Hive Thermostat review UK: £79 for the Mini, £70 for the hub, one year of warranty

Quick answer: The Hive Thermostat Mini is £79 and the full Hive Thermostat is £119, but neither works without a £70 Hive Hub. Real entry price is £149. The warranty is one year, the shortest of any major UK system, and Hive states it cannot be fitted to a heat pump.

We haven’t tested these units. This comes from Hive’s own product and compatibility pages plus its published prices, checked on 27 July 2026.

What you get for the money

Hive is British Gas’s smart home brand, which is most of why it’s the one people have heard of. There are two thermostats. The Hive Thermostat at £119 comes with a receiver, four AA cells and a user guide, and the Hive Thermostat Mini at £79 is the same control logic in a smaller body. Both need a Hive Hub, and neither box contains one. Hive’s own basket asks whether you already have one and adds it at £70 if you don’t.

So the honest comparison is £149 for the Mini against £159.99 for a tado° X wireless starter kit that includes its hub, does OpenTherm and warranties for twice as long. Ten pounds. That framing changes the decision for a lot of people, and it’s the single most useful thing on this page.

Hive+ members pay £107.10 and £71.10 respectively. Hive+ starts at £3.99 a month.

Hive prices at a glance

The warranty is the weak point

Hive products come with a one-year standard warranty. tado° gives two years on its X thermostats. Drayton Wiser gives three years on its radiator thermostats. Resideo publishes a five-year warranty policy for trade professionals on evohome parts. One year is the shortest here by a distance.

Hive’s answer is Hive+ from £3.99 a month, which extends cover across your Hive devices for as long as you keep paying. That’s a defensible commercial model and it’s also, in plain terms, a warranty you rent. Over five years it’s roughly £240 to keep a £79 thermostat covered. Work out whether you’d actually claim before signing up.

What it works with, and what it doesn’t

Hive publishes a genuinely clear compatibility list, which is more than some competitors manage. It works with most gas and LPG boilers, oil boilers that already have a thermostat or programmer, and electric boilers with a standard room thermostat. Wet underfloor heating is supported. Electric underfloor heating is not.

The exclusions matter:

• Heat pumps. Hive states it can’t install a Hive Thermostat on one because testing isn’t complete. If a heat pump is on your list, this decides it. See smart thermostats for heat pumps.
• Solid fuel boilers.
• A named list of Worcester Bosch models. The ICC2 (ZWBR 11-37A), the CRD 537i and CRD 542i, plus several Greenstar HE Plus and Greenstar R HE Plus combis.
• Honeywell SmartFit controls and the Vaillant VR 65 control centre.
• Hive Hub 1. The radiator valves need the current Hive Hub or Hub 360, so a decade-old British Gas install may need a new hub before you can add valves.

OpenTherm, with an asterisk

Hive supports OpenTherm on compatible combi boilers and claims up to 12 per cent extra energy savings from letting the boiler modulate rather than cycle. That claim is Hive’s own and we’ve seen no independent UK testing of it. The limitation is in the small print on the same product page: OpenTherm on Hive supports single zones only, not multizone systems.

If you have one heating zone, fine. If you were planning a Hive Thermostat downstairs and a second zone upstairs, you lose the modulation benefit, which was the reason to want OpenTherm. tado° doesn’t carry that restriction.

Where Hive genuinely wins

Service. Hive’s Trustpilot score is 4.1 out of 5, labelled Great, from more than 50,000 reviews when we checked on 27 July 2026. That’s the highest of the big UK smart heating brands and it comes from a huge sample. tado° sits at 3.5, labelled Average. Both numbers move, so read the recent pages rather than trusting ours.

And there’s the boring practical advantage. Hive is British Gas’s own brand, it’s stocked on the high street, and if something breaks there’s a phone line. For a lot of households that beats OpenTherm.

Our verdict

Buy Hive if you already have a Hive Hub from a British Gas installation, or if you want the option of a phone call when it goes wrong. The Mini at £79 on an existing hub is the cheapest sensible way into smart heating in the UK.

Don’t buy Hive if you’re starting from nothing and your boiler supports OpenTherm. The £70 hub wipes out the price advantage, and you’re paying for a one-year warranty instead of a two-year one. The tado° is about ten pounds more. Read the direct comparison in Hive vs Nest vs tado°, and the wider ranking in best smart thermostats UK 2026.

And before spending anything on controls, check whether the money does more elsewhere. It usually does. Our cost calculator and insulation guide are the sensible first stop for a cold house, and older properties behave differently again.

FAQs

Do I need a Hive Hub?

Yes. Both Hive thermostats need one and Hive lists it at £70 if you don’t already own it. Hive Radiator Valves need the current Hive Hub or the Hub 360 specifically. The original Hive Hub 1 will not run them.

Does Hive work with a heat pump?

No. Hive states on its own product page that its engineers can’t install a Hive Thermostat on solid fuel boilers or heat pumps, because testing isn’t complete.

Is Hive+ worth £3.99 a month?

Only if you own several Hive devices and would realistically claim on the extended warranty. On a single £79 thermostat it’s roughly £48 a year to cover a product that cost £79. That rarely stacks up. Buy the hardware, skip the membership, and put the difference towards loft insulation.