Hive app down as outage leaves customers FREEZING and unable to control heating
The smart thermostat allows energy customers to control their lights and heating through an app on their phone
HOUSEHOLDS who use Hive have been left "freezing" in their own homes after their smart thermostat stopped working.
More than 500,000 energy customers have installed a Hive thermostat which lets them control their heating and lights from a phone app.
Problems began with the hubs around 10am yesterday with the firm promising it was "working on resolving the issue" - but it's still not been fixed for many customers this morning.
The thermostats failed homeowners as snow, hail and sleet fell on parts of the UK last night following weeks of sunny weather, with more due today.
Households who use the app to turn the lights on and off were able to override the system by using the switches.
The heating hub can also be controlled manually but some customers weren't able to get that function to work either, leaving families to "freeze".
Parents were left struggling to heat homes for their children
Desperate dad of three, Pete Deans, tried to get help from the firm after he wasn't able to adjust the thermostat by hand.
He wrote: "@HiveHelper hi my hive went down last night. I repowered the hub and hasn’t worked.
"Also I can’t adjust it by hand, it says no signal, I have 3 kids that a freezing, plus my wife is having chemo that makes her sensitive the cold."
Another concerned parent pleaded: "My house is freezing and I've got an ill four year old."
He said he'd restarted his hub three times and his app continued to tell him that all of his synced devices were offline.
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Amy Lee wrote: "Sat on my sofa, under a sleeping baby, absolutely freezing cold... but can't out the heating on because my @HiveHomeUK app isn't working."
Meanwhile, Dan Twining said: "Hive being down really sucks. I'm freezing cold and was hoping the house would be toasty when I get in."
According to Hive's service status page on its website, it says that it had "applied a fix overnight" for the majority of customers affected.
But customers are still reporting issues with the service this morning.
Elaine Kee said on Twitter: "Freezing cold this morning and no heating due to a fault with hive. When will a complete fix be expected?"
Hive's service page was last updated at 8:36 this morning where it advised customers who still aren't able to get their thermostat to work to turn the hub off for 30 seconds before restarting it.
It also directs struggling customers to its troubleshooting page which aims to get the hubs back up and running. It can be found .
Hive is owned by British Gas but it can be used alongside any energy supplier.
The Sun has contacted Centrica - the firm behind British Gas and Hive - to find out when it plans to have the service fully back up and running and will update this article as soon as we know.
A spokesperson added: "We immediately notified customers of the platform outage across our network yesterday and advised those affected that they could still control their heating manually.
"We’re very sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused and would like to reassure our customers that outages of this nature are very rare indeed."
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British Gas reckon the device will save households £130 a year on bills by only heating your home when you're in it.
It can be controlled through Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant but you'll need to get it installed by a British Gas engineer.
It's not the only smart thermostat available on the market - we've put together a round up of the best ones available.
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