Drayton Wiser Thermostat Kit 2 Review: Heating and Hot Water, No Subscription
Wiser’s two-channel kit is the cheapest way into a smart system that can later control every radiator in the house — and it costs nothing a month. The catch is in the name: Kit 2 is for homes with a hot water cylinder, and plenty of combi owners have bought it by mistake. Here is what the testers, the forum electricians and the owners say, and what the add-ons really cost.
Where the reviews line up
Our evidence comes from three places: TechRadar’s hands-on test of the Wiser system, a long wiring thread on DIYnot Forums where experienced electricians talk owners through fitting the hub, and Trustpilot, where 498 people have reviewed Wiser’s own online shop. None of them tested the current second-generation Kit 2 specifically — TechRadar and DIYnot are about the first-generation system — and we say where that matters.
They agree on three things. It is simple to use and cheap to expand: TechRadar called the app incredibly easy to use and found the radiator thermostats around £20 cheaper than rivals’, which is where Wiser earns its keep. The hub is a mains-wired job: Drayton itself recommends a qualified electrician or heating engineer, and the DIYnot regulars spend most of their thread warning people to check whether their boiler takes 230 V or low-voltage control before connecting anything. And there is no subscription — Drayton states it, and none of our sources found a feature locked behind a fee.
The complaints are consistent too. TechRadar found the plastics cheap-looking and the radiator heads unable to show room temperature (on the first-generation model). Trustpilot’s one-star reviews, 16% of the total, cluster on Wi-Fi drop-outs and an email-only support line.
The buying decision is about your boiler, not the gadget. Kit 2 is the two-channel version for a boiler with a separate hot water cylinder. If you have a combi, you want Kit 1. And the “save up to 30%” claim on the box is a lab figure from industry-funded research; the same BEAMA programme’s headline for better thermostat control alone was 10–12%.
The three reviews this summary is built from
- TechRadarHands-on test by its then Homes Editor, installer-fitted. First-generation system, updated February 2022.
- DIYnot ForumsSeven posters on a 2021 wiring thread, including regulars with 8,000 and 29,000 posts. First-generation Heat Hub.
- Trustpilot4.2/5 from 498 reviews of Wiser’s online shop, 125 in the past year, checked 12 October 2026.
Before the review: which kit is which
Drayton now sells a second-generation range. Its own shop calls this one the 2 Channel Smart Room Thermostat Kit; Screwfix and Quality Heating call it the Wiser Thermostat Kit 2, code CCTFR6902G2D. The older first-generation Kit 2 (WT724R9K0902 at Wickes, WT724R9K29SX at Screwfix) is still listed in places. Combi owners want Kit 1 (CCTFR6901G2D) instead; Quality Heating’s Kit 2 page sends combi buyers there. The Multi-Zone Kit 2 (CCTFR69042G2D, £322.80 at Screwfix) is the same hub and thermostat with two radiator thermostats added.
Specification at a glance
| Spec | Figure | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| In the box | 2 Channel 2nd Generation HubR, one Wiser Room Thermostat, 2 × AA batteries, installation manual | Drayton shop; Screwfix and Quality Heating agree |
| Boiler type | Conventional or system boiler with a separate hot water cylinder; relay switching. Not for combis | Drayton says conventional; Screwfix’s spec table says “System Boilers” — both are cylinder setups |
| OpenTherm | Unclear for this kit. Drayton’s 2nd-gen datasheet shows OpenTherm terminals on the 2 Channel HubR; the kit pages list relay control only | Ask your installer to confirm for your boiler |
| Heat pumps | On/off control only | Drayton |
| Boiler Plus | Compliant | Drayton |
| Subscription | None | Drayton: “everything needed is in the kit” |
| Expansion | Up to 16 zones and 63 devices | Drayton and Screwfix |
| Smart home | Alexa, Google Assistant; Screwfix also lists Matter. Not Apple HomeKit or Home Assistant | Drayton does not mention Matter on the kit page |
| Hub | 150.8 × 94 × 30.25 mm; 230 V mains; 2 A resistive per switch; IP30 | Drayton |
| Room thermostat | 76 × 76 × 25 mm; 2 × AA; IP20; 5–30°C; wall or freestanding | Drayton; range from Screwfix |
| Radio | Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz and Zigbee 2.4 GHz mesh | Drayton |
| Extra radiator thermostat | £59.99 white, £69.99 anthracite; 3-pack £167.99 | Drayton shop sale prices, 12 Oct 2026 |
| Warranty | 3 years bought from Drayton’s shop · 1 year at Screwfix · 1.5 years on the old kit at Wickes | Sources disagree — see below |
| Price | RRP £247.80; £210.63 at Drayton (15% off); £196.80 Screwfix; £195.00 Quality Heating | All checked 12 Oct 2026 |
TechRadar
Who they are: Carrie-Ann Skinner was TechRadar’s Homes Editor, covering smart home devices and home appliances, with more than two decades in journalism and about 13 years of it on technology, according to her TechRadar profile — so this is a specialist living with the system rather than a first look.
This is the most thorough hands-on test of the Wiser system we found, but it predates the second-generation hub and radiator thermostats, so read it as a test of the platform rather than this exact box. It covers both Multi-zone Kit 1 (combi) and Kit 2 (boilers with a programmer) without saying which she fitted. The headline verdict is room-by-room radiator control at a lower price than rivals: the radiator thermostats were around £20 cheaper than competitors’ and, across a whole house, that adds up.
The practical findings are the useful part. Drayton recommends a qualified electrician or heating engineer for the hub, and she had a certified installer fit it. She found the app simple, with schedules you can copy and “Moments” automations, but boosts took between ten seconds and a minute to reach the hub, and one radiator out of range needed a Wiser smart plug as a signal booster. Against it: a cheap-looking design, no motion sensing, and radiator heads that do not show room temperature. Battery life was about a year as claimed, but drained faster in cold weather; Drayton now claims more than two years for its second-generation radiator thermostat.
Watch: Drayton Wiser Smart Heating Controls. Installing, Setting Up, & Using. All the Smart Thermostat's
A whole-system walkthrough — hub, room thermostat and radiator heads — that matches the scope of TechRadar’s test. Which generation is shown is not clear from the listing.
Watch on YouTube ↗ Independent YouTube video — not made by or for Shopbam.DIYnot Forums
Who they are: DIYnot Forums is a UK home-improvement discussion board where DIYers and tradespeople answer questions on electrics, plumbing and building; posts are unverified personal experience, so the value lies in consistent advice across many replies rather than any one.
If you are thinking of fitting the hub yourself, read this thread first. It is about the first-generation Heat Hub, but the lesson carries straight over to Kit 2. The original poster had a Vaillant combi and had bought the two-channel Wiser, though he only needed heating. A second owner with an Arca combi joined later and concluded that the two-channel unit would not work for his boiler at all — and could not find the one-channel version locally. That is exactly the Kit 1 versus Kit 2 mistake, made twice in one thread.
The advice from the regulars — posters with 8,000, 29,000 and 6,900 messages — is careful rather than encouraging. Take the hub’s supply from the same fused spur as the boiler; check from the boiler manual whether it uses 230 V, 24 V or a bus such as eBUS before connecting, because 230 V on a low-voltage board “would not be good”; never put mains on OpenTherm terminals; and do not disturb the boiler’s gas-tight seals to reach its wiring. One long-time poster reports OpenTherm working well with the Drayton hub. Nobody in the thread said “easy”.
Watch: How to Install the Wiser 2nd Generation 2 Channel HubR
The exact hub in this kit being wired up. Watch it before deciding whether this is a DIY job or a call to a heating engineer.
Watch on YouTube ↗ Independent YouTube video — not made by or for Shopbam.Trustpilot
Who they are: Trustpilot is an open review platform where anyone can review a business about a genuine experience, invited or unprompted; it screens reviews automatically, removed 7.8 million fakes in 2025 and is funded by business subscriptions, so read it for service, not products.
These are reviews of Wiser’s own online shop, not of Kit 2 alone, and some are labelled verified while many were posted without an invitation. Drayton invites customers to review and has replied to 92% of negative reviews. We found no product rating for the second-generation Kit 2 with a usable sample: Screwfix showed no reviews, and Drayton’s own page shows 5.0 from one review alongside a 4.30 from 314 figure that is a shared widget, repeated on its radiator thermostat page. Screwfix’s first-generation Kit 2 listing shows 3.9/5 from 27 reviews, but we could not read a single one.
What the recent Trustpilot reviews say is concrete. Against: a home whose system “loses connection to the home wifi fairly often”, and a complaint that technical support is email-only (both 10 October 2026); another owner unhappy that the app keeps reverting to its built-in schedule. For: a second-generation controller installation that went well once support “resolved the issues very quickly”, quick delivery, and an owner noting the new radiator thermostats are much quieter. Named support staff are praised often — though one reviewer mentions an expected reply time of up to seven working days.
Watch: Goodbye Tado, Hello Drayton Wiser! — Full Installation & Setup Guide!
An owner switching from tado to Wiser and setting it up from scratch — closest in spirit to the owners on Trustpilot. Which kit and generation it shows is not stated in the listing.
Watch on YouTube ↗ Independent YouTube video — not made by or for Shopbam.The savings claim, checked
Drayton’s page says you can “save up to 30%” on heating costs, citing “BEAMA and Salford university research statistics 2021”, and adds that savings depend on your home. The 2021 BEAMA press release we found from that research programme, run at the University of Salford’s Energy House, gives about 10% gas saving from replacing a basic room thermostat with a load-compensating one and about 12% where boiler and thermostat talk to each other — that needs OpenTherm or similar. An earlier 2016 study by TACMA, BEAMA’s heating-controls group, at the same facility put the saving from a room thermostat plus radiator thermostats at “up to 40%”. Both are lab tests in a chamber, not occupied homes, and both were commissioned by the industry that sells the controls. We could not find the 30% figure itself. Treat it as a best case that needs radiator thermostats as well, not a forecast.
Strengths and weak points
What holds up
- No subscription, and nothing our sources found behind a paywall.
- Separate heating and hot water schedules from one app.
- Cheap to grow room by room: radiator thermostats from £59.99 at Drayton, up to 16 zones.
- App praised as simple by TechRadar; copyable schedules and automations.
- Works with Alexa and Google Assistant; Boiler Plus compliant.
- Drayton gives three years’ cover if you buy from its own shop.
What people complain about
- Wrong kit for a combi — and people keep buying it for one.
- The hub is mains-wired; DIYnot’s electricians are cautious and Drayton recommends a professional.
- Wi-Fi drop-outs and email-only support recur in Trustpilot’s one-star reviews.
- Plastics look cheap and boosts lag, per TechRadar (first generation).
- No Apple HomeKit or Home Assistant support listed.
- Warranty depends on where you buy: one year at Screwfix against three at Drayton.
Who it actually suits
Buy it if you have a conventional or system boiler with a hot water cylinder and a programmer on the wall, you want app control of both heating and hot water without a monthly fee, and you might add radiator thermostats room by room later. For a like-for-like swap of an old two-channel programmer it is a low-cost route into multi-room control — Expert Reviews, testing the first-generation one-channel kit in 2023, said “you can’t find multiroom heating for less”.
Look elsewhere if you have a combi (buy Kit 1, or compare the Hive Thermostat Mini and tado X), if you want a premium-feeling thermostat on the wall like the Nest Learning Thermostat, or if you want the cylinder-home rival from a bigger name — the Hive heating and hot water kit. And if a plug-in heater is the only thing you want to schedule, a Tapo P110 smart plug does that for far less.
What we could not check
- No independent test of the second-generation Kit 2. TechRadar’s review and the DIYnot thread are both about the first-generation system. We found no Which?, Trusted Reviews or Expert Reviews test of this exact kit.
- OpenTherm on this kit. Drayton’s datasheet shows OpenTherm terminals on the 2 Channel HubR, but the kit pages only mention relay switching, and Quality Heating says OpenTherm only in captions for other hubs. Confirm with your installer for your boiler.
- Warranty. Drayton says 3 years (bought from its shop), Screwfix 1 year, Wickes 1.5 years on the old kit, and Expert Reviews reported 2 years return-to-base on the first generation. We could not find Drayton’s full warranty terms.
- The “up to 30%” savings figure. We could not find it in the BEAMA material we read, which gives 10–12% for better thermostat control.
- Product-level buyer ratings. No second-generation Kit 2 listing had more than one review. Trustpilot rates Wiser’s shop, not this product, and Screwfix’s 3.9/5 from 27 is for the first-generation kit, with no review text readable.
- Old-kit availability. Screwfix’s first-generation Kit 2 page said “no longer available” at one address and showed £99.98 at another; Wickes listed its old kit as in stock but with no price readable. We have not used either price.
- Stock. Screwfix showed delivery and collection options but no stock count, and we found no Toolstation listing for the second-generation kit.
- Hub power use is not published, so we could not work out a running cost at the Ofgem cap.
- The videos were confirmed by their search listings, not by opening them, and none of the listings named a channel.
- The DIYnot thread has a second page we did not read.
Sources last checked 12 October 2026. Prices and warranty terms change — check them against the listing in front of you before ordering.