Here is another little knowledge nugget I’ve pieced together from various sites because I couldn’t find a single answer anywhere else.
TL;DR – Hold down button on TRV for about 3 seconds until it enters install mode and then hold it down again for another 3 seconds until it exits install mode. Give it a minute and then refresh the TRV in the Hive app to see the ‘Requires Calibration’ button.
My heating has been off all summer and it wasn’t working particularly well last winter (thanks Hive, your TRV’s suck!). I’ve also had a new central heating pump and mid-position valve installed since. So I wanted to have all my Hive Heating TRV’s (Thermostatic Radiator Valves) recalibrate themselves in the hope of a better performance than last winter.
When I installed the valves the Hive app had a ‘Requires Calibration’ button under each one that forced a full calibration rather than waiting for it to learn over a day or two when the heating was on long enough. I wanted to get that button back but the only way I had found previously was completely removing the TRV from the app which also lost the schedule. Thankfully I found another way.
If you hold the button down on the TRV itself for about 3 seconds it goes into Install Mode (a flashing M on the screen and probably a motor whirring sound) which you will have used when you first set them up. Doing this wipes out all settings on the valve including its learnt calibrating info.
“But Andrew, you said this could be done without losing the precious schedule I spent hours setting up and tweaking!”
Yes I did. Without doing anything in the app now press and hold the button on the TRV again for about 3 seconds (you should hear the motor inside whir). Now the valve will come out of Install mode, connect to your Hive network, and because you didn’t change anything in the app it will recognise the valve and reapply its name and schedule.
You will find the ‘Requires Calibration’ button in the app at the bottom of the TRV settings.
As a total side note here is something I read on the Hive forum post linked above. Apparently the Hive TRV valves operate differently when in Schedule Vs Manual mode. They heat up quicker using Manual mode than they do using Schedule mode. So the advice a few people are giving (including Hive tech support themselves apparently) is to 1) stick all valves into Manual mode at 7c (Protect level), 2) Ensure Heat On Demand (HOD) is enabled on them all and 3) Use Alexa or Siri to build a schedule for your valves and control them that way. This is crazy that a 3rd party system might work better than Hives own one but over this weekend I’ll be setting it up and giving it a try!
Did the re-calibration helped?
Hi Moreno, it is really hard to tell because I am using a new heating pump, mid position valve and scheduling tool (Alexa) since last winter. So too much has changed to tell whether the re-calibration itself helped at all. My heating is definitely better this winter than last. And that is probably a combination of all the changes I’ve made. I notice that Hive have released a new TRV firmware (#227) at some point compared to the one in place last winter (#221).
Thanks for this post Andrew, really helpful. How did you get on with the manual scheduling via Siri or alexa? I’m finding my rads are taking a bit of time to heat up in Hive’s schedule mode?
Glad to hear that Tom. I’m much happier with my Hive TRV’s this winter. Since using Alexa I’ve never found a TRV is off when it should be on. I have found a TRV stayed on when Alexa should have turned it off but this has happened 2 or 3 times out of 10 TRV’s changing state 4 times a day, so I’m really happy with the consistency of Alexa compared to the Hive app.
The other nice thing about Alexa that Hive doesn’t support is you can duplicate commands. So you can tell the bedroom TRV to go to 21c at 8pm and then repeat that command at 8.05pm in case the first command got missed by the TRV. I’ve not had to set mine up this way, each TRV gets a single command at its scheduled time, and its working almost flawlessly.
Whether Alexa has helped the temperature of the house I can’t be sure because I have a new heating pump and mid-position valve this year. Both of those were causing me significant wasted heat last winter. I would say Alexa has helped though, because last Winter it was almost a daily event I would go into my living room and find 1 of the 2 TRV’s in there had not taken the scheduled temperature increase, so 1 radiator was trying to heat a room bigger than it can support. Now they both come on at the same time every time it must be improving the heating.
To your specific question, I do feel like the radiators are heating up quicker, but I’ve not done any testing to prove that, it is just a feeling I’ve got when I’ve felt the rad shortly after schedule change. I would definitely recommend people using Alexa instead of Hive for scheduling because there is so many benefits, not just this one.
Hi Tom
I’ve only just found this thread and am interested to know if this is still working for you? I currently run with HOD in the Hive app, but find that the TRVs are very slow to react to the heating schedule. I also think the calibration is off on some of them, so your recalibration tip is incredibly useful. Would you still recommend going the Alexa route, as it’s a lot of work to switch over? Many thanks
I used Alexa all winter and was much happier with my Hive TRV’s. Not once did I have to walk around to check that the TRV schedule had taken and the right TRV’s were on/off. In the hundreds or even thousands of times Alexa controlled my TRV’s less than a handful of times it failed to take on the valve itself which is an acceptable failure rate for IoT tech, and immeasurably better than Hive which failed probably half the time last winter.
As you state though, it does come with a cost though as it’s more clunky to set up and manage via the Alexa app. Especially if you have rooms like home offices or guest rooms you like to disable and enable occasionally based on need. That said, I’d rather a more awkward system that worked than a simple system that just doesn’t.
Thanks for the post. My Hive TRV was working on schedule but about 4 deg C below the correct temperature. Now recalibrating.
I hope it works for you. After 3 winters with them I’ve finally given up and removed all Hive TRV’s from my house, putting the old “manual” TRV heads back on. The house instantly feels a lot warmer but this could be because a) the UK has been warmer the last couple of weeks and b) you can’t control manual TRV’s to half a degree, so I might be setting them to 24c for all I know. I’m with Octopus energy and have downloaded all my gas usage data for the last year, so I am going to run the manual TRV’s until April and then compare Jan-Mar gas usage with last year to see how much Hive TRV’s saved (if any).
Brilliant post. I have a house full of these and can’t count the number of times I’ve had to reprogramme the schedules after removing the TRV from the app, or restored to factory defaults following various issues. Just tried this out on a TRV which was not restricting the flow when set to ‘off’ and it worked a treat. Thanks.
Brilliant! This is the exact reason I wrote it up, to stop the Hive system wasting anyone else’s time!
Hi. I’m very pleased with my 10 Hive TRVs. I’ve had them for 2 winters & haven’t noticed any TRV not turning OFF or ON when scheduled, though some valves take longer to react to me turning them up or down by hand. Hive say they have altered the valve firmware to make them open faster. ( see https://community.hivehome.com/s/question/0D50J00005fBS8oSAG/trv-update ).
I’m keen to get voice control with Alexa. Are there any pitfalls to watch out for?
I’m glad to hear you get a good experience from your Hive TRV’s. I’ve got 13 second-hand ones to sell you! 😀 Mine are now all replaced with the original “dumb” TRV head and the house is feeling a lot warmer. I get gas usage stats from Octopus Energy every 30 minutes so I will compare Jan-Mar 2022 and Jan-Mar 2023 to see if I used a lot more gas without the Hive TRV’s, hence the house feels warmer.
I didn’t use voice control with Alexa on the Hive system. I added the valves to Alexa and made Alexa routines to control them instead of using the Hive app and schedule. This massively improved the responsiveness of the valves for me and stopped the issue where sometimes they just didn’t follow the schedule. But it wasn’t as easy to create and manage the schedule in Alexa, Hive definitely had the better UI. But I don’t want a pretty UI that isn’t trustworthy 🙂
I wish you continued success with them. They are the right way for the world to move and I am now looking at getting the Tapo system instead. But I’m just nervous of sinking hundreds of pounds into a system that might be equally or differently flawed.