British Gas starts to turn off Hive smart home devices forever

After discontinuing its security products, British Gas is now pulling the plug on their connectivity

Hive HomeShield
(Image credit: Hive)

There's more bad news for owners of security products from Hive, British Gas's smart home brand. When it scrapped its home security range in 2022 it said that devices would eventually stop working by 2025, but Hive is shutting down some of those products this week and next month too.

Hive has announced the shutdown of the Hive Nano 1 Hub, effective from 1 August 2023, and the Hive Camera, also on 1st August. The Hive Leak Sensor will stop working on 1 September 2023.

That's it for this year, but Hive will pull the plug on several other devices in 2025.

The most important shutdown here is the Hive Nano 1 Hub, as the Hub is the bit that enables all the smart home stuff via your phone app and smart speakers. However, it's quite an old product and if you went for a Hive system from 2016 onwards you'll most likely have the newer Nano 2, which isn't affected by the shutdown.

What devices are Hive discontinuing?

The Hub 360 Sound Detection feature was shut down in December 2022, and in addition to the Nano 1 Hub and Hive Camera Hive will also stop support for the Boiler IQ WiFi, Hive HomeShield, the Hive View indoor camera and the Hive View outdoor camera. Those devices have a bit longer to go, however: their shutdown is scheduled for 1 August 2025.

What Hive means by shutdown is that "it will no longer connect to the Hive servers and so will stop talking to your other Hive devices." That means if you have the Nano 1 Hub you'll lose your entire Hive system, not just the hub, so if you want to continue with Hive you'll need to buy the Nano 2 Hub. Hive is offering 50% discounts on the Nano 2 Hub to existing Nano 1 users. 

If you don't upgrade the Hub, Hive says, "you won’t be able to control any of your devices through the app." You'll still be able to control your heating with the wireless thermostat, if you have one, but the smart home connectivity will be no more. There are full details of how to upgrade from the v1 to v2 on the Hive community website.

Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series. When she’s not scribbling, she’s the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR (havrmusic.com).