Drayton Wiser Multizonene Kit 2

Dr Drayton offers a ch choice of kits wi with one, two or th three ‘channels’, fo for just heating, he heating and hot wa water, or hot wa water and two se separate heating zones. Th This one-channel kit co comes with the switch un unit that connects to your bo boiler, a room thermostat, and two thermostatic radiator valves (TRVS). Adding the switch to your boiler isn’t rocket science, but an electrician is recommended, and you may want a plumber to install the TRVS, although they’re designed to replace existing valves easily.

The room thermostat, with its small colour LCD touchscreen, is optional. You can rely on TRVS if you prefer, with extra ones costing £38. These don’t have their own display, just a traditional-looking knob, which you can turn to tell the base unit to raise or lower the target temperature by 2°C. The main function of the TRV is to communicate with the base, which enables the app to let you set the temperature for each room.

Everything can be scheduled, and there’s also an Eco mode, which learns how heating affects your home and turns the boiler on and off for efficiency, and an Away mode to keep things ticking over when you’re out. But the latter has to be set manually, not by geolocation (detecting where your phone is). Nor can you control the Drayton system from IFTTT, unlike most rivals, nor from Google Home or Apple Siri. But it works with Alexa voice control from Amazon’s app, Fire devices or Echo speakers.