Tado vs Hive vs Drayton Wiser UK 2026: Which Wins?
You've narrowed it down to three brands. You're staring at three different £200–£400 boxes on Amazon, three different apps, three different sales pitches, and nobody is giving you a straight answer about which is actually right for your house. This is that answer.
Tado, Hive and Drayton Wiser are the three smart heating systems UK homeowners realistically choose between in 2026. They look superficially similar — app, hub, room thermostat, optional radiator valves — but the differences in price per room, Home Assistant integration quality and hidden subscription costs are large enough to swing the decision. Pick the wrong one for your house and you'll spend an extra £200 on TRVs and £30 a year on features you thought were included.
TL;DR — the three-system comparison
| System | Best for | Up-front cost | Multi-zone | HA integration | Subscription | Key gotcha |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drayton Wiser | Home Assistant users, big houses, lowest TCO | Hub kit ~£170–£190, iTRV ~£45–£55 each | Up to 32 rooms per Heat Hub | Local via HACS plugin — best of the three | None — all features included | No HomeKit, less "AI" smartness |
| Tado X | Heat pumps, renters, AI scheduling fans | Starter ~£140–£280, smart TRV ~£70–£90 each | Up to 25 rooms per bridge | Cloud, rate-limited, few-second latency | AI Assist (was Auto Assist) £29.99/yr or £3.99/mo | TRVs nearly 2× the price of Wiser's |
| Hive Active Heating | British Gas service customers | Starter ~£180, radiator valve ~£50–£65 each | Up to 6 thermostats per hub plus valves | Cloud-only, slow polling (30–60s) | Hive+ (was Heating Plus) £3.99/mo or £39.99/yr for AI features | Least granular zoning, weakest HA story |
One-line verdict: for Home Assistant users, Drayton Wiser is the answer. For non-HA homes, Tado X. Hive only if you're locked into a British Gas service contract.
Tado X — the AI scheduler
Tado has been the default "smart thermostat" recommendation in the UK for the better part of a decade, and the Tado X line (launched late 2024, now the only Tado kit on shelves) is the version you should be looking at if you're buying new. Older Tado V3+ kit still works but is end-of-life for new sales.
Hardware ecosystem. Tado X uses Matter-over-Thread, which is genuinely useful: it means the radiator thermostats are not locked to Tado's own bridge in the long run, and they pair more cleanly with other Thread networks. A typical Tado X starter kit runs ~£140 for the wireless version, ~£160 wired, or ~£235–£280 for a kit with one or two radiator thermostats included. Additional smart radiator thermostats are ~£70–£90 each.
Smart features. This is where Tado earns its price. Geofencing (heating drops when everyone leaves, picks up when someone is on the way home) is the best in class. Open-window detection actually works. The AI scheduling — learning how long your house takes to warm up so it fires the boiler earlier on cold mornings — is the most genuinely "smart" of the three systems.
The subscription gotcha. This is the thing most comparison articles skip. Tado was historically marketed as subscription-free. Then in 2023, several of the headline features — geofencing, open-window detection, weather-aware adjustments — moved behind a paywall called Auto Assist. In late 2025 that was rebranded and expanded into AI Assist, now £29.99/year (or £3.99/month) and bundling Adaptive Heating, Preheat Before Arrival, Energy IQ insights and Holiday Mode. New Tado X starter kits still include 12 months free; after that it's £29.99/year or features stop working. Account for it in your total cost of ownership.
Heat pump compatibility. Tado X has the strongest OpenTherm modulation story of the three, which matters if you're on a heat pump (modulating the flow temperature instead of cycling on/off is what makes a heat pump efficient).
Home Assistant integration. Cloud-only, through Tado's API. The integration is officially supported and stable, but expect a few seconds of latency on any state change, and rate limits if you poll aggressively. Tado deprecated their old free API tier in 2025; the newer integration for X-series devices is more reliable but still cloud-dependent. If Tado's cloud has a bad day, your HA dashboard goes stale.
Where it shines: renters (the wireless kit needs no installer), heat pumps, households who want "set it and forget it" AI scheduling. Where it falls down: big houses (TRVs are the most expensive of the three), HA users who want local control, anyone allergic to subscription creep.
Drayton Wiser — the HA user's pick
Drayton Wiser is the system Home Assistant enthusiasts quietly recommend to each other. It's the trade-installer pick in the UK — electricians often standardise on it because it's straightforward to fit and the customer rarely calls back.
Hardware ecosystem. The Drayton Wiser Heat Hub Kit runs ~£170–£190 for the hub plus one room thermostat. The killer number is the iTRV at ~£45–£55 each — roughly half what Tado charges for the equivalent. For a four-bedroom house with eight radiators, that's a £200+ difference on TRVs alone.
Multi-zone story. Up to 32 rooms per Heat Hub. The clearest multi-zone story of the three — every radiator gets its own iTRV, each behaves as an independent zone, and the schedule per room is configured cleanly in the app. If you have a big house, this is the system that scales without the cost spiralling.
Subscription. None. All features — schedules, multi-zone, geolocation, away mode, hot-water control — are included in the hardware price. This is a deliberate brand position against Tado's subscription drift, and Drayton has held the line on it.
Smart features. Schedule-based with manual overrides and basic geolocation. Less "AI" smartness than Tado — no machine-learning warm-up prediction, no weather-aware pre-heating out of the box. The simplicity is the feature. For HA users this matters less because you'd build your own automations anyway.
Home Assistant integration. This is where Wiser pulls ahead decisively. The community HACS plugin (asantaga/wiserHomeAssistantPlatform) talks directly to the Heat Hub on your LAN — no cloud dependency, no API rate limits, sub-second updates. If Drayton's cloud goes down, your HA dashboard keeps working because the Heat Hub is right there on your network. None of the other two can say this.
Heat pump compatibility. Works with combi, system and conventional boilers, plus heat pumps via OpenTherm. Modulation isn't as sophisticated as Tado's, but it's solid.
Where it shines: Home Assistant users, big houses with many radiators, anyone who wants no surprises on cost. Where it falls down: no HomeKit support, less polished app than Tado, no AI-driven scheduling out of the box.
Hive Active Heating — the British Gas default
Hive is owned by Centrica (the British Gas parent company). It's the most install-shop-default system in the UK because every British Gas engineer who's recommended a smart thermostat for the last ten years has recommended Hive.
Hardware ecosystem. The Hive Active Heating starter kit runs ~£180. Hive radiator valves are ~£50–£65 each. Sits between Wiser and Tado on price, closer to Wiser.
Multi-zone story. This is where Hive falls behind. The hub supports up to 6 thermostats per home, plus radiator valves on top. For a small flat or three-bed semi that's plenty. For a five-bedroom house with eight radiators on different schedules, you'll feel the limit. Wiser's 32-room ceiling is in a different category.
Smart features. Schedules, geolocation, holiday mode. The AI-driven features (auto-adjusting schedules based on your habits) live in a tier rebranded from Heating Plus to Hive+ in 2025, now £3.99/month or £39.99/year. Without it Hive is a competent schedule-based thermostat; with it, it reaches toward what Tado does natively.
Home Assistant integration. Cloud-only via the core hive integration. It works, but it's the lowest-fidelity HA story of the three: it requires a British Gas / Centrica account, polls slowly (30–60 seconds between updates), and gives you less detailed entity data than Wiser or Tado. If you're buying primarily for HA, this is the weakest pick.
Heat pump compatibility. Works via OpenTherm with most modern boilers and heat pumps, but the modulation control is the least sophisticated of the three. For a gas combi it's fine; for a heat pump optimisation pass, Tado or Wiser will do better.
Where it shines: households already on a British Gas HomeCare service plan (Hive often gets bundled into the service contract, and the engineer fitting it knows the kit). British Gas's installer network is the largest of any UK smart-heating brand, so if you want someone else to fit it, Hive is the path of least resistance. Where it falls down: big houses (zone ceiling), HA users (poor integration), anyone who's already done their research and isn't being steered by a British Gas engineer.
Which one are you?
A decision-tree matcher. Find the row that describes you.
- Already a Home Assistant user, want best local integration → Drayton Wiser. Local HACS plugin, no cloud dependency, sub-second updates. Nothing else comes close.
- Renting, want easiest no-install path → Tado X wireless kit plus radiator thermostats. The wireless receiver clips onto your existing programmer; no wiring changes, takes the kit with you when you move.
- Heat pump household → Tado X for the best OpenTherm modulation, or Drayton Wiser as a simpler next-best. Skip Hive for a heat pump.
- British Gas service contract → Hive, effectively whether you want it or not — the engineer will fit it and the service plan covers it.
- Want "set it and forget it" AI scheduling → Tado X with AI Assist. Worth the £29.99/year if you don't want to think about heating again.
- Want lowest TCO with no surprises → Drayton Wiser. No subscription, cheap TRVs, no paywall on existing features.
- Replacing a Honeywell evohome or other branded multi-zone system → Drayton Wiser is the closest functional replacement, especially if you had many zones.
- Big house, eight or more radiators on different schedules → Drayton Wiser. The per-TRV cost gap closes the deal once you're buying six or more.
What changes the maths
A few household details flip the answer:
- Heat pumps push the choice toward Tado X (best modulation) or Drayton Wiser (next best, simpler). Hive is the wrong tool here.
- Rental and flexibility push toward Tado X's wireless kit — no wiring, easy to remove when you move.
- Large houses with many radiators push hard toward Drayton Wiser, because the per-room cost is roughly half. A ten-radiator house saves £200–£300 on TRVs alone choosing Wiser over Tado.
- Existing British Gas relationship pushes toward Hive, mainly because the engineer is already there.
- You want it to "just work" in Home Assistant — Drayton Wiser, every time. The other two work, but Wiser works locally.
Verdict
For Home Assistant users, Drayton Wiser wins clearly. Local API, cheapest TRVs, no subscription, scales to a big house without spiralling cost. It's the answer for anyone reading this guide on habbb.com.
For non-HA homes, Tado X is the better choice. The app is more polished, the AI scheduling genuinely earns its keep, and the OpenTherm story is best in class — especially for heat pumps. Just budget £29.99/year for AI Assist or you'll lose features you thought were included.
Hive Active Heating is the inherited choice. You'll end up with it if British Gas fits your boiler and recommends it, or if a previous owner left one in the wall. It's a competent thermostat. It's not the one you'd pick from a clean sheet of paper, especially not if you have Home Assistant or a big house.
Skip the integration headache
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