Honeywell is to take on Nest with a new heating product to complement its Evohome heating system offering already available in the US and UK.

The new intelligent heating system, which isn't as comprehensive as the company's Evohome offering, will be dubbed Honeywell Lyric, and is "designed for the connected home."

Like Nest, the Lyric is a thermostat that intelligently monitors your home's heat from a central location and adjusts accordingly, depending on a number of factors. These include the temperature outside, how fast it takes to heat your house, and even the humidity of your home. It is controlled via the unit itself or an accompanying app on your phone or tablet.

When the thermostat isn't being smart, you can override the system with a number of pre-set programmes including "I am going to sleep", "I am leaving home", and "People are over". You can automate them or manually interact with them.

The circular designed thermostat will come with a large controlling dial, glowing lights out the back (red for heat, blue for cold) so you can see what's going, and the chance to see a quick weather snapshot before you head out the door.

Where it differs from the Nest, but is similar to the Tado system however, is by monitoring your movements on the accompanying app on your phone and automatically turning on or off depending on whether you've left the house.

"It will track you via your smartphone based on geo-fencing capabilities," explained a spokesman for the company to Pocket-lint.

The idea is that as soon as the system detects you have left, it will start turning down the heating and likewise when it sees you approaching from around 7 miles away turn it back up.

Honeywell is keen to stress that you can manually override the system if you've left people without a phone still in the house, but that by monitoring your heating more effectively you'll save money.

Installation, which has been designed for DIY, has been made easy with the accompanying app, and there will be an iOS and Android apps from day one. In the US the system works with both hot and cold AC systems, but there is also a radiator version for controlling hot water too that will appeal to those in the UK.

Priced at $279 in the US, the system will be $30 more expensive than the competing Nest system. Honeywell hopes its 139 year heritage in thermostats and the promise of more connected devices within the Lyric family in the near future (think lights) will be enough to woo customers to go with its system. No price has been set in the UK, however we would expect it to be around £180.

Evohome customers hoping to add another dimension to their heating system, don't. Lyric doesn't currently work with the Evohome system, however Honeywell has said it plans to merge the two in the future. As to why the system won't work with Evohome, Honeywell says: "there are those that want a simple system and those that want something more."

The Honeywell Lyric heating system will be launching in the UK in 2015.