The Future of Home Heating: Predictions and Trends in Multi-Zone Heating

Home energy use at has been at the top of agendas for many in recent months as we search for ways to improve energy efficiency and reduce utility bills. Zoned heating offers optimal temperature control and lets you split your heating into multiple zones using smart radiator thermostats, ensuring each room is at the right temperature at the right time. With many of us now choosing smart home heating systems as standard, what does the future of home heating look like?

Innovative App Control & Feedback

A smart home heating system with app control lets you control temperatures across your home whether you’re in or elsewhere. The intuitive and innovative Wiser Home App provides complete control of your home heating from your phone, plus access to Insights and the Heat Report, containing visual feedback to help you better understand how you use your heating and help you increase energy efficiency by tailoring schedules.

View and compare temperatures across single or multiple rooms, with full visibility of a multi-room system across days, weeks and months from your smartphone. Boost signal to any hard-to-reach zones and their devices while controlling and scheduling electrical appliances using the Wiser Plug.

Voice Assistant Integration

Almost half of the UK (46%)¹ use voice assistants, and it’s easier than ever for Brits to integrate voice assistants into their smart home heating systems. Wiser is compatible with both Amazon Alexa and Google Home Assistant, so you can check temperatures, override heating schedules and control smart plugs using voice commands to enjoy superior comfort and convenience.

Multi-room Underfloor Heating

A recent study has found that underfloor heating now accounts for 7.7% of the UK’s heating industry – and with new gas boilers being phased out by 2035, the underfloor heating market is set to grow at a rate of 4-6% every year.²

Underfloor heating can be a more energy-efficient option than traditional radiators, using radiant heat technology to warm a room from the ground up, as opposed to central heating which heats the air in a room and can waste energy. Wiser’s Underfloor Heating Controller provides smart, multi-room underfloor heating control via the Wiser Home app, using your existing underfloor heating elements and manifold. To install the Wiser Underfloor Heating Controller, contact one of our certified installers.

Heat Pumps

Heat pumps are a hot topic and might spring to mind when considering the future of home heating. Heat pump integration works by the device taking thermal energy from the air or the ground and delivering it to a central heating system. Powered by electricity instead of gas, heat pumps are more efficient and don’t require the burning of fossil fuels to generate heat. Unlike gas boilers, electricity-powered heat pumps give you three units of heat for every unit of electricity they receive, lowering heating bills.

Wiser is compatible with a variety of heat pumps that support third-party controls, making your smart heating system future-proof. For example, integrate Wiser with the Aquarea heat pump from our partner, Panasonic, for low-carbon, sustainable home heating. Learn more about the Wiser Smart System and how you can step into the future of home heating with heat pumps. 

What About Hydrogen?

When it comes to the future of home heating, you may have heard hydrogen touted as an alternative to heat pump integration. However, many studies have shown that using hydrogen to heat your home is not currently a viable solution to reduce the carbon footprint of UK homes. Dr Richard Hanna, who co-authored The Future of Home Heating believes whilst hydrogen could heat homes in the future after some significant investment in research, it’s currently too costly to replace gas systems used in the UK.

Powering a heat pump is a significantly cheaper way of heating the home than hydrogen, and requires five times less electrical energy to heat an average home compared to its hydrogen counterpart.

Which Multi-Zone Heating System Should I Choose? 

Now that you’ve discovered our predictions for the Future Of Home Heating, learn more about multi-room heating control and find the right Wiser multi-room kit for your home.

^{1 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1282656/voice-assistant-usage-united-kingdom/}

^{2 https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/heat-pumps/underfloor-heating-costs}