Aqara W600 radiator thermostat review: Instant smart heating without the installation headache

The Aqara W600 radiator thermostat lets you control your heating with your phone, without the need for a complex or pricey installation process. Instead, this plug-and-play (almost) smart radiator valve gives you instant remote control of a dedicated radiator in your home.

Buy a bunch of them, and you can fit them to many of the radiators in your home, providing room-by-room control over the temperatures in each.

The W600 is an especially tempting option for those in rented accommodation, where you might not have control over the central heating system, or can’t install any permanent smart systems. I’ve put the W600 to the test to see if it can go from a tempting option to a must-buy.

Latest Videos From

Watch full video here:

Price and availability

The Aqara W600 radiator thermostat price is £49.99 (around $70), which gets you a single thermostat. That makes it cheaper than Tado’s £79.99 (around $110) Smart Radiator Thermostat X and Hive’s £59 (around $80) Radiator Valve.

While the £49.99 price tag makes it one of the cheapest ways to start converting your analog heating into a smart system, the true benefit of this remote control is really only realised if you have a W600 on every radiator in your home. Depending on how many radiators you have, the cost can quickly start to add up.

A one bedroom apartment might have a minimum of four radiators (living room, bedroom, bathroom, hallway), which would instantly take the outlay up to £200 (around $270). For that price you might want to consider a central hub from our best smart thermostats round-up that connects directly to your heating system.

This gives you control over heating across your entire home, although not the granular room-by-room control dedicated radiator valves such as the W600 offer.

The W600 smart thermostat is available in the UK via the Aqara website. It is currently not available in the US.

Unboxing and set up

The Aqara W600 arrives in simple packaging. Remove the thermostat and the cardboard packing around it and you’ll find a bag of six attachments. I didn’t need any of the attachments for the radiators in my home. It was just a simple case of unscrewing the ‘dumb’ thermostat and screwing on the W600 to the M30x1.5 connection, but it’s good to see Aqara providing the accessories necessary for a range of fittings.

Do check the type of valves you have on your radiator though, as not every connection type is supported out of the box. Some might require a plumber to upgrade the valve for the W600 to be compatible.

You also need an Aqara hub or a Thread-enabled Matter hub in your home (devices such as the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) and Next Hub Max, Apple TV 4K or the 4th Gen Amazon Echo and newer) for the thermostats to connect with. Without one, you can’t complete the setup.

I was sent Aqara’s Hub 3 (£159.98 RRP) alongside the review thermostats, which I set up via the free Aqara Home app (iPhone | Android). From the app, I linked it to my existing Google smart home. Once this was in place, I got a pop-up on my phone when I pulled the yellow battery tab out of the thermostat and screwed it onto my radiator.

From there on-screen prompts walk you through the setup, where you’ll be asked to scan a QR code for the thermostat, found at the end of the paper quick start guide in the box.

These are unique for the thermostat you just unboxed – there are two options depending on whether you’re using Aqara’s own smart home platform, or if you already have a Matter-enabled smart home ecosytem.

As I had connected the Aqara hub to my Google smart home, I scanned the ‘Matter’ labelled QR code, which kicked me into the Google Home app to complete setup. It took a few seconds to connect to the thermostat and complete installation, and the thermostat was then visible in the Google Home app. I then repeated the process for the second W600 I was sent, allowing me to test out multi-room control.

Once you’ve got your head around whether you’re using the Aqara platform or your existing Google/Apple/Amazon Alexa smart home, setup is smooth – it can just be a touch fiddly to begin with.

Design and features

The Aqara W600 radiator valve is modern and minimalist, blending into the background of your home – as they should do. These are not typically statement items, and are sometimes hidden behind furniture, so the design needs to be functional and muted. The W600 fits the brief.

It’s slightly larger than a traditional radiator valve, in part due to the two double AA batteries inside the unit, which Aqara says provide up to two years of battery life before they need to be replaced.

Handily, in the Aqara app or your smart home app (in my case, Google Home), you can see the battery percentage of each W600 – so you can easily check whether it’s time to replace the batteries.

On the top of the thermostat is a large circular button. Press this to have the display illuminate, showing you the current temperature of the room. Around the circumference of this button is a rotating dial, allowing you to adjust the thermostat’s temperature.

It has a satisfying click to it, not too dissimilar to the click wheel on the early iPods, providing tactile feedback on your adjustment, while the display moves through temperatures in 0.5 degree (Celcius) increments.

After a few seconds the display automatically turns off to preserve battery life, and the W600 returns to looking like a regular ‘dumb’ radiator valve. It’s a nice touch, and ensures it blends into the background of your home.

It remains silent until it comes time to adjust the valve to meet the temperature requirements you have set, but at just 30dB it’s no louder than a soft whisper and I found it won’t wake you up, or distract you when working.

If you get the Aqara W600 set up with your smart home, you can use voice control to adjust temperatures. I was able to ask my Google Nest Mini to “set the office to 20 degrees”, and it dutifully complied. I didn’t need to pick up my phone, or go over to the thermostat and manually adjust it, allowing me to continue working without interruption.

Aqara has a range of smart home products that can be connected to the W600 for greater functionality. The Aqara W100 room thermostat can provide easier access and better visuals of your home’s current temperature settings, and multiple W600s can be grouped together and adjusted simultaneously.

Invest in the firm’s window or door sensors, and the W600 can automatically switch off if it detects either are open, while Aqara’s presence and temperature-humidity sensors can improve the W600’s efficiency, switching off heating when you leave a room and ensuring rooms are the right temperature when in use. I was unable to test these features though, as I wasn’t sent the additional devices.

Performance

The Aqara W600 is wonderfully easy to use, and the two I had on test performed very well. I found the physical controls on the thermostats to be initiative, while the voice commands as part of my Google smart home worked seamlessly right from the off.

Diving into the Google Home app, I was able to view each thermostat independently with the current room temperature, and the temperature the device was set to both clearly displayed. A nice touch here is the current outdoor temperature and air quality are also shown, providing a useful comparison to my indoor conditions.

I also liked how you can hold down the top button for three seconds to ‘lock’ the thermostat, which is perfect if you have small children crawling around who like to twiddle and press things. It means if the rotating ring is turned, the thermostat’s settings won’t change. A simple three second hold on the top button unlocks it again.

Whether you’re in the Aqara app, or Google Home, you can set up a schedule for the thermostats, either grouped together, or on a per-valve basis.

This allows you to set specific time periods where you want the radiators to warm the room, such as just before bed, while ensuring they’re not heating the house while no one is at home (for example, during weekdays between school and work hours).

Verdict

If you’re not ready to commit to the whole-home smart heating setup, live in rented accommodation, or want to avoid sometimes-pricey installation costs, I’d recommend the Aqara W600 radiator thermostat.

Once you get past the slightly muddled setup, the W600 is supremely easy to use, whether you’re using the physical controls on the valve itself, the smartphone app, or your smart home’s voice assistant.

It does rely on your heating system and central home thermostat being switched on and set to a temperature you’re looking to achieve, but once these are in place, the W600 gives you granular control over each radiator you have one installed on. Especially useful if you don’t have control over the central heating system – such as in rented homes or student accommodation.

Alternatives to consider

One alternative to consider would be the Tado X ecosystem, which is made up of multiple products, one of which is a smart radiator valve that you can purchase and use without committing to the full system. It’s a touch pricier than the W600, but offers a more attractive design and clearer display.

Close in price to the Aqara W600, but still slightly more expensive, is Hive’s own Smart Radiator Valve. It offers up the same sort of features, and if you already have a Hive central system installed, the radiator valves are a nice addition to your home’s system.