EVE Thermo Review (2nd Gen, 2023 version) – Matter-ready, smart radiator valve

This is a detailed review of the EVE Thermo smart radiator valve and my experiences with it using Apple Home.

EVE Thermo is a good product that Apple also sells in its stores.

EVE Thermo is a tad on the expensive side, and compatibility claims made by EVE are simply UNtrue (UK). However, once fitted, it’s relatively easy to get working within Apple Home, and you can then control your room temperatures from anywhere with your iPhone, Apple Watch, or smart speakers or even control them manually or by pre-defined schedules. If that’s not smart enough for you, the valves can be triggered by events such as a window being left open or people leaving the room/house.

Thermo is clever, and it should be at £70/ €80 / $80 each. (Black Friday 2023 sales Prices fall to GBP50).

Please support this site by buying from the Amazon links provided…thank you! It’s just me here.

EVE Thermo – What is it?

EVE Thermo is sold as a smart radiator valve. It’s not! It’s a valve actuator that turns the valve that’s already part of your installed radiator.

Let’s pretend it’s a valve, as we all call it one! Sometimes, you might see them called a TRV or Thermostatic Radiator Valve. It directly measures the room temperature and turns the radiator valve on or off accordingly.

EVE doesn’t necessarily know if your central heating is working, so any individual Thermo can be set at any time. Note also that it is set to either ‘on’ or ‘off’; there is no in-between setting of partially on. The valve turns off, or on once the desired temperature is reached. So setting it to 30 degrees won’t get your room hotter any more quickly!

EVE Thermo Installation – Is it easy?

The installation is super simple if your existing radiator valve is compatible.

But…

If it’s NOT compatible, you must buy an adapter, which can be highly confusing. EVE Thermo comes ready to fit the modern standard of M30x1.5mm. M30 means the thread is 30mm in diameter. It also comes with 3x plastic converters that fit modern Danfoss-branded valves.

Compatibility

In the UK, up until 2000, the standard size was M28x1.0m. Most older UK radiators are that standard size, and the biggest downside I found in this review was that EVE Thermo was simply incompatible with them! EVE does not supply an adapter nor acknowledge the popularity of the old standard size. It washes its hands off your compatibility problems, helpfully suggesting that you get your plumber to have a look – good luck with paying a £100 call-out fee and £50 for the 30 minutes for a plumber to tell you that you will need an adapter which they may, or may not, be able to identify precisely.

The adapter I used: You will probably need something like one of these in the UK if you have pre-2000 radiators, an Electronic TRV Thermostat Valve Head (28mm to 30mm Adapter) for about £10ea from Amazon.

That should have the right thread for old radiators. But even then, you might have a problem with the pin on the top moving vertically up and down. Your existing valve may have a long pin that stops you screwing the adapter onto it.

If the existing pin is too short, EVE Thermo comes with a pin extender, which might or might not help you.

Warning: I have five different types of radiator valves in my house. Only two of them work with Thermo as supplied.

Eesh!

More: Compatability list of common European Radiator Valves.

Software Compatability

EVE Thermo supports the new THREAD standard. As of 2023, it has been updated to cover MATTER, and it works with all primary smart home setups from Google, Apple, Samsung and Amazon, although I could only review and test it with Apple Home and Google Home.

You will need your smartphone’s latest Apple iOS and Home versions. You will also need at least one Home Hub; an Apple HomePod Mini speaker is the minimum – iPads no longer work as a Home Hub.

It’s probably possible to get something working just with your smartphone, but then you will always be limited to Bluetooth range (up to 10m or 20m with THREAD); with a properly working Apple Home, you will get remote internet access.

You can link Google Nest and Homekit items using a Starling Home Hub (Bridge). This only makes Google NEST  Devices visible in Apple Home.

Note: I had difficulty connecting to one radiator. However, once I switched to connecting with Matter/Thread, the connection problem disappeared as Matter/Thread has a slightly longer range and/or can penetrate walls better.

Note: The Matter upgrade takes at least 10 minutes per device and involves a new secure code generated for the EVO. You MUST save this new code.

EVE Thermo Installation

Assuming EVE Thermo physically fits, you unscrew the old one and screw on the new one, it needs to be firmly tightened by hand. While you have the old valve off, you might want to tap the existing pin with a hammer and put some lubricant on it. That pin must move freely over its entire range for everything to work. It might need some force to move it, but that’s OK.

Put some AA batteries in the top compartment of the Thermo and scan the QR code with the Apple Home app.

You will be asked to name your Thermo and digitally place it in one of the Rooms on the app. The app will then perform a calibration, which means that it works out the vertical limits of the pin so it knows how much to press it down and how much to release it. If anything goes wrong, you might have to delve into the EVE app to recalibrate Thermo.

Note: You should always have one radiator on, usually in your downstairs hallway. Do not add a TRV or EVE Thermo to this, as your central heating system needs to allow the pump to pump a minimum continuous volume.

Apple’s Siri – Simple Use

You could say, “Hey Siri, turn the lounge radiator to 20.5 degrees.” Providing you have the radiator named correctly, you can use Siri on your iPhone in the car, on your Watch at work or via your smart speakers at home.

try, “Hey Siri, what’s the temperature in the living room.” and it will tell you the room temperature according to EVE Thermo

or “Hey Siri, what is the lounge radiator set to?” will elicit the response, “The lounge radiator is warming to 21 degrees Celcius.“

Opinion: I’ve used Siri and Google Assistant for several years now, and they’re both pretty good at controlling smart home items. After a while, it becomes perhaps the most common way you interact with these radiator valves.

Apple Watch // Home App – Simple Use

Turning to the Apple Home app on your Watch, you get the same features as Siri, except now with visual cues and the ability to use the digital crown to set the temperature.

Apple iPhone // Home App

The iPhone provides a much smarter and more visually rich environment than the Watch. You can view basic information like the units of display and battery status and perform super-clever actions called Automations.

Here, you can see I’ve enabled one automation that turns the radiator on when anyone arrives home. You could more usefully set the radiators to turn off when the last person leaves the home. The scope of what you can do is limited by the number and type of Home Automation sensors in your house.

Tip: Create a schedule with an Apple SCENE. You first assign all the appropriate smart devices to the scene, such as all your upstairs radiators, and then create an automation triggered at times of the day.

Tip: Use sensor automation to turn all radiators on once your central heating falls below 20 degrees. Each EVE Thermo will fine-tune the heating in each room.

Once you own many smart sensors, Apple Home allows you to organise them by room or on the Home screen as favourites. This organisation is also copied on the Apple Watch Home App, but the iPhone’s larger display presents this kind of information in a more visually useful way.

EVE Thermo – Manual Usage

Thermo displays the desired temperature and has controls for manually setting the target temperature.

One of my radiators is in a remote location, and I haven’t yet figured out why it can’t always link to Apple Home on my mesh WiFi. I can control it with my iPhone’s Bluetooth if I am close to it or set it manually.

EVE Thermo // Using The Temperature Offset

You will have problems with temperature stabilisation. Why? Placing a thermometer next to a hot radiator is the worst place to take an accurate room temperature! This will be made worse if, for example, EVE Thermo is in the corner of a room or any other place where air circulation is reduced.

The solution is to set a temperature offset in the EVE app. 

Invariably, EVE will heat the room to a higher temperature than you want. Change the offset to +2.0 (plus two, not negative 2) and see how it goes.

You can probably use automations to determine the room temperature from other Apple devices in the room. I didn’t try that.

iPhone // EVE App

The EVE app is worth installing on your phone; in any case, you must do it for the initial installation and calibration. You update firmware via that app. There is no EVE app for the Apple Watch.

From a day-to-day perspective, the EVE app gives no reason to ditch Apple Home even though it contains similar features like automations. However, it lets you set a child lock, set a temperature offset if the recorded room temperature doesn’t match reality, and includes valve protection. Valve protection is worth enabling. Remember I said to bang the valve pin with a hammer when installing? Well, the protection feature on the app stops the valve from seizing up by regularly turning it off and on.

EVE Thermo Review – Usage Scenarios

I tried to think of a few situations where EVE Thermo might be useful

• Airbnb Property owners – You can create multiple houses and remotely/automatically manage the radiator settings should one of your guests reset them.
• Adverse cold temperature – You can turn radiators on regularly to keep a seldom-used room aired. A manual TRV could do that equally well.
• Returning from holiday – You can turn your heating on at the airport and your house will be cosy and warm when you get home.
• Always turn the radiators off when the last person has left the house – Apple Home ‘knows’ when you’ve all left.
• Child Lock a temperature to stop your kids from getting too cold by accident.
• Set a detailed time/day/temperature schedule for each room
• Great for people with mobility issues
• Get alerts for dangerously low temperatures in remote properties with a risk of freezing.
• Automatically turn the radiator off if a window in the same room is open (requires a window sensor)

EVE Thermo Review – Take Out

As home automation gets ever more popular, Apple, Google and maybe Samsung/Amazon will inevitably be the ecosystems that dominate the future. Pre-2023, this created problems for consumers as they didn’t always know which 3rd party brands’ accessories to buy. The advent of MATTER and THREAD standards has changed the situation, and you should always look for the MATTER symbol when purchasing a smart accessory for your home.

Most of us use a lot of expensive energy when heating water. Our central heating system circulates heated water and, because of the War in Ukraine and its knock-on effect on fuel prices, is forming an ever-increasing part of our home budgets. It’s now reached the point where smart technology might pay for itself with real-life savings rather than being a nice toy to play with (me!).

I already control my central heating boiler with a Google Nest device. However, for a variety of reasons, I wanted to be able to control the temperature in 4 rooms individually. My scenarios covered – not being bothered to walk upstairs to turn a radiator off, getting greater precision with an electronic radiator valve, managing the bedroom radiators of home members who are often away, keeping seldom used rooms aired, and adding greater control to a room that also has an often-used log burner.

The three most significant downsides to EVE Thermo are complexity, the cost of each valve AND a 3rd party adapter (probably not supplied), and physical compatibility with slightly older radiators.

• EVE is excellent for simply controlling a radiator. However, once you start adding complex automation routines and scenarios, you will probably find that in years to come, you have forgotten the original logic behind it all and will have to troubleshoot why your central heating is mysteriously turning itself off.
• I don’t think I will ever recover the cost, but I will enjoy my new tech, which might increase the comfort level of the microclimate in my house.
• EVE is not very helpful when selling a product that should universally fit all radiators from the box. It doesn’t. I would say that some of the claims they make on compatibilities are untrue.

I am generally happy with my purchase and would recommend them. I would buy them from somewhere you can quickly return them if they don’t fit i.e. Amazon.

Price when reviewed: £70 (UK) // €80 (Europe) // $80 (USA)

(Amazon sale prices have dropped below £50, and I would guess $50 is a good price to aim for in the USA).