Smart, timed or dumb thermostatic radiator valves?

[Silly Car]

Has anyone made to switch to smart or timer based thermostatic radiator valves instead of the traditional manual ones?

I’m considering a swap / system upgrade but put off with the cost of some of the smart solutions. My current set up is a dumb* zoned system with a wireless thermostat / controller (Salus iT500) as follows:

Z1 - top floor - two spare bedrooms and a bathroom, zone controlled by wired thermostat and boost button which is switched low unless we have guests
Z2 - first floor - master bedroom, my current office, spare bedroom**, main bathroom, staircase, zone controlled by wired thermostat and boost button
Z3 - ground floor (dining room** and lounge**) and basement (open plan living), again wired stat plus boost button
Z4 - hot water tank

Each zone has one radiator without thermostat to act as a bypass should all radiators be shut down and there is a system bypass valve in case all thermostats / zones shut down before the pump finishes its cycle.

* dumb as in simply thermostat, no programming, heating is either off, boosted via button within zone or timed via main timer / controller
** these radiators are normally switched to low as they aren’t typically used each day

current position
When working I simply boost zone 2 which heats the floor I’m on but also rooms in that zone I’m not in.
When the main timer stat kicks in, the entire house heats up even though we may only be in the basement

It occurs to me that I could add timer radiator stats (https://www.gasproducts.co.uk/terrier-i ... ntrol.html) which would turn off the rads in the bedrooms I’m not in when I’m working and bring them back on later in the evening to warm our bedroom / main bathroom before we retire for the evening plus control other rooms based on usage.

Alternatively, I could go full smart valves throughout the house and effectively turn every room into its own zone but that is a touch spendy even though I have been spurred into action as my energy bill has gone from £140 per month to £215 per month with the likelihood of a further increase in April as we are on a price capped variable rate.

I appreciate I could also manually turn radiators off and on as needed, but where is the fun in that!

[Mussels]

I've thought about a few solutions but apart from the initial cost:
a) Simple thermostatic valves seem to go wrong a lot, how much is maintaining fancy ones going to cost?
b) An old house with minimal heating is likely to develop damp problems, more cost.

I just turn the overall temperature down if I'm the only one in and put a jumper on.

[Silly Car]

I've thought about a few solutions but apart from the initial cost:
a) Simple thermostatic valves seem to go wrong a lot, how much is maintaining fancy ones going to cost?
b) An old house with minimal heating is likely to develop damp problems, more cost.

I just turn the overall temperature down if I'm the only one in and put a jumper on.

Good points

a) not experienced any faulty valves in a while, we’ve added new manual thermostatic valves along the way when we’ve decorated / moved / replaced undersized* rads etc. Screwfix often offer a free thermo valve when you buy a radiator.

*given the age, size and lack of insulation previously in the house, the radiators were woefully undersized. Boiler engineer reckons the boiler is undersized as well but felt the zoning / shutting off unoccupied rooms would bring it back into spec until it needs replacing.

b) under the current basis, the shut off rooms still warm up as they are still thermostically controlled, just at a lower level than comfortable, if we went for timed/smart valves, they could have a heating cycle once a day to drive off any damp.

On the subject of damp, given the house is 160+ years old and we have a basement, we only have some minor damp issues:

1. Ceilings in the loft bedrooms - knackered flashings / boundary with neighbouring properties - all solved now that we have new roofs front and back
2. Pantry walls (in basement) - water ingress from shite downpipes - now all solved. Litmus test is bog rolls are stored where worst damage is, they are unaffected
3. Under stairs /party wall - doesn’t feel damp but there is a section where paint just doesn’t want to stick. There is no radiator there any we’ve not observed any deterioration in the past three years.
4. Basement bay window - rendering is knackered on outside which I really must fix / get fixed. It is strange, the chimney breast in the same room used to leach effervescence pretty much constantly when we first moved in, since decorating, it hasn’t come back…

[Zimbo]

I used a tado system for a few years, I had the "standard" room thermostat type rather than the individual valves, but the functionality was excellent, set schedules for different temperatures at different times, good historical graphic reporting of on / off times, room temps vs outdoor temps etc. It looked after the hot water as well, and could turn it on / off or adjust temps remotely from the phone app, automatically step up the heating when you were home and reduce it when you weren't as an option, it was good. Only stopped using it because moved house and the new place is electric only, no gas supply. I believe the thermostat valve option replaces just the top of the valve so easy to install, and gives the same functionality but on a room by room basis, so would be absolutely ace once the schedules are set up!