Do I Need a Smart Heater? Or Is That Just Marketing?
Smart heaters promise convenience and control—but are they worth it, or just a shiny gimmick? This blog dives into the pros and cons of smart heating technology: when it’s beneficial, and when a simple thermostat might do the job instead. It helps readers understand if “smart” heating aligns with their needs, habits, and budget — or if it’s just an upsell.
Advantages
Remote control and Monitoring
Smart heaters provide complete freedom when customising your heating, with the remote controls and ability to monitor your heat proving to be two of the most sought-after features of a smart heater.
You can adjust the temperature settings from your phone (or any other mobile device) from anywhere whether you’re still at home or away.
A key benefit to such freedom is the peace of mind that you can heat up your home just moments before you arrive, so you are greeted with a warm home on a cold winter’s day – even if the heating had been turned off for hours beforehand.
Energy Efficiency and Cost Savings
Energy Efficiency and cost saving measures are always available when using smart heaters because you can employ the use of programmable schedules to heat your space your way. Fixed schedules let you avoid heating empty, unused rooms while directing power towards busy areas, for example you can set the heating to turn off while away at work and then turn back on just before you get home.
Many smart heaters also come with eco modes that minimise the power used, often to act as frost protection without being too costly and real-time energy consumption tracking, with devices like smart meters, can help reduce electricity bills.
Smart Home Integration
Being ‘smart’ heaters, they are compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, the SmartLife app and most other platforms that provide smart home control.
Like an inbuilt controller, smart home apps can be tied into routines meaning you can choose to customise your heating at a deeper level. Instead of being limited to time and temperature controls, you can program your heating to turn on/off for an extended selection of specific scenarios like:
- Turning on/off when motion is detected
- Turning on/off automatically when the outside temperature drops
- Turning on/off automatically when nearby
Personalisation
When it comes to heating multiple rooms, central heating is restricted to exclusively warming your entire home however the same can’t be said for smart heaters. Smart heaters are renowned for their zonal heating capabilities, meaning they can all be used separately meaning individual rooms can all be controlled individually.
Smart heaters offer much more flexibility with customisation because each room can be programmed around the times you want them to turn on and the temperatures you want them to work towards.
This means that rooms you don’t use often can be controlled remotely to turn on and off while rooms you use often can fit a set schedule around your daily habits.
Disadvantages
Connection Dependency
If you plan on using all the features available with a smart heater, you will need to have some sort of connection to the heater whether it’s WiFi, Bluetooth or a hub.
WiFi-enabled heaters need a stable internet connection to continuously operate as intended. If you live in an area with a weak signal or if your WiFi tends to dip in and out, it will limit the features you can use and impact any sort of remote control.
Non-WiFi smart heaters are more likely to depend on Bluetooth/a hub but much like with a WiFi-enabled heater, losing connectivity can limit the features available to you.
Therefore, smart heaters can’t work to the best of their ability if you have a weak network or your WiFi tends to dip in/out.
Complexity
People who aren’t at least somewhat tech-savvy are can find the controls somewhat confusing and less intuitive.
If you aren’t used to dealing mobiles, apps and WiFi on a day to day basis, you may struggle to activate a heater, set it up with a connection, program their schedule at their desired temperature all while considering how you can use an app to go more in-depth with automations.
Conclusion
Smart heaters allow for much more in-depth control and can provide total freedom for your home heating system making them a very convenient solution if you know how to work them and understand how to make the most out of them, from a comfort perspective and from a running cost perspective. On the other hand, they aren’t the perfect solution for those who struggle to keep up with technology or have no interest in all the bells and whistles of automations.
