most competent DIYers can tackle in an afternoon. You do not need a plumber. The process is:
Tado, Hive, and Drayton Wiser all include adapter kits in the box. If you have an unusual valve body, check the manufacturer’s compatibility list before ordering — this is the most common installation gotcha. The Tado compatibility checker is useful for this.
One important point: you’ll need to calibrate each valve after fitting. This is done automatically during setup and involves the TRV motor measuring the full travel of the valve pin — it takes about 5 minutes per valve and must be done with the heating system running. Don’t skip this step or your TRVs won’t control temperature accurately.
All five systems in this roundup work with combi boilers, system boilers, and heat-only boilers. They all operate on existing radiator valves — you do not need to change your radiator pipework. Key compatibility questions to consider:
The honest answer is: it depends. If you currently heat every room of your house to the same temperature all day, smart TRVs will almost certainly save you money by letting you dial down unused rooms. The UK government’s guidance on domestic heating controls notes that room-by-room temperature control can improve overall system efficiency when properly implemented.
However, if you already have a programmable thermostat and you’re disciplined about turning rooms down manually, the marginal saving from smart TRVs may take several years to recoup the hardware cost. The real value is in convenience and granular control — most people find they heat their home more sensibly once it becomes easy to do so.
For more on whole-system smart heating approaches, see our guide to smart heating systems for UK homes, which covers smart thermostats alongside TRVs for a complete picture. You may also find our best smart thermostat UK guide useful — combining a smart thermostat with smart TRVs gives you the most complete zone heating setup available without a full system replacement. And if you want to tie your smart TRVs into a broader smart home setup, our best smart home hub UK guide covers how to connect heating controls with the rest of your smart home.
Under the PSTI Act 2022, all connectable smart home devices sold in the UK since April 2024 must have a published security update commitment and must not use default passwords. Tado, Hive (Centrica), Honeywell, and Drayton (Schneider Electric) all publish security policies on their websites — check each manufacturer’s site for their stated end-of-support date before purchasing, as devices that lose security update support should be replaced. The Danfoss Eco connects only via Bluetooth and does not connect to the internet directly, so its security exposure is lower, but you should still verify Danfoss’s support policy on their website.
For most UK homes, Tado is the best smart TRV system. The app is best in class, geofencing is genuinely useful, Apple HomeKit support broadens compatibility, and the hardware is reliable. The Internet Bridge requirement and optional subscription are minor annoyances but not dealbreakers.
Already on Hive? Add Hive TRVs — don’t fragment your heating across two apps. Large house with a complex heating system? Honeywell Evohome is worth the premium. Want something simple and cheap? Danfoss Eco does the job without any ecosystem lock-in. Best value full system? Drayton Wiser beats Hive and Tado on price-per-valve while delivering nearly the same feature set.
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