Best Smart TRVs UK 2026: Room-by-Room Heating Control

The Short Answer

If you already have a tado° thermostat, get tado° Smart Radiator Thermostats — they work together seamlessly and the combined system is excellent. If you want a standalone smart heating system with TRVs and don't have a smart thermostat yet, the Drayton Wiser kit is the best value option. Either way, expect to save £50–£150 per year by not heating empty rooms.

Why Smart TRVs Make a Real Difference

Think about how you actually use your house. During the day, you're probably in the kitchen and living room. At night, you're in the bedrooms. At various points, guest rooms, home offices, and spare bedrooms sit empty for hours or even days. With normal radiator valves, you're heating all of those rooms all of the time — and every unnecessary degree of heating costs electricity.

Smart TRVs replace the manual twist valves on each radiator and let you set temperatures per room, on a schedule, or automatically based on who's home. For a heat pump, this matters even more than it does for a gas boiler, because you're paying for electricity to run the pump. Heating three rooms instead of seven means the heat pump works less hard, runs more efficiently, and costs less.

The Energy Saving Trust estimates that thermostatic controls save £50–£150 per year depending on how many rooms you zone and how disciplined you are about schedules. For a three-bed house where two bedrooms sit empty during the day, the saving is real and measurable.

Our Picks

Best if You Have tado°: tado° Smart Radiator Thermostat

If you're already running a tado° thermostat (or plan to — see our smart thermostat guide), the matching TRVs are the obvious choice. They talk to the thermostat over the tado° bridge, and the whole system coordinates: if the living room TRV is calling for heat, the thermostat fires up the heat pump. If no TRVs are calling for heat, the system stays off. Simple, effective.

The open-window detection is a nice touch — if you open a bedroom window, the TRV notices the temperature drop and turns off the radiator in that room. The app lets you set schedules per room and shows you which rooms are being heated at any moment.

The 4-pack is the best value. You'll want one on each main living space and bedroom — you don't need them on bathrooms (which are rarely heated by a radiator alone) or hallways.

The catch: tado° is more expensive per valve than Drayton, and the optional subscription (£3/month) unlocks auto-assist features that really should be free. The core functionality works without it, though.

Best Value System: Drayton Wiser

If you don't already have a smart thermostat and want an all-in-one system, Drayton Wiser is hard to beat on value. The starter kit includes a hub, a room thermostat, and two smart TRVs — everything you need to get going. Additional TRVs are cheaper than tado° equivalents, which matters when you're kitting out a whole house.

The Wiser app is well-designed and includes a useful "Insights" feature that shows how much energy each room is using. The TRVs have a simple interface — a physical dial on the valve for manual adjustment, plus full app control. Build quality is good and Drayton is a well-established UK heating brand with solid support.

The main disadvantage versus tado° is that Wiser's integration with other smart home platforms (Alexa, Google Home) isn't quite as polished. But for pure heating control, it does everything you need.

Also Worth Considering: Hive Smart TRVs

If you're already in the Hive ecosystem (Hive thermostat, Hive lights, etc.), the Hive TRVs keep everything in one app. They're solid products, though not as feature-rich as tado° or as good value as Drayton. The main selling point is ecosystem consistency — one app, one account, everything works together.

How Many Do You Need?

You don't need one on every radiator. Focus on rooms that spend significant time empty:

• Bedrooms — the biggest win, especially spare rooms and kids' rooms during school hours
• Home office — only heat it when you're working
• Living room — if you're out during the day, this doesn't need to be warm until evening

You can skip hallways (they don't have doors to zone effectively), bathrooms (usually small and supplemented by towel rails), and kitchens (often warm from cooking anyway). For a typical three-bed house, 4–6 TRVs covers the rooms that matter.

Installation

Smart TRVs are a genuine DIY job. You unscrew the old valve head (the twisty bit — not the valve body connected to the pipe), screw on the new smart TRV, and pair it with the app. No draining the system, no plumber, no tools beyond your hands. The whole house can be done in an hour.

One thing to check: some older radiators have non-standard valve connections. Most smart TRVs include adapter rings for common fitting types (M28, M30, Danfoss RA/RAV), but check compatibility before ordering if your valves look unusual.

For more on reducing heat pump running costs, see our running costs guide.