The short version
- At the October to December 2026 price cap, gas costs 7.97p a kWh. Ofgem’s typical home uses 9,500 kWh a year, which is £757.15 of gas before the standing charge. That £757.15 is the only part of the bill a thermostat can cut.
- We ranked five smart thermostats by the two-winter cut: the share of that gas each one has to save to pay back its price inside two years. It runs from 4.1% for the £62.18 Meross to 12.5% for the £189 Drayton Wiser kit.
- The makers’ own savings claims sit on different footings. Hive’s £181.62 a year is already pegged to the October cap and works out at 24.0% of a typical home’s gas, twice the 12% in Hive’s own OpenTherm footnote. tado’s £244 is 22% of a £1,109 gas heating bill from 2024. The same 22% at today’s rate and typical use is £166.57.
- Taken at their word, the three thermostats that publish a claim all pay back in under 11 months. At the Energy Saving Trust’s £100 a year for installing heating controls, the same five take 7.5 to 22.7 months.
- We have taken the Google Nest off this page. The fourth generation sold on Amazon.co.uk ships from Amazon US and has not launched outside North America.
Every smart thermostat box promises a saving, and every maker works it out a different way. One uses this quarter’s price cap. One uses a 2024 gas bill. One uses research from 2021 and says “up to”. Google’s figure comes from homes in 41 US states. Put side by side, the numbers look comparable and they are not.
So this page does one thing the boxes don’t. It puts every thermostat on the same footing: the October 2026 cap rate on Ofgem’s typical gas use, with each price read on Amazon.co.uk on 1 October 2026. Then it asks how long each one takes to pay for itself, first on the maker’s own claim and then on a figure the maker didn’t write.
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Prices and specs last checked by Look Into on 1 October 2026 · how we picked
The two-winter cut, and why we rank by it
The two-winter cut is our name for the share of a typical home’s gas a thermostat has to save to pay back its price within two years at the current cap. It is the price divided by two years of gas: £1,514.30 at 7.97p and 9,500 kWh. Two years because the saving happens in the heating months, so two years is two winters of real use.
We rank by it because it needs nothing from the maker. A saving claim can be argued with. The price and the cap rate can’t. The cut also tells you something you can check against your own habits. If the thermostat needs to trim 4% off your gas and you already heat an empty house every weekday, that is easy. If it needs 20% and you already run a tight schedule, it probably won’t.
One thing to be plain about: every thermostat here is cutting the same gas at the same price, so ranking on the cut is the same as ranking on price. That is the finding, not a flaw. Nobody publishes evidence that a dearer thermostat saves more in a UK home, so price is the only thing you can compare like for like.
| Thermostat | Price, 1 Oct 2026 | Two-winter cut | Maker’s claim | Claim at the October cap, a year | Payback on the claim | Payback at £100 a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meross Smart Thermostat | £62.18 | 4.1% | None published | n/a | n/a | 7.5 months |
| tado° Wireless Smart Thermostat X kit | £129.99 | 8.6% | 22% on average | £166.57 | 9.4 months | 15.6 months |
| Netatmo Smart Thermostat | £139.92 | 9.2% | None published | n/a | n/a | 16.8 months |
| Hive Smart Thermostat, combi, with hub | £165.00 | 10.9% | Up to £182 a year | £181.62 | 10.9 months | 19.8 months |
| Drayton Wiser 2nd Gen Kit 1, combi | £189.00 | 12.5% | Up to 30% | £227.14 | 10.0 months | 22.7 months |
| Wiser Kit 1 plus two radiator thermostats | £308.98 | 20.4% | Up to 30% | £227.14 | 16.3 months | 37.1 months |
What each maker claims, on one footing
Hive is the only maker already pricing its claim at this quarter’s cap. Its thermostat page says “save up to £182 a year”, and the footnote gives £181.62 on Ofgem’s medium gas use of 9,500 kWh at 7.966p, the October 2026 rate. That is 24.0% of a typical home’s gas. A separate footnote on the same page says a directly modulating thermostat saves up to 12% against a standard room thermostat. Hive doesn’t say what makes up the other half of the £182.
tado° says users save 22% on average, and its UK homepage footnote says that comes from its own customer data collected up to 30 November 2023. Its shop turns that into “up to £244 a year” by taking 22% of a £1,109 average gas heating bill for 2024. At today’s 7.97p and 9,500 kWh, the same 22% is £166.57. The percentage hasn’t changed. The bill it is applied to is almost a third smaller. tado° doesn’t say what gas use or rate sits behind the £1,109, but the carbon figure on the same page assumes 13,600 kWh a year, against Ofgem’s 9,500.
Drayton Wiser says “save up to 30% on heating costs”. Its savings page credits research by BEAMA and Salford university from 2021 and splits the saving across features, the biggest single one being room-by-room control. That needs smart radiator thermostats, and the Kit 1 box doesn’t contain any. It holds the hub and one room thermostat.
Google says the Nest Learning Thermostat saves 10% to 12% on heating, from two studies of energy bills in 41 US states. Its UK store page carries a note that the page is US specific.
Netatmo and Meross publish no percentage and no pound figure for their thermostats. That isn’t a mark against them. It just means the only payback we can give for those two is the one on a figure someone else wrote.
How much evidence is behind any of this
Less than the boxes suggest. A review of the international evidence on heating controls, written by the University of the West of England and BSRIA for the government in October 2017, found only three real-world field trials worldwide and concluded there “seems to be limited evidence” that better controls save energy in general. What decided the savings in practice was whether people used the features at all.
The Energy Saving Trust, in its heating controls advice updated on 28 September 2026, puts installing heating controls at around £100 a year in Great Britain and £110 in Northern Ireland. The page doesn’t give the home or the prices behind that figure, and it is a figure for installing controls, not specifically for swapping a working thermostat for a smart one. On smart controls the Trust says the saving depends on how you control your heating now. We use the £100 as the column a maker didn’t write, not as a forecast for your home.
Which? looked at the same three big claims in December 2021 and found the assumptions behind them didn’t match a typical UK home. At the time Hive priced its saving on 16,489 kWh of gas a year, and Google assumed heating ran for more than 17 hours a day. Hive has since moved to Ofgem’s 9,500 kWh, which is exactly the basis this page uses, so credit where it is due.
Subscriptions eat the payback
Two of the five charge for the features that do most of the saving. tado°’s AI Assist, which holds geofencing and open window detection, is £3.99 a month or £29.99 a year. Hive+ is £3.99 a month or £39.90 a year. Wiser’s Amazon listing says there is no subscription fee, and nothing in the Meross or Netatmo listings mentions one.
If you pay the yearly fee and it adds nothing to the maker’s own claim, tado°’s payback moves from 9.4 to 11.4 months and Hive’s from 10.9 to 14.0 months. tado° says AI Assist can add up to 55% more savings, so the fee may well earn its keep. The point is to count it, because it comes round every year and the thermostat price doesn’t.
The five, in order of the two-winter cut
Meross Smart Thermostat for gas boilers
£62.18 on 1 October 2026 · sold by Amazon EU
The cheapest way to get a schedule and phone control on a gas boiler. It runs on 2.4GHz wifi with no hub and no subscription, and the listing says it is compatible with most boilers.
At £62.18 it pays for itself in two winters if it saves 4.1% of a typical home’s gas. At the Energy Saving Trust’s £100 a year it is back in 7.5 months, the fastest on this page by some distance.
The catch: Meross publishes no saving figure at all, so every payback here rests on someone else’s number. The listing says nothing about OpenTherm, the protocol that lets a thermostat turn a modern combi down rather than just off. It was sold and shipped by Amazon EU rather than Amazon UK when we checked.
tado° Wireless Smart Thermostat X starter kit
£129.99 on 1 October 2026 · two-winter cut 8.6%
tado°’s claim of 22% on average gives £166.57 a year at the October cap, which pays back the kit in 9.4 months. That is the quickest payback on a maker’s own claim of the three that publish one. On the Energy Saving Trust’s £100 it takes 15.6 months.
The kit has a wireless receiver for the boiler and a temperature sensor on a stand, so there is no drilling for the sensor. The listing says it handles both OpenTherm and relay boilers and can run hot water.
The catch: the features that cut gas without you thinking about it, geofencing and open window detection, sit in AI Assist at £29.99 a year. tado° X also doesn’t work with older tado° V3+ kit, so it is not an add-on for an existing tado° home.
Netatmo Smart Thermostat
£139.92 on 1 October 2026 · two-winter cut 9.2%
The listing says it works with most boilers, whether they burn gas, oil or wood, run on electricity or are a heat pump, which is wider than anything else here. Its Auto-Adapt feature takes the outdoor temperature into account when deciding when to start heating.
Netatmo publishes no saving figure. On the Energy Saving Trust’s £100 a year it pays back in 16.8 months.
The catch: Netatmo now sells two ranges that don’t talk to each other. This thermostat is in the older Connected range, and the listing warns it isn’t compatible with the new ORIGINAL range, so buy any radiator valves from the same range.
Hive Smart Thermostat for combi boilers, with Nano 3 hub
£165.00 on 1 October 2026 · two-winter cut 10.9%
Hive is the one maker whose saving claim already uses this quarter’s gas price and Ofgem’s current typical use. Take its £181.62 at face value and the thermostat pays back in 10.9 months. It is OpenTherm compatible, which lets it turn a modern combi down instead of switching it on and off.
On the Energy Saving Trust’s £100 it takes 19.8 months. Hive’s own shop listed the Hive Thermostat at £119 on the same day, so check what is in each box before comparing the two prices.
The catch: this one is for combi boilers only and controls heating, not a hot water cylinder. Some of the saving features, Saver mode among them, need Hive+ at £39.90 a year, and the £182 footnote doesn’t say which features it assumes.
Drayton Wiser 2nd Gen Kit 1 for combi boilers
£189.00 on 1 October 2026 · two-winter cut 12.5%
The dearest kit on its own, and built around room-by-room control for up to 16 rooms. The listing says there is no subscription fee, which is worth real money over a few years against the two that charge.
On Wiser’s “up to 30%” the kit pays back in 10.0 months. Add the two-pack of Wiser radiator thermostats at £119.98, which the room-by-room part of that claim relies on, and the outlay is £308.98, the two-winter cut is 20.4% and the payback on the claim is 16.3 months.
The catch: the Kit 1 box holds the hub and one room thermostat, no radiator valves, so the 30% describes a system you haven’t bought yet. “Up to” is also a ceiling, not an average, unlike tado°’s 22%.
The one we took off: Google Nest
The August version of this page listed the Google Nest Learning Thermostat, fourth generation. That was a mistake. The listing on Amazon.co.uk, £233.31 on 1 October 2026, is sold and shipped by Amazon US. Google has not launched the fourth generation outside North America, and in April 2025 it said it would no longer launch new Nest thermostats in Europe because heating systems here need different hardware.
The UK third generation still appears on Amazon.co.uk but showed no price when we checked. If you already own one, keep it. If you are buying, all five above are sold on Amazon.co.uk in versions for UK boilers.
How we worked it out
Every figure on this page is arithmetic on a published input, and each input is dated. The gas unit rate is 7.97p a kWh including VAT, Ofgem’s cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026. Typical use is 9,500 kWh of gas a year, Ofgem’s typical domestic consumption value in force since 1 July 2026. Two years of that gas is £1,514.30. Prices are the Amazon.co.uk buy box, read on 1 October 2026. The makers’ claims were read on their own sites and listings the same day.
Payback in months is the price divided by the yearly saving, times 12. The two-winter cut is the price divided by £1,514.30. Where a maker gives a percentage we apply it to the whole 9,500 kWh, which flatters the claim slightly, because part of every home’s gas heats water and cooks rather than heating rooms. Standing charges are left out because a thermostat can’t touch them.
We haven’t fitted or used any of these thermostats. Nothing here is a measured saving. It is what each one has to save, set against what each maker says it will.
Questions people ask
How long does a smart thermostat take to pay for itself?
At the October 2026 cap, the five here pay back in 7.5 to 22.7 months if they save the Energy Saving Trust’s £100 a year. On the makers’ own claims, the three that publish one pay back in 9.4 to 10.9 months. Both assume Ofgem’s typical 9,500 kWh of gas at 7.97p.
What is the two-winter cut?
The share of a typical home’s gas a thermostat must save to pay back its price inside two years at the current cap. It is the price divided by £1,514.30, which is two years of gas at 7.97p and 9,500 kWh. At October 2026 prices it runs from 4.1% for the Meross to 12.5% for the Wiser Kit 1.
Is Hive’s “save up to £182 a year” realistic?
It is honestly dated: Hive works it out at the October 2026 rate on Ofgem’s typical use. But £181.62 is 24.0% of that gas, and Hive’s own footnote for its OpenTherm control gives up to 12%. The page doesn’t say what makes up the rest, so treat £182 as a ceiling.
Will a smart thermostat save money if I already have a programmer and thermostat?
Probably less than the box says. The Energy Saving Trust’s £100 a year is for installing heating controls, not specifically for upgrading ones that already work. For smart controls it says the saving depends on how you control your heating now. If you already heat only the hours you need, the cut a thermostat has to find is harder to get.
Will these paybacks change in January?
If the gas rate changes, yes. They are tied to 7.97p a kWh, the cap for October to December 2026. Payback moves in step with the gas rate: if gas goes up 10%, every payback here gets just over 9% shorter, and if gas falls they get longer.
Combi or conventional, and how do I tell?
If you have a hot water cylinder in an airing cupboard, you have a conventional system and need a version with hot water control. If hot water comes straight from one wall-mounted boiler and there is no tank, it is a combi. The Hive and Wiser kits on this page are the combi versions.
Sources
- Ofgem, Energy price cap standing charges and unit rates, 1 October to 31 December 2026
- Ofgem, Energy price cap will rise by 4% from October 2026 (26 August 2026)
- Look Into, The October 2026 price cap, including Ofgem’s 2026 typical consumption values
- Energy Saving Trust, Thermostats and heating controls (updated 28 September 2026)
- Hive, Hive Thermostat product page and footnotes (read 1 October 2026)
- tado°, UK homepage and 22% footnote (read 1 October 2026)
- tado°, UK shop, AI Assist price and £244 footnote (read 1 October 2026)
- Drayton Wiser, How much could you save with Wiser?
- Quality Heating, Drayton Wiser Thermostat Kit 1 2nd Gen contents
- Netatmo, Smart Thermostat
- Google Store, Nest thermostat savings (marked US specific)
- Tech Advisor, Google Nest Learning Thermostat support ending
- TechRadar, Google will stop selling new Nest thermostats in Europe (26 April 2025)
- UWE and BSRIA for BEIS, Heating controls: international evidence base and policy experiences (October 2017, PDF)
- Which?, Smart thermostats: can you save what the companies claim? (22 December 2021)
Prices were read on Amazon.co.uk on 1 October 2026 and will have moved since. Every payback figure is for the October to December 2026 cap. Look Into is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme and earns from qualifying purchases; this does not change what we recommend or what we say about it.
This page is part of Look Into’s UK household cost research. For the costed figures behind it — capture date, method and sources — see the Home Upgrade Payback Index.