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Meet Hive's gorgeous new thermostat and smart home devices
Google's Nest, Honeywell, Netatmo, Tado and others have made heating our abodes that bit simpler, but a smart thermostat does not a smart home make. British Gas' Hive launched its take on the smart thermostat two years ago -- and now, 200,000 installs later, it's time for a sequel. This time around, though, Hive doesn't just want to make your heating smarter, but the rest of your home as well. In addition to its brand-new £249 thermostat, the Hive brand will include soon smart plugs, a whole host of motion sensors and eventually, lightbulbs too.
British Gas buys AlertMe, the company behind its Hive thermostat
Although there's an abundance of companies now offering smart thermostats, it's British Gas' Hive product that holds the top spot in the UK. The controller, which has now been installed in over 150,000 homes, relies on automation algorithms and mobile apps to keep people warm, all with a little help from a company called AlertMe. Not content with a 21 percent share in its partner, British Gas is spending big: it's just confirmed that it's paid £44 million to buy AlertMe, with the grand plan of launching its heating and automation products worldwide.
Smart everything: Behind Hive's plans to automate your entire home
When British Gas' Hive entered the connected home space a year ago, smart thermostats were still an emergent technology. The energy provider joined a small number of manufacturers, promising to change the way you heated your home with a mix of complex automation algorithms and slick mobile apps. Fast forward to today: While Brits have embraced smart thermostats from Nest, Tado, Climote, Netatmo and Honeywell, it's Hive that has enjoyed more of a significant uptake than most. Today, the subsidiary is claiming that its controller is now the most popular smart heating solution in the UK, having been installed in over 100,000 homes.
British Gas' smart Hive thermostat can now respond to a home owner's location
Since its launch nearly seven months ago, British Gas' connected thermostat, the Hive, has enjoyed steady succcess. Now operational in more 75,000 British homes, it recently gained another competitor in Nest, the learning thermostat now owned by Google, so news of the company's new feature rollout could not have come at better time. In an iOS update that went live earlier this week (not yet live on Android), British Gas added geolocation support to the Hive app, allowing users to receive notifications or set triggers depending on where they are. For instance, Hive owners now receive alerts when the heating has been left switched on and they leave the house, or set the app to automatically begin heating the house as soon as it detects the owner has left their workplace. Nest owners can utilise similar features with a little third-party hacking, but for people who decided to go smart with the energy provider will get them right out of the box.
British Gas introduces Hive Active Heating, enables remote thermostat control
Home automation isn't just the domain of hackers, Kickstarter projects and startups anymore -- now utilities companies are getting in on the action, too. British Gas has recently announced Hive Active Control Heating, its platform for automated, scheduled and remote utility control. Opting into the program costs £199 and includes a wireless thermostat with a receiver and hub, all of which can be controlled by a companion app (or an online dashboard). The system doesn't have the learning capabilities of the synonymously named Nest, but users can manage temperature on the go, create scheduled heating events by weekday or hour and manage hot water temperate and scheduling independent of thermostat control. Hive is available for pre-order now, though installations won't begin until late October. In the meantime, the company has offered a preview of the system's app on the project's website (source) and has issued a few flowery statements about the Internet of things (after the break).
