Hive Thermostat Mini Review: £79, No Hub Needed — Mostly
Hive’s small, mirror-fronted thermostat is still on sale at £79 and is now the cheapest way into Hive’s system. The reviews agree it is easy to live with and not very clever. The real trouble is the listings: there are at least three versions on sale, and they disagree about whether you need a hub, whether it does OpenTherm and whether it runs a hot-water cylinder. We have sorted that out first.
Where the reviews line up
Our three sources are an editorial test from Expert Reviews, a scored review by a Gas Safe registered engineer at Heatable, and the buyer ratings at Screwfix (73 ratings across two Mini V4 listings). They agree on more than you might expect.
All three are happy with the basics. It is cheap, simple and does the job. Expert Reviews calls it “an effective smart thermostat” and “among the cheapest smart thermostats around”. Heatable gives it 4/5 and calls it “a fairly reliable product with all the essential features”. Screwfix buyers rate the hub kit 4.7/5. All three also agree it is not clever. It does not learn your routine, the thermostat itself has only a few controls, and most features live in the app. Expert Reviews points out there is no physical boost button.
Where the sources part company, the cause is the version, not the product. The earlier Mini that Trusted Reviews tested needed a Hive Hub and did not support OpenTherm. Hive’s current page says no hub is needed and claims “up to 12% extra energy savings” from OpenTherm on compatible boilers. Check the part number before you buy, especially if you have a hot-water cylinder or think you might add Hive radiator valves later.
Hive+ is optional. Schedules, boost, holiday mode, frost protection, geolocation alerts and voice control all work without it. The subscription adds Saver Mode, Schedule Assist, a budget tracker and a longer warranty. The standard guarantee is one year, which is short for something wired to your boiler.
The three reviews this summary is built from
- Expert ReviewsEditorial test by Jonathan Bray, 3 December 2024. “Recommended”, with no score given.
- HeatableReview by Gas Safe registered engineer Patrick Garner, updated 12 January 2026. Scored 4/5 overall.
- Screwfix4.7/5 from 63 reviews (hub kit) and 4.4/5 from 10 (hubless kit), 5 October 2026.
Before the review: which Mini are you buying?
The name “Hive Thermostat Mini” is used for at least three different kits. The listings we read on 5 October 2026 contradict each other:
- Hive’s own Mini (£79) controls heating and hot water. Hive says “no hub required”. In the box are the thermostat, a receiver, 4 × AAA batteries and a user guide.
- Mini V4 with Nano 3 Hub (Screwfix 250YU, £135; Quality Heating part 852110, £145) is for combi boilers only. It comes with a hub, which needs an Ethernet connection to your router and USB power. You need the hub if you want Hive radiator valves (TRV003) or smart plugs.
- Hubless Mini V4 (Screwfix 306YU, £76.19) is also a combi, heating-only kit. Quality Heating says it connects to Wi-Fi directly and works on its own. But Screwfix’s spec table for the same product says “Requires smart hub”. If you have a cylinder, you need the heating and hot water version instead (Quality Heating part 852034, £90).
- Older Mini listings at Currys (£78.97) and AO say you need a Hive Hub, sold separately.
Our reading is that the older Mini needed a hub and the current V4 Mini does not, unless you want radiator valves. Because the retailers disagree, check the exact part number with the seller before you order.
Specification at a glance
| Spec | Figure | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Price | £79 at Hive (£67.15 for Hive+ members). £76.19 hubless and £135 with hub at Screwfix. £78.97 at Currys | Checked 5 October 2026 |
| In the box (Hive) | Thermostat Mini, receiver, 4 × AAA batteries, user guide | Hive’s product page. Screwfix and Currys say 4 × AA. Expert Reviews says AAA |
| Hub | Not needed for Hive’s current Mini. Needed for radiator valves and smart plugs | Hive and Quality Heating. Currys, AO and Screwfix’s 306YU spec say a hub is needed |
| Boilers | Most gas and LPG boilers. Oil boilers with an existing thermostat or programmer. Electric boilers with a standard room thermostat | Hive |
| Combi vs cylinder | Heating-only kits suit combis. Systems with a hot-water cylinder need a heating and hot water kit | Quality Heating. Heatable lists combi, system and heat-only boilers |
| Not compatible | Heat pumps, solid fuel, electric underfloor heating, storage heaters. Some Worcester Bosch models (ICC2, CRD 537i/542i, some Greenstar). Honeywell SmartFit, Vaillant VR 65 | Hive’s product page |
| OpenTherm | Yes on V4, claimed “up to 12% extra energy savings”. Not available alongside multi-zone set-ups or radiator valves | Hive and Quality Heating. Trusted Reviews says the older Mini had no OpenTherm |
| Size | Thermostat 84 × 83 × 22 mm, 132 g with batteries. Receiver 90 × 90 × 36.8 mm, mains powered | Hive. Heatable gives 85 × 22 × 85 mm |
| Temperature range | 5–32°C | Screwfix and Heatable |
| Connections | Zigbee and Wi-Fi, 2.4 GHz only. Works with Alexa, Google Home and Apple HomeKit | Screwfix. Matter is not listed |
| Installation | £109 British Gas fit (offer, out of stock on 5 Oct). £100 Hive engineer (Expert Reviews, 2024). Heatable estimates £150–£240 fitted | Three different figures — see below |
| Hive+ | £3.99 a month. Hive’s page also shows £19.95 a year. TechRadar says £39.90 a year, and Heatable and Expert Reviews say about £40 | Annual price disputed |
| Guarantee | 1 year. Extended while you subscribe to Hive+ | Hive, Screwfix and Currys |
Expert Reviews
Bray reviewed it when it cost £59 for the thermostat alone, or £119 with the hub and receiver. His verdict is clear about what it is: “an effective smart thermostat” and “an affordable way to get into the world of smart thermostats”, but not the smartest. He says Tado, Google Nest and Honeywell all offer more. He likes that it is cheap, easy to use, small and expandable. His complaints are that there is no physical boost button, so you need the app, that the thermostat itself has few controls, and that Hive radiator valves “significantly” add to the cost at £54 each.
His summary of the subscription matches what Hive says now. Without Hive Heating Plus you still get schedules with several time slots per day, remote control, geolocation, radiator valve support, IFTTT, and Alexa, HomeKit and Google Home. Paying adds heating history and trends, efficiency monitoring, cost tracking, Schedule Assist, a longer warranty and 10% off Hive products. He also notes that Hive did not recommend fitting it yourself, and quoted £100 for a Hive engineer. He did not test energy savings, and his review dates from before Hive’s hubless V4 kits, so treat his hub comments as history.
Trusted Reviews also tested the earlier Mini, as its main thermostat during the review period. It found the app “often annoying”, said changes could take up to four minutes to reach the boiler, and noted that “neither boiler box supports OpenTherm”. It also judged it “a good value system”.
Watch: Genius Gadget or Overhyped? Hive Mini Full Review + Walkthrough
A full walkthrough of the Mini and its app. It is the closest video match to an editorial review. We confirmed it from search listings only, and the listing did not name the channel.
Watch on YouTube ↗Heatable
Heatable sells boilers and installations, so it is not neutral. But this is the only scored review we found by someone who fits heating controls for a living, and it is the most recent. Garner scores it 4/5 for reliability, design, guarantee and price, but only 3/5 for performance, because it does not learn your routine and needs the app for most things. He says it works with combi, system and heat-only boilers, and he counts the one-year warranty as normal for the industry.
He is cooler than Hive about the subscription, saying the roughly £40-a-year Hive Heating Plus “lacks compelling value”. He also points to Hive’s mixed reputation: 2.3 stars on Trustpilot and 3.6/5 for tech support. That fits a Mumsnet thread from August 2025 (17 replies), where owners were positive but one pointed out that you cannot use the app when your Wi-Fi is down. The wall thermostat still works, though. His fitted price of £150–£240 is higher than Hive’s £109 offer, because it includes the device and an independent engineer’s labour. Hive itself says you can fit it yourself only if you are “competent in electrical wiring and DIY”. The thermostat runs on batteries, but the receiver is wired to the mains at the boiler.
Watch: How to Install the Hive Thermostat Mini on a Traditional Heating System, Step by Step Instructions.
A step-by-step install on a system with a hot-water cylinder, the set-up where buying the wrong kit costs most. Watch it before deciding whether to fit it yourself. We confirmed it from search listings only.
Watch on YouTube ↗Screwfix
Screwfix is where most UK fitters buy, and it is the only retailer we found with a useful number of ratings for the current V4 Mini. That said, 73 ratings across two listings is not many, and these are reviews hosted by the shop selling the product. Currys’ older listing shows 4.8/5 from just six reviews. Heatable quotes 4.4/5 on Amazon with 73% five-star, but gives no review count, so we have not relied on it. We could not see the text of the Screwfix reviews, so we can only report the scores, not the themes behind them.
What the Screwfix listings are useful for is the spec. The hub kit is listed for combi boilers only, with OpenTherm, a 2.4 GHz Zigbee and Wi-Fi connection, a 5–32°C range, boost of up to six hours and a one-year guarantee. The hubless kit says it fits a standard UK backplate with a two-wire receiver, works with wet underfloor heating, and has a 3 A maximum load. Both list Alexa, HomeKit and Google Home, but not Matter or Home Assistant.
Watch: Hive Thermostat Mini Review - How to SAVE MONEY on heating bills
An owner-style review focused on money saving, which is the claim buyers most want checked. We confirmed it from search listings only, and the listing did not name the channel.
Watch on YouTube ↗Strengths and weak points
What holds up
- The cheapest way into Hive, at £79 or less, and the current version needs no hub.
- Small and neat, at 84 × 83 × 22 mm, and runs on batteries so it can go on any wall.
- The core features work without a subscription: schedules, boost, holiday mode, frost protection, geolocation alerts and voice control.
- OpenTherm on V4 kits, if your boiler supports it.
- Can grow to six zones and room-by-room radiator valves, as long as you buy a hub kit.
- Steady ratings: 4.7/5 from 63 Screwfix reviews, and 4/5 from a Gas Safe engineer.
What people complain about
- Not a learning thermostat, and the unit itself has few controls. Expert Reviews notes there is no physical boost button.
- Version confusion over hub, OpenTherm and hot water, with retailers contradicting each other.
- OpenTherm cannot be used together with multi-zone or radiator valves.
- Only a one-year guarantee unless you keep paying for Hive+.
- The app gets mixed reviews: Trusted Reviews found it “often annoying”, and Hive scores 2.3 on Trustpilot (via Heatable).
- The “up to £182 a year” saving is a headline figure, not a measured result (see below).
The savings claim, checked
Hive’s Mini page says you could “save up to £182 a year”. Two Hive pages we read on 5 October 2026 gave different footnotes for that figure. One said it is based on Ofgem’s medium consumption of 9,500 kWh. Another, the shop listing, attached it to the full-size thermostat and gave a £158.40 saving at 11,500 kWh and 5.739p per kWh. The Hive+ claim of “up to an extra £18 a month in cold weather” is described by Hive as the top 30% of monthly savings across its customers from October 2020 to November 2023. That is a best case, not an average. None of our three sources measured savings. TechRadar, reviewing the full-size Hive Thermostat, said it “won’t necessarily reduce your heating bill”. Any saving comes from using schedules and turning heating down when you are out, not from the hardware itself.
Who it actually suits
Buy it if you have a gas combi boiler, want app control and a proper schedule for the least money, and have no plans for room-by-room radiator valves. In that case the hubless V4 is the simplest kit Hive sells. It also suits people who already use Alexa or HomeKit and want heating to work with them.
Look elsewhere if you want a thermostat that learns your routine or reacts to the weather, or if you have a heat pump, solid fuel or electric storage heating. If you want OpenTherm and radiator valves together, Hive cannot do both at once. If a longer guarantee without a subscription matters to you, compare it with Tado and Nest before you buy. If you have a hot-water cylinder, make sure the kit says “heating and hot water”.
What we could not check
- Hub or no hub on the hubless V4. Quality Heating says it works standalone on Wi-Fi. Screwfix’s spec table for the same product says “Requires smart hub”. We could not settle it from Hive’s own documentation.
- Battery size. Hive and Expert Reviews say 4 × AAA. Screwfix and Currys say 4 × AA. They may be describing different versions.
- The Hive+ annual price. Hive’s page showed £19.95 a year alongside £3.99 a month. TechRadar says £39.90 a year, and Heatable and Expert Reviews say about £40. It may be a promotion, so check at checkout.
- The basis of the £182 saving. Two Hive pages gave different footnotes, and no independent test has measured savings from the Mini.
- The 12% OpenTherm figure is Hive’s claim. Nobody has tested it independently.
- An editorial test of the V4 Mini. Expert Reviews (December 2024) and Trusted Reviews both reviewed earlier versions. We found no Which? test with published figures. Hive’s “Which? Best Buy” badge is Hive’s own claim.
- Screwfix review text. Only the scores and counts were visible to us, so we cannot say what drives them.
- The videos. We confirmed all three from YouTube search listings (each title and link appeared in two differently worded searches), not by opening them. The listings did not name the channels, and we cannot say which hardware version each one shows.
- Long-term reliability. None of our sources covers more than a review period.
Sources last checked 5 October 2026. Prices, kit contents and Hive+ terms change often, so check the part number and the listing in front of you before ordering.