As heat pump adoption accelerates across the UK, smart thermostat technology plays a crucial role in ensuring user satisfaction and system efficiency. Poor user experience with heating controls remains a barrier to heat pump uptake, making intuitive, well-designed interfaces essential for market success.

Between October 2024 and March 2025, the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) was commissioned by Passiv UK, a leading smart energy technology company, to conduct comprehensive user feedback research on it’s new Passiv Smart Thermostat (PST). This research aimed to understand real-world user experiences and identify opportunities to enhance product design and functionality.

The Passiv Smart Thermostat is designed to help both installers and consumers navigate the heat pump transition more effectively. With easy-installation features, intuitive user controls, and intelligent heating management, the PST addresses common user experience challenges while incorporating advanced features like demand shifting integration for future grid flexibility.

CSE’s research aimed to gather a range of opinions on the Passiv Smart Thermostat and to produce a set of recommendations for the product roadmap.

Heat pump smart thermostat user research

Research on the PST was conducted with three main groups of people:

• Users – This included current users of the Passiv Smart Thermostat, as well as an older model. Users completed a survey, and some completed a follow-up interview.
• Installers – Interviews were conducted with installers who had recent experience of installing the Passiv Smart Thermostat.
• Non-users – A diverse group of people with no experience of using the Passiv Smart Thermostat were invited to give feedback on design and user experience (via product demo interviews) and on new features (via a survey).

Key research findings and user insights

Several key findings emerged from the research:

• Strong overall satisfaction – most users were satisfied compared to their previous heating setup, and were likely to recommend their Passiv controls, a strong finding relative to general heat pump satisfaction levels. 
• Design and useability especially praised – 73% of users found their Passiv controls easy to understand and use, and the attractive design and accessibility of controls were particularly praised. This underlines the value of dedicated controls for heat pump users.
• Handover a key intervention point – Although most users were happy with their installation process, feedback identified handover as a key intervention point for maximising outcomes and identified some ‘easy-win’ recommendations.
• Poor general understanding is a key barrier – Some research participants had little understanding of how heating controls work. This suggests future smart thermostat innovation will need to balance complex functionality with simple operation.
• Widespread support for flexible features – Almost all non-users reported they would be likely to use the Passiv Smart Thermostat’s innovative smart or automated features (such as pre-heating, or integration with demand shifting schemes or time-of-use tariffs). This is an encouraging finding for the prospect of using smart thermostats to help deliver flexibility from heat pumps in future.

How CSE’s research expertise can support your project

This Passiv Smart Thermostat research demonstrates CSE’s ability to deliver comprehensive user experience studies that drive product development and market adoption. Our mixed-methods approach combining surveys, interviews, and user testing across multiple stakeholder groups provides the actionable insights technology companies need to refine their products and accelerate market penetration.

Our research directly supports companies, policymakers, and communities working to deliver the net zero transition. Whether you need user experience research, market analysis, or policy impact assessment, CSE’s multidisciplinary team can design and deliver research that transforms insights into impact. Contact us to discuss how our research expertise can support your next project.