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What is a Smart Radiator?

What is a Smart Radiator?

What is a Smart Radiator?

Smart radiators are a great replacement for traditional radiators as they are energy efficient and provide added functionality. Traditional radiators consume a lot of energy and do not adequately warm up your home. With rising electricity prices, it is important to invest in energy efficient heating solutions.

Smart radiators have many capabilities that set them apart from other heating solutions. These radiators are also a perfect addition to any smart home. If you are in the market for smart radiators, here is everything you need to know about these smart heating systems. 

What Is A Smart Radiator?

Smart electric radiators represent the next generation of heating systems, offering better functionality and efficient energy use. These high-grade radiators use network connections to operate, and you can use either wifi or Bluetooth to access for features. 

Almost all smart radiators come with a corresponding app that you can download on your phone to control the appliance remotely. From the app, you can access various other features that provide even more functionality to your heating system. 

Some of these features include accurate temperature control, timers, scheduling, and much more. With modern smart radiators, you can control all temperature-related aspects of your home. 

Through the app control, you can access a wide range of functionally and energy-saving features that will allow you to monitor your energy consumption, create custom heating schedules, and set timers for operation. This high level of control and ease of use makes smart electric radiators ideal for many households. 

With a smart radiator, your electric energy will be used much more efficiently. These smart heating systems use machine learning to adjust the temperature according to the time of the day or the climate outside. 

Some smart radiators are also compatible with home assistant devices such as Alexa and Google Home. This feature allows you to use the heating system completely hands-free. You can also use voice controls to activate the radiators or follow any commands. 

Smart radiators come in a variety of different sizes based on wattage. Therefore, there is a smart radiator to fit every household’s needs. Depending on your home’s heating requirement, your energy consumption will fluctuate. 

Despite the higher wattage, smart radiators will help you save on energy costs due to their smart technology and energy efficiency. 

Smart radiators are also designed with modern aesthetics in mind. These radiators come in neutral colours to easily fit into any household. Traditional radiators often look bulky and would stick out in a home; however, the modern smart radiators are sleek with a minimalist design that blends seamlessly into the background of your home. 

Check out out blog on All You Need to know about Smart Heaters! 

Smart Radiator

How Do Smart Radiators Work?

Before you start using smart radiators, it is important to understand how this system works to unlock its full potential. 

Smart radiators use high-grade electric heating technology to make more efficient use of energy. This technology also comes with advanced controls that let you operate every single aspect of a room’s temperature. 

With such precise controls, you can efficiently heat up your home without worrying about wasting energy. Smart radiators connect to your boiler and your network connection simultaneously. This connection allows you to control your heating. 

You can access this capability through a handheld remote control, an app, or your home assistant hub. To start using these features, you can adjust the settings on the app, and this will send a signal to the radiator. 

Smart radiators with wifi connectivity provide automatic temperature management with the help of your smartphone. You can control this system from anywhere inside or outside your home. This feature ensures that you will always be in complete control of your heating system. 

For example, if you forget to turn off your heating when you leave for work and know you won’t be able to go back to turn it off, you can simply use your phone. With a few quicks taps, you can immediately send signals to the radiators to switch off. This feature is not only great for domestic properties, but it also works well for commercial and hospitality properties. 

Some smart radiators also allow you to set schedules and timers for your heating systems. If you forget to turn your heating off when you leave your home or if you want it to become warmer at night, you set schedules to carry out these tasks. 

You can schedule your heating system to automatically shut off during the day and turn it on during the night. You can also schedule a smart radiator to work before you come back home so that you will be welcomed by a warm and inviting environment. Apart from this, you can do so much more with smart radiators. 

Bluetooth connectivity also provides the same capabilities as a wifi connection. However, there is a much smaller range with this connectivity. Both wifi and Bluetooth are modern ways to control your heating system without any manual operation. 

Smart Radiator

Advance Capabilities In Smart Radiators

Advanced smart radiators come with several features that add even more functionality to regular heating systems. 

Some smart radiators come with geofencing capabilities and motion sensor technology to identify whether a room is occupied or not. This lets the system know when to start heating up the room and conserving excess heat consumption. These motion sensors can also start heating up your home as soon as you enter a room. 

The geofencing and motion sensors allow more efficient control over your heating and ensure that no energy is wasted. You can also set up multi-zone heating with smart radiators. If you have radiators in multiple rooms, you can control all the radiators from one central hub without having to set up the radiators manually. 

You can input various settings depending on each room’s needs. For example, you might want to keep your bedroom warm but want the kitchen to remain cool due to cooking heat emissions. You can input these settings into the smart radiator to enjoy a comfortable temperature throughout your home. 

Many smart radiators also come with safety features that ensure the longevity of your heating system. These radiators are easy and safe to install without damaging your pipes. Some traditional heating systems could severely damage your home’s piping system due to prolonged use. 

However, you do not need to worry about this with smart radiators. To ensure that a smart radiator does not harm your piping, you must carry out proper installation guidelines. Proper installation will also ensure that the heating system works efficiently so you can enjoy energy saving benefits. 

For better energy efficiency, some smart electric radiators also contain advanced capabilities that track and monitor your weather. These heating systems adjust their temperatures accordingly to the weather conditions for accurate and efficient use of heat energy. 

You can also monitor your energy consumption to operate your heating systems at energy saving hours. Some smart radiators automatically shut off during peak hours and begin operating during off-peak hours to provide the best possible energy savings. 

However, it is important to note that not all smart radiators come with all these features. Make sure to purchase a smart radiator according to your household’s needs and energy saving qualities. 

What Energy Saving Features Do Smart Radiators Have?

Smart radiators come with a wide array of intelligent energy efficient features that are designed to make your heating solution as intuitive as possible. Here are some of the best energy-saving features you can find in smart radiators.

  • Adaption Operation: this function allows your radiator to learn how long it takes to reach specific temperatures. When this feature is used, the radiator pre-heats your room, so they remain perfectly heated at the right time.
  • Open-winder sensor: this helpful function temporarily pauses the heating if the radiator detects a rapid drop in temperature, usually from an open window or door. When the window/door is closed, the radiator resumes heating.
  • Energy Consumption Data: some smart radiators provide energy consumption data that helps you track your energy use in real time. This data will help you make savings wherever possible.
  • Geolocation: This feature turns your radiator on or off depending on the presence of someone in the room. If you leave a certain section of the geofence, the radiator will switch to a lower heat setting to conserve energy. When you return to the geofence radius, the radiators will start working at full capacity. 

What Are Radiator Valves?

To make sure that your smart radiator works efficiently, you must choose the right type of valve, as this will ensure that your heat energy provides convenience and energy savings. 

In terms of design, there is a wide range of valve models, including modern aluminum and traditional cast-iron. 

However, when looking for an energy efficient radiator valve, you must examine the key features of each valve. The two most common types of radiator valves include thermostatic and manual valves. 

Manual Radiator Valves

A manual radiator valve is the most common type. As the name suggests, you control this device by turning the valve to adjust the amount of hot water flowing through the radiator. This determines how much heat is emitted by the radiator. 

To adjust the temperature further, you can turn the valve up, down, or off. Manual valves are the easiest to operate and much smaller than thermostatic valves. However, these valves are very limiting in their functions, and you have to monitor the appliance actively. 

You also cannot control these remotely, and you have to remember to manually turn them off in order to avoid wasting energy and money. Since manual valves are common, you can easily find them in markets and electronic stores. 

Thermostatic Radiator Valves

Thermostatic radiator valves give you far better control over the temperature of your home than a manual valve. With a TRV, you can set the valve to your desired temperature. 

Most TRVs come with a liquid or wax that intuitively sets the temperature in a room. When the room reaches your desired temperature, the thermostatic valve automatically shuts off the flow of hot water to the radiator. 

With this function, you don’t have to keep monitoring your radiator. Even though most thermostatic valves can self-regulate, you must conduct yearly maintenance to ensure that it keeps working properly. 

Thermostatic valves are also much more environmentally friendly than manual valves, and this is a great option if you want to reduce your carbon footprint. 

Thermostatic Radiator Valves Smart Radiator

What Are Smart Radiator Valves?

Smart radiator valves sometimes go alongside a radiator, and these devices add smart capabilities to regular radiators. 

Smart radiator valves are a great way to introduce smart heating in your home. This device is compact and can be installed easily with almost any radiator. Just like a smart radiator, these radiator valves can be controlled and programmed remotely through a smartphone or tablet, allowing you to control the temperature of individual rooms. 

Once paired with a smart radiator, you can create heating schedules that will automatically run the heat without any manual operation. Smart radiator valves are a sustainable way to heat up your as they make efficient use of energy, giving you significant savings on your heating bill. 

Radiator valves work by detecting the temperature of a room and turning the appliance on or off depending on whether the room needs heating or not. With smart radiator valves, you can set the temperature for individual rooms, and it allows you to keep a consistent temperature throughout your home. 

As mentioned before, this appliance is great if you want to get started with smart heating; however, if you want to access better functionality, you must purchase a smart radiator unit. If you're wondering; do smart radiator valves save money? The answer is yes, smart radiators can save up to 30% in heating bills. 

best smart radiator valve

What Are Radiator Readings

To make sure that your radiator is working efficiently, it is important to understand the numbers on the radiator valves. Most smart radiator valves have symbols or numbers to indicate how much heat the radiator is putting out. 

Generally, these numbers range from 1-6. When the valve is turned to number 3, the room should have a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. 

Every number below or above this value represents a single degree. Therefore a 4 is approximately 24 degrees Celsius while a 2 is about 16 degrees Celsius. 

A numbered system is commonly used instead of the extracted temperature as the actual temperature is not guaranteed. The location of the radiator is crucial as this will affect its efficiency. It is important that you pay attention to the radiator valve settings as not all rooms require maximum heat. 

What Are The Benefits Of Smart Radiators?

Smart radiators do more than just provide you with better controls. These radiators have many advantages that make them an essential part of any home. Here are some important benefits of smart radiators. 

Better Comfort And Convenience

One of the most important benefits of smart radiators is the higher comfort level. Smart radiators make it easy for you to get the optimal level of warmth in your household. Each room has its own heating needs, and a smart radiator system can prove very beneficial in this situation. 

For example, maybe you prefer your bedroom to be much warmer than your living room or kitchen. You can create specific warmth settings with your smart radiators. You might also require different levels of heating depending on the time of the day or season. 

You can use the low-intensity background heating while you are away from home, and you can set this level to rise once you are back home. You can create seasonal settings with a smart radiator to provide comfortable warmth in your home all year round. 

With smart electric radiators, you can change the temperature in an entire room with one press of a button based on the time of the day or any activity. For example, if you are working in the living room, you can turn the heating down in that area without disturbing the temperature level in other areas of the house.  

You can also set the heating to start up slowly in the morning so that when you wake up, you will experience an optimal level of warmth. With smart radiators, you don’t need to wait long in cold weather to experience comfortable warmth. 

These radiators make much more efficient use of the heating time to provide you with the best possible results. There are several additional components that can be added to a standard smart heater to take it to the next level. You can add motion sensors to the smart heating system to adjust the room’s temperature when you walk into any room.

On the other hand, the motion sensor can reduce the temperature when a room is unoccupied. You can also add a window/door sensor that will turn the heating off if someone opens a window or a door for more than a few minutes. This will ensure that you conserve heat energy without letting it go to waste.  

Another great aspect of smart radiators is that they allow you to set up scenes. Scenes allow you to control a group of other smart devices to create the perfect temperature for your room. With scenes, you can create a smart home. 

Once you group all the devices together, you assign specific settings to each device according to your temperature preferences. For example, you can keep the temperature lower for the upstairs area of your home, while the downstairs section can keep a higher temperature. 

You can save these settings as a scene on smart radiators and recall to call them whenever need be. You can recall the scenes through the app, according to schedule, or with a click of a button. With voice commands, you can access all these convenient features completely hands-free. 

More Energy Saving

As mentioned before, smart radiators can help you achieve better energy savings, but how exactly do these appliances achieve this? 

Since smart radiators provide more efficient control over heat energy, you can avoid wasting heat emissions. An average household in the UK uses 242 kWh of electricity per month and heating takes up a significant portion of these costs. 

By simply switching to energy-efficient boilers, you save £260 to £580 per year. With these figures, you can see that heating energy takes up a major portion of household costs. Many experts estimate that efficient heating systems, including smart radiators, can help you save between 10-20% on energy costs. 

The actual amount of savings depends on a number of factors, including the duration of heating and the size of your household. Therefore, the more you use smart radiators, the more energy savings you will enjoy. Even though most smart radiators have high upfront costs, most of these appliances will pay for themselves in the long term due to energy savings. 

Apart from energy savings, smart radiators also have many functions that allow you to make energy efficient choices with your heating. Many smart radiators come with a peak/off-peak function. This also allows you to manage your heating in order to achieve potential energy benefits. 

In this setting, the radiators either lower themselves or shuts off during peak electricity hours and turn back on during off-peak hours to enjoy the lowest possible costs on heat energy. 

Added Functionality

Smart radiators are highly convenient because of their added functionality which you cannot find in standard heaters. Smart radiators allow you to control them either via a remote control or an app. 

Some smart heating solutions also allow tablet and voice command control options. The voice control feature is great for hand-free control of your heating. Some smart radiator models come with a large touchscreen display that lets you access your room’s temperature settings. 

You can also control the heating through schedules, scenes, and activities in a room. With smart radiators, you will never have the need to manually control the heating as the intelligent system will automatically use your preferred heat settings. 

If you tend to forget to turn the heating off, smart radiator solutions will take care of this problem for you. These are just some basic functions of smart radiators, and there are many more functions that will help you unlock the full potential of these smart appliances. 

Where To Position A Smart Radiator?

Where you install, your smart radiator is important as it affects its efficiency. The ideal place for a radiator is in the coldest section of a room. 

Previously, many people would install their radiators under the windows; however, in modern double-glazed homes, this position is not ideal. As a general rule, it is best to have one radiator every 4 meters in a room. 

Once you have installed the radiator in your ideal location, there are certain steps you must maintain to make sure the radiators keep operating properly. 

Here are some steps to ensure your radiator works efficiently.

  • Avoid putting any furniture in front or near the radiator as this will block the hot warm from warming up the room. Some furniture pieces may also absorb the heat preventing your room from getting warm.
  • Make sure that radiator is not under or near full-length curtains. These curtains will pose a similar issue as the furniture.
  • Install the radiator unit on the interior wall rather than the exterior wall. Radiators placed on the exterior wall will take up much more energy to effectively heat up a room.
  • Once you keep all these points in mind, you can install your radiator in a location that will effectively heat up the entire room without taking too much energy. 

What Are The Best Smart Radiators?

There are endless options for smart radiators on the market, and it can be difficult to know which one of the most reliable if you are looking for high-grade radiators that provide efficient heating and convenience, visit Meteor Electrical. 

At Meteor Electrical, you can find a range of high-quality smart radiators that will provide you with convenience and comfort. The ATC electrical range of smart radiators gives you energy savings without compromising on quality. Here are some of the best smart radiators you can find at Meteor. 

500W ATC iLifestyle Smart Radiator

The 500W ATC lifestyle smart radiator is an award-winning smart heating solution that is great if you want to start out with smart heating systems. This radiator unit comes with Wi-Fi control capabilities, so you don’t need any external network to use your radiator. 

 

The ATC radiator is designed with aluminum fins to guarantee optimal heat emission. The 500W radiator comes with three modes - eco, comfort, and frost to suit everyone’s temperature control needs. 

1000W ATC iLifestyle Smart Radiator

If you want a radiator that heats up a moderately sized home but does not take too much power, you should consider the 1000W ATC iLifestyle smart radiator. This radiator has all the same capabilities as the 500W radiator; however, this heater is perfect for medium to larger-sized households. 

The ATC radiator is a great way to start building home automation in your household. The smart radiator comes with wifi compatibility so that you can access many more controls through your wireless network. 

1800W ATC iLifestyle Smart Radiator

If you are looking for smart radiators with a larger heat energy transmission, the 1800W ATC iLifestyle smart radiator is the product for you. Just like other ATC radiators, this product also comes with Wi-Fi controllability so that you can operate your heaters from anywhere. 

The 1800W radiator is also fitter with a large display panel that makes it easy read any information. This radiator is highly intelligent as it provides precision control of 0.2 degrees Celsius. You can also connect your smart home assistant to use voice commands with the 1800W radiator. 

Want to pick the best smart heater for your home/business? Check out our blog on the best Smart Electric Radiators

Final Takeaway

Smart radiators are a great way to heat up your home efficiently. Make sure to look at all the specifications before making a purchase so you can have the best possible smart heating solution for your home. Want to find out more about Smart Wifi Heaters? Check out blog here