Not a big fan of the notion of an always on listening device tbh. It’s possibly a bit tin-foil-hat territory, but the more I see of the likes of Facebook and Google, the less I want that sort of thing.
Seems like a fair amount of faff for very little benefit to me, but each to their own.
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That’s what I don’t like about it as well!
I have radio 4 on in the kitchen most of the time, using a Squeezebox Boom. It’s great, and can also play my own music and Qobuz. What I want is that, plus something that works well for recipes - I use my phone for that, and it’s a bit rubbish, especially when doing things with the kids.
Actually I think I’ve basically decided against it, and I’ll repurpose one of my old tablets as a kitchen device. There’s one that is only used for movies on the go.
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I don’t understand why you would do this. Hive can work as a normal programmable thermostat, indeed it’s very easy to program. The ‘smart’ things can be turned on or off.
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His mate now has Hive 
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Some people also record their CDs to tape. Once a Luddite…
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Yes they can and yes all I required of hive was to act as a programmable thermostat. Sadly, in my house it was shit. Not only is it incapable of getting the temperature of the house correct but with an old high ceiling, thick walled, 4 storey property, it’s system of communication with the boiler was useless, losing contact if it wasn’t on the same floor as the boiler. This resulted in a house where 1 floor was freezing, 1 ambient, 1 too hot and a sauna. The most annoying thing though was the pretentious interface, switching the heating on and off at predetermined times is a simple task and doesn’t need to be called an ‘event’ FFS.
Luddite - yes, lunatic - no 
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Many people buy new LPs thinking they’re analogue & have never been digitised at any point.
It takes all sorts. 
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Many people aren’t afraid of digital because they understand that it’s not inherently inferior. 
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You are the devil and I claim my £3.50 (reduced due to Brexit)
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Not inherently - the applied compression sorts that out 
Inherently being the operative word. Practically it’s usually a bit Meh.
You mean the compression which tape applies when you push the level? Oh yeah, we don’t like to talk about that. Or the poor bandwidth. Or the hissssssssss.
You lot should just admit it’s about the faff and dick size by proxy. At least BBQ faff is tasty.
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Tape envy, its such an ugly thing when it rears its head!
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I like the faff of records it’s all I’ve ever really had. I did have a R2R in the 80’s ( when HMV still had at least half a dozen racks in stock permanently, just nothing I was vaguely interested in) I only ever had 5 or 6 tapes so sold it. I do buy digitally mastered new release records fully aware that the transfer process makes them inferior to a digital file. I put this down to a desire to own and a deep cerebral programming to have a bigger and better record collection than my mates, something we revelled in as 12 year old kids.
So dick size by proxy absolutely 
Edit- I’ve given the hiss and faff thread the blue spot of boredom since mafioso was mentioned 
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My hands would be waiting in the background too
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Hate to be a bore… but … If you are ever getting work done, with a house as you describe, you really need to be getting your heating ‘zoned’.
Expensive, but will pay dividends.
Eventually. 
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Yeah, you’re right. I looked at that but as you say spendy. I wanted to get thermostat controls on the radiators, trouble is the wife thinks they ruin the look of our expensive radiators 
Ok, Hive report after a couple of weeks
Basically, it’s good but flaky. My router and boiler are each at extreme ends of the house. With the thermostat where the old one was it loses connection to the boiler. So I moved it, which is fine. If your house has thick walls it could be a problem.
More seriously, the Hive hub (which plugs into the router) is often offline, and I can’t access it from my phone. A restart fixes it. Helpfully, it makes its status clear by showing a green light, the same as when it’s connectable. Doh.
I am currently only using this as a better timer - it’s easier to program than my old one, and has separate programmes for each day. I haven’t used the smart features. I’m not sure I’m going to bother. Timer plus the ability to connect to it from anywhere should be enough.
So I’m actually fairly pleased with it, but I’m not inspired to smart up my home particularly.