British Gas – Remote Heating Control

Apparently Spring is just around the corner. If you’ve been caught out by the weather changing from warm and sunny when you leave home to Baltic blizzards at home-time then one solution to returning to a cold home could well be the clever Remote Heating Control app from British Gas.

Remote Heating Control customers get the power to adjust the heating temperature, set specific times when they want the heating to come on and even switch the boiler on or off with a simple text message.

Not only is this handy for our confusing climate but also for those that have a tendency to forget to turn the heating off when they go away on holiday.

According to British Gas, the remote heating control app could save customers more than £100 a year. Looking at homes that left their boiler on while out at work or away for the weekend (as indicated by all of their electricity being off, but their gas still being on), British Gas claims an average of £140 a year could be saved on energy bills.

Remote Heating Control™ (RHC) enables you to turn off (and switch on) your central heating system via your phone or online, from anywhere, at anytime. This means that you’re in constant control of your home’s heating.

The wireless thermostat control can be set-up and operated remotely online and using a smartphone, connecting with your boiler via your normal broadband Internet router.

You’ll not only have increased comfort and control, but you could also save energy and money by only heating your home when you need to.

British Gas Remote Heating Control – Getting started

British Gas will send out experts to fit a smart thermostat to your boiler and hook up a widget to an Ethernet port on your router. Once all that’s done you’ll be able to login to the main Home Hub website, download the iOS or Android app and you’re good to go.

British Gas Remote Heating Control – Mobile, web, text and hands-on

RHC gives you four ways to control your heating. The smartphone app allows you to turn your heating to On, Off or Auto, set the temperature and view some simple graphs. It looks uncluttered and gives you the basics.

The web app, however, is fully featured. This gives you everything the mobile app does plus set an automatic schedule as you might do on your existing boiler.

You can also control it by sending a text message which I think is pretty cool – or warm depending how you look at it ;).

Naturally you can go old skool and use the controls on the real life physical smart thermostat. Handy should your network go down. ~shudder~

App control

Once you’ve set your main automatic schedule via the website then you’ll probably use the mobile app as your main controller. Imagine the futuristic feeling of reaching for your phone to turn the heating up when you’re halfway through your box set marathon.

SMS control

If you feel like bossing your heating about you could text your orders. There’s not strictly any need for SMS control unless you don’t own a smartphone but you do have the option of sending a text such as ‘HEAT ON 20’ to make it do your bidding.

Texting is a two-way street with Remote Heating Control, though. Turn on the Alerts option on the web app and the system will send you an SMS when the temperature goes above or below a certain level. So, should your home drop below the optimum level, even if you’re elsewhere, you will get a text that your house is about to become an igloo. To rectify this, all you have to do is squirt off a text to turn on the heating for a bit.

British Gas Remote Heating Control – Money saving

Remote Heating Control isn’t just about being able to alter the temperature of your home without having to get out of your chair, it could well save you money.

The temperature graphs on the web app give you an instant snapshot of how warm your house has been over a set period. From this you can deduce whether your home has been heated more than it should have been and if that even happened at the relevant times.

I think that monitoring your usage will soon make it apparent if you’re not being sensible with your heating. A small change in behaviour could well add up to money in your pocket.

It’s not only me that thinks that the RHC is a good idea and a sweet bit of kit. It was awarded as WINNER of the Stuff Home Gadget of the Year!

Remote Heating Control managed to come top leaving the likes of the Dyson Digital Slim DC44 Animal, iRobot Roomba 600, Belkin WeMo, amongst others.

Will Findlater, editor of Stuff Magazine, said: “We felt British Gas Remote Heating Control™ deserved to win our Home Gadget of the Year award, not just because of how useful it is but also because of the movement it’s representing towards connected homes and smart appliances.”

Visit the RHC Facebook tab and enter a competition to win your very own RHC system plus £100 worth of cinema vouchers for a ‘last minute change of plan’: www.facebook.com/britishgas

For more information on Remote Heating Control visit the webpage