Hive has today announced Active Heating 2, with a brand new smart thermostat and a range of new features for your smart heating system.

Through an update to the app, Hive is going to enable many of the new features for existing Hive customers, as well as those who sign-up for the new system. 

The new features that are coming to Hive's system include a heating boost mode. This works like the current hot water boost, but you can now add a timer, for up to 6 hours. That means you can boost the heating without fiddling with the schedule, switching to manual or anything else. 

You'll now also be able to select how many slots you want on your heating and water schedule. It was originally four slots, increasing to six slots. Now, you'll be able to go in and decide how many slots you actually need.

There is a new holiday mode, as well as great summary screen so you can see what's going on. You'll be able to set the dates that you're away from the new thermostat, or within the app, allowing you to ensure that things drop back to frost protection mode while you’re away and turn on to heat the house as you're coming home. 

If you have the plumbing for a multi-zone system then Hive will now be able to support that, meaning you can have upstairs and downstairs at different temperatures, for example. This doesn't work on an individual room basis, you'll need to plumbing in place for this to be enabled.

Hive today also introduced a range of products for smarthome, including sensors and smart plugs, with an aim of making more homes smart through the Hive system.

There's no firm date on when the Hive app will be updated, but with the new thermostat available in August, we imagine that's when the new features will appear.