tado‪°‬ 4+

I like several other people did a lot of research before opting for Tado. Hive and Nest apps get pretty poor reviews in the App Store and I was keen to understand why. I wanted a robust geofenced solution with the option to integrate with HomeKit if necessary. Tado was the only option that fits the bill. I was also keen to avoid overly ‘clever’ learning systems that would try to anticipate movements invariably getting things wrong. Tado provide a logical approach to heating based on a schedule combined with (multiple) device locations and manual overrides providing an extremely flexible solution.

I have no experience in central heating systems and have an elderly system with two independent underfloor heating zones. The system is over 20 years old. Needless to say Tado support was excellent in identifying the old thermostats and providing the necessary installation instructions. It was super simple to install, in fact the Extension Kit simply pushed on to the existing programmer backplate without any rewriring.

Geofencing seems to work like magic ensuring the house is warm on arrival but heating is turned off when we go out. The various graph views are indispensable for a getting a temperature profile throughout the day. 10/10.

Have been using Tado for 1 year. Mainly very impressed indeed. Best feature is undoubtedly Tado's ability to maintain constant temperature throughout house. Still, I am surprised that the following 2 things do not make it to the list of things needing attention.
1) There is no scope for creating 2 or more timing set ups for the whole house. For example I have one timing programme for the whole house during a normal working week, but then need a totally different set up for holiday periods. I also ideally need a further set up for when my kids are home from uni but I am still at work. What happens in practice is that I dare not lose all my timings for the most common set up, so I keep that set-up but then end up manually controlling the whole house during holiday times! I think you will agree that is a very bizarre scenario given how easy it would be for you to add several more programmable schedules to the app. In our case it isn't possible to use the GEO location option for a family because in practice you can't rely on teenagers having their phones (a) with them and (b) charged.
2) The noise of the thermostats is enough to wake a light sleeper. This never gets mentioned in your literature. For some this renders thermostats pointless in a bedroom, and for other such as myself means that I have to artificially work round the problem by setting switch on times to later than desired.

Having had Tado smart thermostats and radiator thermostats installed for about a week now, I am really impressed with the system however the software side of things is letting it down a bit. The app is ok, not had any bugs but the lack of simple options to do obvious things is baffling. You can only set a schedule PER DEVICE over 7 days, by creating blocks and it takes FOREVER. Why can’t we create schedule templates and apply to zones/devices? My kids come home every other week from their mothers and I have to adjust everything manually, it’s a nightmare. In the summer, I’m going to have to edit everything again, it’s just ridiculous, there is a much better way of doing this and it’s been asked for continuously on the Tado forum that no staff seem to take notice of.
I also had to contact support to carry out a really simple task as when i first installed my equipment, the radiator thermostats were calling for heat to the wrong zone, only support could fix that! Seems like another simple thing that could be done in the app. Lastly, why can somethings only be done on the website and not in the app?! All functionality should be available inside of the app, if anything the web app should be less useful. Like I said, it’s a great product that is working really well but it really needs time and effort on the software side.