Geeky Gadgets For The Home

thermometer

Geeky gadgets that make my life easier? Love them. Whether it’s my Sky+ app that lets me record The Big Reunion while I’m sat in the pub, my Tesco app which lets me shop on the go, or Apple TV which streams cartoons on YouTube (for the child) and Breaking Bad on Netflix (for us parents), I’m all about nifty little shortcuts and gizmos.

My lovely husband is the same – in fact, we recently got a new boiler after our old one broke down (side note: it decided to do this while I had flu and hadn’t been well enough to shower all day. In the evening, I felt a bit better, went to run a bath…. only to find no hot water. Those were a grubby fun few days.) Along with the new boiler came a remote control thermostat  – it sits in any room and wirelessly controls the temperature. Well. My husband thought all his Christmases had come at once. For a whole two weeks, he played with – and talked about – this new gadget. He tried it in the living room, and then moved it to the kitchen, filled with theories on why it might be better in one room and not the other.

So my geeky gadget loving husband would LOVE Hive – a smart thermostat which lets you control your heating and hot water from your computer or smartphone. It looks fab. You could be at work, notice that a heatwave has suddenly hit (and you totally weren’t expecting it, since it’s April and all) but instead of getting home to a hot house or flat, you turn your heating down – or off – from your phone. Or you could be on a winter holiday and realise you didn’t turn the heating and hot water down before you left (you remembered your passport and children, so anything else was a bonus) and you can do it from the app. It’s genius. You can also schedule your heating and hot water remotely and Hive will send you an alert if your house gets too hot or too cold.

Hive smart thermostat

It sounds like a genuinely useful product – and at £199 (including installation by an engineer) you’d quite possibly recoup that money if you saved energy by scheduling your heating and hot water in a smart way, using the app. According to gadget magazine Stuff, Americans have been using a similar product since 2011 and energy bills have dropped considerably.

What’s your favourite in-home gadget?

This post is in association with Hive – for information on how I work with brands, please see my Work With Me page.

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1 Comment

  1. August 19, 2015 / 1:25 pm

    great little helper in everyday life

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