I can see the benefit if you lead a far more interesting life as me and are not so regular as my family and am and are always coming and going at all hours of the day.

The advantage with Tado is that you simply never have to touch the thing after you’ve installed it.

For example, my mum is visiting me for 2 weeks, she never gave the heating controls a 2nd thought – simply walked out of the door with her phone. It is currently 7° in her house at the moment. It will heat up when she is seen to be on her way home. When she arrives the heating will be on and doing its thing. When the correct temp is reached.. it’ll do its thing.

wilburt – Member
Do you set your timer/programmers to on permanently?

If the timer/programmer is built into your boiler, then yes and replacing the remote thermostat. If it’s all separate to the boiler, then you’re replacing timer/programmer/’stat.
last year I rented a house that had a Baxi boiler with timer/programmer on the boiler and a ‘stat in the hall/bottom of the stairs. Due to nature of my work, a timer is useless, so I switched the boiler permanently on and just twiddled the ‘stat when entering / leaving the house, going to bed, walking downstairs 1st thing, smart heating is just a much more sophisticated way of basically that.

I can see the benefit if you lead a far more interesting life as me and are not so regular as my family and am and are always coming and going at all hours of the day.

that’s probably the main reason for me (altho I have at least one other), not an interesting life, but a job that has no set pattern, not hourly, daily or weekly. a timer/programmer was next to useless. Equally, a learning smart system like Nest was instantly dismissed as i don’t see how it could learn my completely random work patterns.

I’m very interested in this thread, but our setup is a bit weird. Our combi boiler is in the garage, the thermostat is in the kitchen….however its stupidly placed as we have an Aga (dont go there, i hate the effing thing…) so the kitchen is always far hotter than the remainder of the house as the Aga is constantly on. Is there a way to move the thermostat (or rather where it gets its air temp readings from) with any of these smart kits?

Old style nest here. While it works from an understanding point of view it is OK as a system. But the learning has made us take a step back as it means it’s on when we don’t want it to “preheat”

Is there a way to move the thermostat (or rather where it gets its air temp readings from) with any of these smart kits?

you can put the temperature sensing bit anywhere. There is a box that connects to the boiler to do the switching and a control unit that talks to it, usually wirelessly. Means you can move it around depending on your needs at the time or just find the optimal position.

Ordered a tado smart thermostat and a couple of TRVs last night. Will update on the ease of installation once it all arrives.

Hopefully it’ll be as easy as everyone suggests..

G.

I’ve been looking at a smart thermostat as it’ll no doubt save me money long term as I work some odd shifts so it’ll be easier to switch the heating and hot water on and off as required rather than being on set timers.

I’ve been looking at the Nest but having read this thread it seems that the Tado is fairly popular and a bit cheaper. Any particular reason to go for one over the other?

notmyrealname – Member
I’ve been looking at a smart thermostat as it’ll no doubt save me money long term as I work some odd shifts so it’ll be easier to switch the heating and hot water on and off as required rather than being on set timers.

I’ve been looking at the Nest but having read this thread it seems that the Tado is fairly popular and a bit cheaper. Any particular reason to go for one over the other?
Nest is the learning system, so possibly the least suitable. if you work completely random hourly/daily/weekly/monthly, then consider Tado or a system using IFTTT (not sure how IFTTT would work for a family). When researching, I had some reservations about Tado which I couldn’t find answers for, mostly about their TRV’s, but also about the location stuff.

I’ve got Evohome, it’s set up with IFTTT so that it turns off when my wifi disconnects and turns on when I enter a set distance from home.

bigG – Member
Ordered a tado smart thermostat and a couple of TRVs last night. Will update on the ease of installation once it all arrives.

bigG I’d be really interested about the TRV’s and whether they truly operate as independent systems like Evohome does. When researching, it was between Evohome and Tado, but Tado TRV’s were imminent release at that time, so not much info or any reviews. There’s a difference between a smart trv which just twiddles the TRV knob (all you need in a German apt with a communal boiler) and a smart trv which talks to the boiler and can demand heat even if all the other trv’s and main controller say otherwise. I wasn’t certain that the Tado smart trv would be as smart as the Evohome trv and I couldn’t find any definite answer on the Tado website which all seemed to be about using the TRV’s in a German apt with communal boiler. I was further put off by this post from fluxhutchinson

fluxhutchinson – Member
If your going to go for a system like this, go for evohome home. The others havent been out as long and I dont know how well tested they are compared to evohome.

Ive also been told by honeywell that theirs is the only one that can provide boiler interlock as they have the patents on two way communication and actively sue any who says theirs does.

Ive got evohome home in my house and the customers Ive fit it for are really happy with the systems that theyve got.

Went with Honeywell Evohome in the end as the others were either so new that there was no user experience reviews and/or I felt happier throwing my lot in with a large long established system and company where there is a requirement for them to facilitate the remote internet connection for years.

I have an ancient Myson Apollo boiler and fitted a Tado extension kit and thermostat yesterday, couldn’t have been easier (if you mail them they’ll suggest if it’ll work on your system and what kit you need) I couldn’t wire a plug without a youtube vid so if I did it anyone can. Was simple enough just to swap the wires from one unit to the next mind.

Couple of calls to Tado to get it configured and checked and it was fully working an hour after I started the job.

I work away at random times/days and also visit the GF a few times through the week, my previous plan was to just never to switch the heating on ever, least I’ll be warmer now…

The Nest learning function does look like it could be more problems than it’s worth for my shifts.

Currently trying to figure out if I can use the Tado to control the heating and hot water or if I need anything to go with the starter smart thermostat pack.
Don’t suppose anyone would know??

I know a couple of people with Nest who said the learning function didn’t work very well for them. I went for Hive which works pretty well and I wanted the bulbs/plug sockets on the same system too. Might not be for everyone though. My brother has Hive with 3 thermostats as hes got 3 heating zones and I think he’s pleased with it so far.

bigG I’d be really interested about the TRV’s and whether they truly operate as independent systems like Evohome does. When researching, it was between Evohome and Tado, but Tado TRV’s were imminent release at that time, so not much info or any reviews. There’s a difference between a smart trv which just twiddles the TRV knob (all you need in a German apt with a communal boiler) and a smart trv which talks to the boiler and can demand heat even if all the other trv’s and main controller say otherwise. I wasn’t certain that the Tado smart trv would be as smart as the Evohome trv and I couldn’t find any definite answer on the Tado website which all seemed to be about using the TRV’s in a German apt with communal boiler. I was further put off by this post from fluxhutchinson

Tado TRV’s can definitely call for for heat from the boiler. You need a Tado thermostat as part of the setup which I guess gets past that patent stuff, if it is even true, as the TRV talks to the thermostat which demands heat. Contrary to common wisdom Tado recommend you have a TRV on the rad in the same room as the thermostat. That way the rad in the thermostat room doesn’t always end up hot whenever any of the rads in the house call for heat.

Most if this info is in the Tado FAQs. They are also good at answering tech questions, albeit with a slow response time at the moment.

Plenty of tech discussion here;
https://www.avforums.com/threads/tado-smart-thermostat.2077764/

Nest can use your phone GPS to see if you are home or away and switch heating on or off automatically. I don’t know if all the others can do that also but it’s the feature I am planning to use most often.

Hive have had that function from the start km79

I’m about to completely replumb a house so will be putting in separate zones throughout so looking at the best way to operate it all on a system boiler.

You can switch the Nest learning function off

https://nest.com/uk/support/article/How-do-I-turn-off-Nest-Auto-Schedule-learning-and-use-Nest-as-a-programmable-thermostat

“If you turn off Auto-Schedule and only use a programmed schedule, you can still benefit from your Nest Thermostat’s energy-saving and comfort features, such as Home/Away Assist, the Nest Leaf and Early-On, but your schedule will stay just how you left it.”

Nest is the learning system, so possibly the least suitable. if you work completely random

You can of course turn the learning function off. That said I’ve left learning on on mine and we have it on and off all over the place and it’s slowly getting better at predicting when we might want it.

The ability to.know when you’re home helps a great deal here.

I prefer Nest tho Tado simply for the aesthetics of it and the information on the display.

Not a great deal in it other than looks though.

Looking at our usage history for this month of the heating has been on at all then it’s usually been for 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 hours because of the ease of which to turn it on and off when required as opposed to several hours a day on a traditional one set to arbitrary times.

Nest can use your phone GPS to see if you are home or away and switch heating on or off automatically. I don’t know if all the others can do that also but it’s the feature I am planning to use most often.

Was reading up on it this morning and it doesn’t actually use the phone GPS. Seems to us a mix of methods to detect whether you’re home including time of day, phone connected to wifi network, movement sensor on Nest (and any other Nest devices – so improved if you also have their smoke detectors). I’m dubious about this functionality myself – looks like it would be helpful in getting Nest to enhance it’s automatic scheduling if you have a regular work pattern but if you don’t it will just result in you coming home to a cold house (when you really want the opposite).

1) How easy are they to self install? I’m reasonably methodical, though not really electrically minded! Current boiler has a wireless (radio) thermostat already.

Going back to the OP’s question it really depends on how confidant you are. Have a look at the wiring diagrams in the Nest manual (you’ve pobably got a Y plan heating system – most in UK are). If you can make sense of that then you can probably wire in a Nest.

You need to tap the Nest control box in at the wiring centre. If you leave your current timer in place (and just switch it to constant for both heating and hot water then you just add an extra loop out to the Nest box relays for each of hot water and heating. If you want to remove the current timer (or leave it in place but ensure changing the settings does nothing!) then it’s a bit more involved. Most wiring centres are a mass of cables shoved into a load of unlabelled chocolate block connector so fairly hard to disentangle.

I wasted a lot of time trying to just remove a couple of wires before ripping it all out and working from first principles using lever connectors

Was reading up on it this morning and it doesn’t actually use the phone GPS. Seems to us a mix of methods to detect whether you’re home including time of day, phone connected to wifi network, movement sensor on Nest (and any other Nest devices – so improved if you also have their smoke detectors). I’m dubious about this functionality myself – looks like it would be helpful in getting Nest to enhance it’s automatic scheduling if you have a regular work pattern but if you don’t it will just result in you coming home to a cold house (when you really want the opposite).

That’s a bummer if true because I just bought one based on that feature. Their own website says they use GPS when wifi or mobile data isn’t enough. I’ll test it out next week to see how it responds to me not being at home. I am in an out at random times during the week so auto schedule wont be much use except for early morning, evening and through the night. I was planning on it recognising when I’m not home during the day and turning down thermostat automatically and then figuring out when I’m on my way back and turning it up again.

https://nest.com/uk/support/article/How-Home-Away-Assist-uses-your-phone-s-location

have a look – maybe I misread it as I quickly realised it wasn’t going to work for my purposes. I can’t see how it can tell you’re coming home though so you’re house it always going to be cold when you get back if this is used. (whereas it’s auto-scheduling can take account of heating up time and will work out when it needs to start heating to get to a target temp at a particular time.)

I promised to update this thread with some detail on the insall and operation of my Tado system. Sorry it’s taken so long to reply, it’s taken this long to get it working properly.

Delivery took a fortnight from order (this was over the new year period so couldn’t expect much better). It was delivered via UPS from Germany.

Install of the TRVs was simple enough but the plastic adaptors are not effective (more on this later).

Install of the smart thermostat appeared to be simple enough at first, the diagrams and process of the online tool is good. However, this is where the issues started. Once installed the new smart thermostat appears to have totally messed up the heating controls in the boiler. Basically the heating was not responding, the thermostat appeared to be thinking that the room was up to heat, when it wasn’t. I contacted Tado technical support, it was friday night, no one was around so I had to wait. One of the coldest weekends of the year and it looked like we’d have no heating. Tried reinstalling the old thermostat, it wasn’t working. Finally after cycling power through the boiler it fired up, and stayed on. We have SSE boiler care so they were called out and on the following Monday they came out. The engineer was totally puzzled and ended up installing a new room thermostat and wireless control which took some doing and eventually got the heating working again.

After some time tado got back in touch, their solution was that since my set up had now changed I needed to buy another bit of kit, an extension kit. (another £80). They offered no help or explanation as to the reason why the initial install had screwed up.

At this point I decided to let them do the install and paid an additional £90 to have one of their guys install it all. The new kit came in a few days (UPS express because I’d kicked off) and install was booked for mid Jan. It was installed by a company from East Kilbride and the guy had what he called “a right nightmare” doing the install. Apparently in his experience Tado is always hard work. He had to spend 45 mins on the phone to the tado help line having the smart thermostat reset. (not something that was offered to me as an option or even explored when I made contact). Eventually the room thermostat and extension kit were installed and working. Happy days!

That’s not the end of the saga though. A few days after installing the TRVs one of them started popping off the valve assembly. The units have an electrically powered shaft in them which operates the rad valve. The pressure of this can cause the TRV to pop off the plastic adaptors that Tado provide. Despite various attempted bodges nothing worked so after some internet searching I found a guy in germany selling metal danfoss adaptors which do the trick (and look better) but cost £14 incl P&P. Being honest it pissed me off that i’d spent a bundle of cash and got lousy kit with a known issue and no help from Tado.

After pushing Tado hard including complaining they now admit that they know of the issue with the plastic adaptors and can ship an alternative batch (only if asked and they won’t be retrospectively sending these to existing customers unless asked).

So it’s taken six weeks to have the install complete and the system working as designed. It’s been substantially harder work than Tado suggest it ought to and to be honest their support hasn’t been great.

Now it’s working it seems to be good, time will tell if it’s just a bloody expensive white box on the wall and some fancy TRVs.

My set up was – Danfoss room thermostat, danfoss TRVs and a Worscester greenstar boiler. Now – two smart TRVs, some traditional TRVs. Tado smart room thermostat and wirelss extension unit.

PS, the smart TRVs do send a demand to the boiler so it will fire up if the room thermostat isn’t also putting demand for heat at the same time.

Thanks for the update bigG
I’ve had my Tado thermostat for 6 weeks now, no issues apart from the hub losing connect once. Found it easy to install on a 25 year old Ideal boiler, replacing a simple Honeywell room stat.
I wanted to add the radiator valves in the future (hopefully they will be on offer as they are a bit prcety to kit a whole house with) but I’d seen some talk about the Danfoss issue you;ve encountered. I emailed Tado, asking if the issue had been resolved, they blamed customers for over-tightening the valves! I definitely won’t be buying them full price if I have to factor in £14 adapters.

Interesting to hear your experiences with Tado – I fitted a system for my parents back in 2014 and their support was good.

I know that they had delays with the first batch of radiator valves, and I wonder if they haven’t been a victim of their own success recently – very rapid expansion of the business client base.

My mum’s system has been great – no more heating boom and bust, everything is just a nice, steady temp and she never touches the controls, even if she goes away for a fortnight.

I’ve been debating ordering a Tado setup, but our house is pretty new, and was first owned by a sparky who went rather OTT with room thermostats, so we have loads of them scattered about the house.  Does anyone know if an option would be to replace a small amount of them with Tado ones, and simply disconnect the rest?  How would the heating then be controlled in the room which previously had its own thermostat, as the Tado system means that the heating is on constantly (but controlled by their thermostats)

I tried to work through this with the Tado customer service guys, but they just told me that I should replace all thermostats with their ones, so that would be £££