Which Smart Thermostats Work Best with Time-of-Use Energy Tariffs?

Many households in the UK are still feeling financial pressure.

According to the Office for National Statistics, around 61% of adults said they were worried about rising living costs in July 2026, while 56% reported that their cost of living had increased compared with the previous month.

Given the ongoing financial challenges, it makes sense that more people want to manage both how much energy they use and when they use it.

Smart thermostats are often advertised as a way to avoid heating an empty home. But with the right heating system, they can also help you benefit from time-of-use energy tariffs.

So, which smart thermostats work best with time-of-use energy tariffs?

What Is A Time-of-Use Energy Tariff?

For those unfamiliar with them, time-of-use tariffs charge different electricity rates depending on when you use energy.

Instead of paying the same unit rate throughout the day, you can pay less during off-peak periods and more when demand is higher.

Smart meters help make these tariffs possible by recording electricity use in half-hourly intervals.

The Government highlights time-of-use tariffs as one of the options enabled by smart meters, allowing households to shift some electricity use towards cheaper periods.

There are two main types of time-of-use tariffs.

Fixed Time-of-Use Tariffs

With a fixed time-of-use tariff, the cheaper and more expensive periods are set in advance.

For example, electricity may cost less overnight or during certain daytime windows, while prices increase during periods of higher demand.

Because those periods are predictable, they are relatively easy to build into a thermostat or heating schedule.

You can programme the heating to do more work during cheaper periods and reduce demand when electricity becomes more expensive.

Dynamic Time-of-Use Tariffs

Dynamic tariffs are more complicated.

Instead of relying on fixed cheap and expensive periods, electricity prices can change throughout the day in response to wholesale market conditions.

Some tariffs update prices every 30 minutes.

That means the cheapest periods can move from one day to the next.

Manually adjusting a heating schedule to follow those changes would quickly become impractical.

This is where tariff-aware automation is especially helpful. Compatible heating controls can adjust to changing prices on their own, so you don’t have to keep making changes yourself.

Does A Smart Thermostat Automatically Work With A Time-of-Use Tariff?

Not necessarily.

It’s important to know the difference between a programmable smart thermostat and a tariff-aware heating control system.

A standard smart thermostat might allow you to create a schedule such as:

• 20°C between 06:00 and 08:00
• 18°C during the day
• 20°C between 17:00 and 22:00

If you know electricity is cheaper between 13:00 and 16:00, you could manually adjust the schedule to take advantage of that period.

This can be helpful.

However, the thermostat itself isn’t necessarily reading your electricity tariff.

A tariff-aware system goes further.

It can use electricity pricing information alongside factors such as your preferred temperature, heating schedule and the thermal characteristics of your home.

It can then decide when the heating system should work harder or ease back.

This combination is much more effective.

Best Smart Thermostats For Time-of-Use Tariffs

There are plenty of smart thermostats available in the UK, but the best option will depend on your heating system, the tariff you are using and how much control you want over your heating schedule.

WarmZilla currently works with a number of well-known thermostat brands, including:

• Hive,
• Google Nest,
• Honeywell,
• and tado°.

Some are particularly useful for setting predictable heating schedules around cheaper electricity periods, while others offer more advanced automation and learning features.

Here are some of the main options worth considering.

Hive Active Heating: Best For Straightforward Scheduling

Hive Active Heating is a strong option if you want straightforward control over when your heating comes on and off.

Through the Hive app, you can create heating schedules and make changes remotely. This makes it particularly useful with a fixed time-of-use tariff, where the cheaper electricity periods are known in advance.

Hive can also be expanded using smart radiator valves, allowing you to control individual rooms rather than heating the entire property unnecessarily.

TechRadar’s review of the Hive Thermostat praised the system for being simple to use and easy to expand. It also highlighted its integration with Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri. However, the reviewer noted that adding zonal control can become expensive.

For time-of-use tariffs, Hive’s main advantage is therefore its ease of scheduling rather than automatic tariff optimisation.

If your cheaper electricity periods remain the same each day, that may be all the control you need.

Google Nest Learning Thermostat: Best For Learning Your Routine

The Google Nest Learning Thermostat takes a different approach.

Rather than relying entirely on schedules you create yourself, Nest can learn how you adjust the temperature and build a heating schedule around your routine.

It can also reduce unnecessary heating when nobody is home.

That can be useful for households looking to lower overall energy consumption without constantly changing thermostat settings.

TechRadar’s review of the Nest Learning Thermostat praised its simple controls, mobile app and ability to learn and adapt over time. However, it also identified the lack of true zonal heating control as a drawback.

With a fixed time-of-use tariff, you can still adjust Nest’s heating schedule to align with cheaper periods.

However, its learning technology is primarily designed to understand when you want the house warm, rather than continuously monitoring electricity prices and automatically searching for the cheapest half-hour period.

That makes it better suited to households prioritising convenient automation over direct tariff optimisation.

tado° Smart Thermostat: Best For Detailed Scheduling And Zoning

tado° is particularly useful if you want more detailed control over different parts of your home.

Alongside its central thermostat, the system can be expanded using smart radiator thermostats.

This allows individual rooms to follow their own heating schedules and temperature settings.

That flexibility can work well with time-of-use tariffs.

Rather than simply heating the entire property during a cheaper electricity period, you can concentrate heating where it is actually needed.

Jargon Buster: Geofencing
A location-based feature that uses your smartphone’s GPS to create a virtual boundary around your property, allowing your smart thermostat to automatically turn the heating down when you leave and warm the house up as you return.

tado° also offers features such as geofencing and open-window detection, although some automated features may require an additional subscription depending on the product and service being used.

TechRadar’s review of tado° was particularly positive about its room-by-room control and extensive functionality. The reviewer found that the system reduced energy consumption during testing, although they also described the interface as less intuitive than some competing systems.

For households prepared to spend a little more time configuring their heating, tado° provides considerably more control than a simple whole-home thermostat.

For compatible heat-pump systems, tado° can go further. Its Heat Pump Optimiser X can be combined with the Balance service, which shifts electricity consumption to cheaper periods on dynamic tariffs.

Honeywell Home T3R: Best For Straightforward Programmable Heating

The Honeywell Home T3R needs to be treated slightly differently from the other products on this list.

It is a wireless programmable thermostat, rather than a fully connected smart thermostat controlled through a mobile app.

That doesn’t make it unsuitable for time-of-use tariffs.

In fact, its simplicity could work well with a fixed tariff where the cheaper periods remain predictable.

The T3R supports seven-day scheduling, allowing different temperatures and heating periods to be programmed throughout the week.

You could therefore programme the heating to coincide with periods of cheaper electricity without needing to adjust the thermostat every day.

What you don’t get is the same level of remote control, geofencing or smart-home automation offered by products such as Hive, Nest and tado°.

The T3 range is well suited to homeowners who want something they can programme and then largely leave alone. Households wanting app control and more advanced zoning may need to consider a more sophisticated system, such as evohome.

That makes the T3R a good fit for homeowners who value simplicity over an increasingly complicated collection of apps, hubs and subscriptions.

For a dynamic tariff, however, fixed scheduling becomes more limiting because the cheapest electricity periods may change from one day to the next.

Smart Thermostat Comparison

Here is a quick comparison of your options:

Compatibility can change as manufacturers update software, products, and integrations. Always check your thermostat, heating appliance, and energy tariff before you buy.

Don’t Treat A Heat Pump Like A Gas Boiler

An Engineer’s View

“Pairing a smart thermostat with a time-of-use tariff is a brilliant way to maximise savings, especially for homes with electric heating or heat pumps. It is all about shifting demand to off-peak hours so you save money without ever sacrificing your comfort.”

– Matthew Powell, Engineer

Here’s an important warning. Trying to chase the cheapest electricity price shouldn’t come at the expense of heat pump efficiency.

Heat pumps generally work best when maintaining relatively steady temperatures using lower flow temperatures.

Turning a heat pump completely off for long periods and then asking it to rapidly heat a cold property can make it work harder.

Power companies advise heat pump users to maintain relatively steady temperatures rather than repeatedly switching systems completely on and off.

A smarter approach is usually to shift when you use heating, rather than turn it off completely.

For example, your system might slightly increase the indoor temperature during a period when electricity is cheaper.

In this way, your home can act a bit like a small thermal battery.

When electricity becomes expensive, the heating can reduce its output while the stored warmth in the house helps maintain a comfortable temperature.

How well this works depends on the insulation, thermal mass and heat loss of the property.

What About Smart Thermostats With Gas Boilers?

This is where the difference really matters.

A time-of-use electricity tariff does not normally make the gas going into your boiler cheaper at different times of the day.

Therefore, installing a smart thermostat on a gas boiler solely because you have moved to a time-of-use electricity tariff is unlikely to unlock the same benefits available to a heat-pump household.

A smart thermostat can still reduce unnecessary gas consumption.

Features such as scheduling, geofencing, zoning and weather-based controls remain useful.

However, these savings mostly come from using your heating more efficiently, not from moving gas use to a cheaper electricity period.

For heat pumps and electric heating, electricity pricing becomes part of the heating equation.

Do You Need A Smart Meter?

You will normally need a compatible smart meter to access modern time-of-use electricity tariffs.

Dynamic tariffs depend on suppliers receiving half-hourly consumption information so they know when electricity was used.

Smart meters are capable of recording this half-hourly consumption information and enable suppliers to offer tariffs where prices vary depending on the time electricity is consumed.

The thermostat and smart meter perform different jobs.

Your smart meter measures when you use electricity, while the smart thermostat controls how your heating operates.

The energy tariff determines what that electricity costs.

Things get interesting when your smart meter, thermostat, and energy tariff work together.

What Should You Look For In A Smart Thermostat?

If you want to use smart heating with a time-of-use tariff, don’t pick a thermostat just because it looks good.

Check what features and functions it offers behind the scenes.

Important features include:

• Flexible heating schedules
• Heat pump compatibility
• Tariff integration
• Weather compensation
• Smart learning
• Multi-room controls
• OpenTherm or modulating control where appropriate
• Hot water scheduling
• Smart meter or energy-platform integrations
• App-based remote control

Most importantly, see whether the thermostat lets you set the schedule yourself or can optimise it automatically.

Which Smart Thermostat Is Best For Time-of-Use Tariffs?

There is no single best smart thermostat for every time-of-use tariff.

For households that mainly want to schedule heating around predictable cheaper periods, Hive Active Heating offers a simple and accessible option.

If you want the thermostat to learn your routine and automatically reduce unnecessary heating, the Google Nest Learning Thermostat is likely to be more appealing.

For more detailed room-by-room control, tado° stands out because it can be expanded using smart radiator valves and individual heating schedules.

The Honeywell Home T3R takes a simpler approach. It is a programmable thermostat rather than a fully app-connected smart thermostat, but it can still be useful where cheaper electricity periods remain fixed and predictable.

The important distinction is between scheduling and tariff optimisation.

All four can help you plan heating around cheaper periods to some degree, but they should not automatically be treated as systems that continuously monitor electricity prices and adjust heating in real time.

That matters particularly with dynamic tariffs, where prices can change throughout the day.

As smart heating technology develops, we are likely to see closer integration between thermostats, heating systems and energy tariffs.

The smartest controls will not just know when you want the house warm. They will also take into account factors such as the weather, how quickly your home loses heat, and when electricity is cheapest.

For now, the best choice depends on how much control and automation you actually need.

Ready To Upgrade Your Heating Controls?

A smart thermostat can make it easier to control your heating, but it’s just one part of an efficient heating system.

If you’re thinking about replacing your boiler or upgrading your heating controls, WarmZilla can help you compare your options.

Start by taking the WarmZilla online boiler survey to find a heating solution that fits your home, budget, and current system.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can A Smart Thermostat Automatically Use Electricity When It Is Cheapest?

Some can, but not all.

Many smart thermostats simply follow schedules created by the homeowner. Tariff-aware heating systems can use electricity price information to automatically move some heating demand towards cheaper periods.

Do I Need A Smart Thermostat For A Time-of-Use Tariff?

No.

A time-of-use tariff can operate without a smart thermostat. However, smart heating controls can make it easier to shift electricity consumption towards cheaper periods, particularly when heating your home with electricity.

Will A Time-of-Use Tariff Make My Gas Boiler Cheaper To Run?

Not directly.

An electricity time-of-use tariff changes the price you pay for electricity, not gas. A smart thermostat can still reduce gas consumption by improving heating control, but the tariff itself doesn’t normally make your boiler’s gas cheaper at off-peak times.