tado° Smart Thermostat Starter Kit V3+ - Intelligent heating control, works with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, IFTTT

I purchased the smart thermostat in November 2020 to replace my old mechanical thermostat. I was already aware that the automatic shutoff while away was a subscription feature so I won't take any stars off for that. Having said that, even without paying for the smart features, the app will ping you a notification when you leave the house asking if you want to set "Away mode". Yes it's not as convenient as having it set automatically but it is still really helpful and easy to set Away mode of you're out for a few days. The main purpose of this review is just to report on the very high quality of the thermostat, the installation instructions and the app. You can really tell they spent time paying attention to the smallest details which really sets it apart from the typical Chinese IoT hardware out there. I am a software developer and hardware tinkerer so I recognise the effort that went into the Tado thermostat. I was also a bit concerned about battery life as my thermostat has no power cable. Well it took 7 months before I could write this review because that is how long the 3 AAA Duracell batteries lasted (217 days actually). 5 weeks ago I received an email telling me the batteries were low but not to worry as they would still last another 3 weeks. I also got a warning when viewing the app. (this is the kind of thing I mean when I talk about attention to detail). As for the actual benefits well for me what I like is: - keeps the correct time (unlike the mechanical timer on my boiler) - shows me a graph of the room temperature over time so I can see how well the heating is performing - shows humidity over time which is useful in winter as I get dry hands or in summer as it might feel hotter than the thermostat would say otherwise. - lets me control the temperature from my phone so I don't have to get up from where I'm sitting - lets me control the settings from outside my house so I can make sure it is off when I'm away or warming the flat before I arrive - lets me control the temperature via my phone's assistant (I don't have Alexa or Google home but it still works directly through my phone) - setting a heating schedule is really easy and intuitive via the app - battery lasts over 6 months! - never has trouble connecting to my WiFi despite the fact that I turn off my router every night. Well the thermostat is very close to the router so I can't test the range but some of my other devices only connect 9/10 times. The Tado connects quickly 100% of the time.

We have a Glow-worm Ultracom 38 cxi combi boiler with a Drayton electro-mechanical 2 wire wall thermostat that we wanted to replace with the tado smart thermostat. The thermostat was getting end of life and would often need the contacts cleaned before switching the normally open (NO) 24 VDC heating control from the boiler. The other issue was the lack of intelligent heating control whereby the house was either cool or hot with frequent intervention needed to increase and decrease the thermostat set point. Most new thermostats on the market, smart or otherwise, could improve the control situation but after installing Alexa we wanted to add heating to the list of house devices that we now control. We also thought that having the ability to monitor and control the home environment over the Internet might be useful. Research began on two commonly known products and they both looked fantastic. The problem with the UK models is that there didn’t seem to be a 'wired' switching thermostat model (where the thermostat itself did the switching) available and a wireless receiver had to be installed at the boiler. I thought it pointless to install a wireless receiver and start altering boiler wiring when we already had wires installed to the existing thermostat. Hot water did not need controlling. It was a relief to discover that tado could replace an existing wired thermostat and in our case switch the 24 VDC circuit using the common-NO wiring configuration. The Tado was ordered and arrived quickly. Although being an electrician by trade I followed the Tado instructions that started at the Tado setup web page; I didn’t want to be the one causing a boiler meltdown in the middle of winter by getting things wrong. The start of the install involved creating an account then registering the smart thermostat and the Internet Bridge that plugged into the Ethernet port of the router. Recognition and configuration of tado components was slick without problem. The installation then asks your thermostat and boiler make/model/setup. It was good to see that the Drayton and Glow-worm Ultracom 38 cxi was included in the list. The Ultracom 38 cxi is listed as Ultracom --- cxi as it includes all three (24, 30 and 38) cxi models. The boiler unit was powered off and the instructions gave the wiring diagram which was as expected in my case having metered out the wires beforehand. The wires were labelled using the stickers provided. Mounting of the new thermostat was easy in my case as the existing screw holes from the Drayton matched the tado smart thermostat. The unit could be mounted without any more holes being put in the wall although I did have to chase the cable hole a little. I am not sure if the tado would benefit from a built in level like some of the other models have although this was not an issue as we have a few levels about the house and can resort to the mobile app level if needed. Tado thermostat common and NO were used for the boiler heating switching control with the earth wire being terminated into a spare isolation terminal. After replacing the wiring cover then clipping on the smart thermostat, we were ready to power on the boiler. After manually altering the heating using the manual controls on the smart thermostat and checking the boiler operated in a similar way as the old thermostat, it was time to install the app. We have both android and apple devices in the household and the app installed and worked well on both. We switched off the heating schedule function built into the boiler. There were instructions with the tado but we left the old boiler schedule as is and switched off the boiler 'Central Heating Timed Mode'. This was done by pushing the mode button on the boiler until only the 'Central Heating Function' and 'Domestic Hot Water Function' icons were displayed in the boiler LCD display. The tado app heating schedule gave us what we could not get from the boiler timed mode and that is work week/weekend programming. An individual day programme was also available. We now have frost protection which we never had if the boiler schedule or control had the boiler heating off. The app works well over the Internet when away from home and we have had no issue with performance. For some of the colder days it was good to switch on the heating a bit early before leaving work as the inside temperature had dropped with the heating off. We could change the off time to a minimum threshold to alleviate this maybe in the future. The saving in the heating bill will come from the fact that we seldom overshoot with excessive heating of the house. Having intelligence built into the control, the smart thermostat will alter the heating as the room temperature reaches the set point. The analytics that come with the app show when the boiler was switched on and off over time so you can see your burn rate versus temperature and humidity. One tip if using the schedule is to change the 'Settings' -> 'Heating' 'Manual Control on tado device' from 'Until ended by user' to 'Until next automatic change' otherwise a change in temperature by the user will override the schedule 'next time' until you cancel manually. Alexa was easy to setup and with Alex Show and the Alex Dot in another room inherited the setup. A voice command to check the inside temperature brings up a digital thermostat on the Alex Show screen where the temperature can be altered using the touchscreen interface. Setting heating up/down or to a specific temperature is easy with voice control. We get all of the functionality mentioned and more without spending a penny on subscriptions. We don’t want the features the subscription entitles us to so this is not an issue. The tado smart thermostat gets five stars as it has surpassed my expectations from installation to operation. It also provided the wired thermostat replacement with the flexibility to add a boiler extension kit if the heating control is more complex and/or the water heating is to be controlled. If we want to build on the system to make it multi-room with additional smart thermostats and/or smart radiator thermostats then these options are available.

--Been using Tado for 15 months now, no improvements or updates in terms of functionality since purchased-- Background: Moved from a 1970's Back Boiler/Water Tank & single-pane radiators with no TRV's to a modern Combi boiler, dual-pane radiators, with full Tado system. This thermostat is very intimidating to non-tech people, not because of the physical install but because you have to configure it on the unit itself. Full details can be found buried in Tado's site as you need to tell the thermostat if it is a relay or temperature sensor, if it will control hot water, and if any Tado Extension Kits are present. Pros: • Let's you control temperature in 0.1 degree intervals. • Smaller than expected & looks very modern. • Updates the temperature of the location & updates the app every 10-15 seconds. • Comes with Duracell OEM batteries pre-installed. • Can be configured before wiring takes place, as the wiring is only used for boiler communication everything else runs off the batteries. Cons: • Took 30-45 minutes to ensure all working (As modern boilers don't let you on/off constantly) • Picks up dirt/marks stupidly quick - Ours had black marks within minutes from the contractor and they will not scrub off. • Not elderly friendly. To change the temperature at the thermostat itself you have to press the button, wait for it to prompt for target temperature, then press the up & down arrows until you reach the temperature you want. • Alexa control is not as intuitive as you'd expect out of the box. (In my example X = Living Room) --Saying "Alexa, Increase the Temperature in X" does not work, you have to specify how many degrees you want to go up or down. --Tado creates 2 scenes in Alexa per TRV, these are all called "Boost X" or "Manual Mode X" - You'd expect these to be "Alexa, Boost X" to give a temperature boost in X location, instead the command is "Alexa, turn on boost X" and you get a 1 degree increase. "Alxea, turn off boost X" resets the TRV to it's target temperature. --Saying "Alexa, Turn the heating on" is a grey area. If all the TRV's & the Thermostat are reading temperatures above their target, Alexa will NOT turn the heating on. Instead you have to say "Alexa, increase the thermostat" to increase the target temperature until it turns on. • The 'Savings' this makes are nowhere near as big as they advertise, with a 2019 combi boiler I only save 1-2% monthly, the MOST I have saved is 22% but that was when the boiler was turned off the entire month! • There is no 'off' feature still, the heating will always kick on if if feels it is needed unless you manually set the target to 0c or put Tado is away-mode. Notes: • The subscription of £24 p/year is NOT required unless you want Tado to: 1. Automatically turn off TRV's when a window is open or air flow is detected (Without subscription, you get a notification on your phone. Responding to the notification turns the TRV off) 2. Turn off the heating when nobody is home. (Without subscription, you get a notification on your phone. Responding to the notification turns the heating off) 3. The App states that "Weather Adaptation" is always active.

I had high hopes for this system. The smart wall thermostat install went OK, no problem linking. First smart radiator valve on a Drayton valve, OK. A bit fiddly, not easy to feel the click to let you know it's locked but got there. the next one was a Danfoss, a very common valve and adaptor included. The adaptor is rubbish, it doesn't grip the nut well enough. What's worse, the manufacturers know it's rubbish: "This form allows you to order a new Danfoss RA adapter free of charge if you are having an issue with the stock adapter due to a minor manufacturing issue. This typically results in the Smart Radiator Thermostat not sitting securely on the valve, even when the screw on the Danfoss RA adapter is not overtightened" So now I have to wait 14 days, they're sent from Germany surface mail. They know they're selling a duff product and yet they make minimal effort to sort it out. I've played with the schedule settings via browser. The Tado interface does not work well with a 4K laptop screen, the up-down arrows are too tiny to click on. It's all a bit naff. As I've mounted and got the wall thermostat working plus one radiator, I'll persevere, but I'm not optimistic. Update. I checked the Tado help again and it may well be more than two weeks for the supposedly improved Danfross adaptors to arrive. So, I went down to Screwfix and bought three Drayton complete TRVs at a cost of over £30. This made the job much bigger, draining the heating system, removing old valves, and radiator tail for one. Refitted new valves and from that point on the installation was very easy. The initial setup needed a laptop but once the Router Bridge was installed I could use phone to read in the barcodes rather than type long case sensitive strings in. I was pleased to find in the case of the living room where the wall thermostat is fitted, the system automatically just uses the radiator Smart Thermostat as an on-off device with the wall thermostat giving very accurate temperature control. I'm so impressed I might buy another Smart Wall thermostat for the main bedroom. I've already spent more £400 though... I've yet to set up the away from home automatic switch off and Alexa control but it now looks to be a very well thought out system. There is total flexibility on individual room control, unlimited time slots for unlimited temperature setting. In conclusion, this is a five-star system marred by a very weak solution to a major (not minor) manufacturing/ design defect (which cost me an extra £30 and 4 hours of work). I've upgraded my review of 2 stars to 4. I strongly recommend Tado if you have Drayton valves. Otherwise expect delays, more expense, or even a plumber if you can't do valve replacement stuff yourself. Two years later: It’s been a very reliable system. Six valves, and a room stat in continuous operation with no failures. Occasionally, very rarely, a valve is reported as not connected. Apart from the one occasion due to flat batteries, this has always been the Tado remote server. Thankfully, a rare occurrence. If you see a ‘not connected” message, ignore it for six hours, it will go away on it’s own. Still not quite five stars but getting close.

This product was so easy to install, setup and use. Quick fitment of the controller to the boiler in pmace of the old thermostat. All the family have the app and control their rooms to own preferences. The geofencing works well too. Temperature hold far more steady than before having Tado. Heating modulation on a Vaillant boiler works great. Saving money on energy bills.

So looking into competitors offerings and they were all way more pricey than the TADO system, reviews were good, so I went for that. I’m an engineer by trade and like DIY, so opted to fit myself. The package arrived and was fairly straightforward to fit the parts, although it took a bit of thought. All the instructions are online and it’s a bit difficult to follow at times. That said, I took an evening and got it all installed with not much trouble. It looks really slick and if you have white or light decoration it really looks fantastic. I thought the starter kit and 4 rad thermos straight off but after setting it up I brought another 4 rad kits straight away. The app is easy to use and helps you through the installation process well. It has a few little glitches, sometimes doesn’t update immediately, but these are minor issues and don’t interfere with the control at all. Lots of great features like it detects the window is open, can warmup ready for when u set a timer and automatically turns the heating off if no one is in the house. The functionality of controlling the temperature and times to heat the rooms is easy and versatile, if you have 2 rads in a room and a thermostat, that’s no problem! You can also control up to10 rooms individually if you have the hardware (rad trvs in each room as a minimum) I had a issue with the wiring (which I didn’t realize at first) and it all stopped working through the setup process. The customer support was slow to answer, it took a couple of hours, but when the chap got through to me, he was great. We worked through it for over an hour and resolved the wiring problem. It was late in the evening but he stayed on until it was sorted. I could show photos of the wiring etc and he talked me through it well. All in all it’s a great looking product that You can install yourself and does the job well, I would definitely go for this product again!

I think most importantly when upgrading to a smart thermostat, other than ease of use, is price. But not just how much the product costs but how much it costs to install it. My Tado was so easy to self install I’m certainly glad I didn’t spend an extra £120 for some else to do a 10 minute job. The app guides you through the installation in great detail, and extra support is on hand if you do need it, but you really shouldn’t. Not unless there is something seriously wrong with your existing wiring. Using the app is great and the temperature graph you get is really insightful, helping to better fine tune your smart scheduling. It also records humidity and uses external information from other weather stations to advise on when you should open your windows to maintain a healthy air quality inside your home. You can then of course manually override your schedule remotely using the app from wherever you are. From the research I did comparing the other smart thermostat products available there isn’t much between them other than price, and ease of installation, so that’s why it is important for you to decide on how much you are willing to spend on both aspects. Two things made up my mind, the expansion ability with the smart radiator valves (where Tado are market leaders), and the deal I found on the day. There are a lot of reviews giving the subscription charge a bad reputation, and I implore you to discount their negativity. Tado don’t hide the fact that auto-assist for geolocation and open window detection are a subscription extra. And considering it’s a monthly cost which you can cancel, if you really want the extra features then you really only need them for 5 months of the year so a total of £15. Personally I won’t bother with the auto-assist, I actually prefer the manual control as you do still get a notification asking if you want to switch from home to away mode and vice versa. Also think of the subscription service as a way of Tado getting extra revenue to support future software developments. The way companies earn revenues is changing. Gone are the days where we pay for software upgrades, we expect the latest versions for free. So it’s just a different way of companies being able to offer great products with great customer service.

Had Hive in a previous house but after reading good reviews of Tado, decided to purchase a Wired Smart Thermostat to replace an old fixed Honeywell thermostat to control central heating only. I was happy to leave hot water controlled by a traditional programmer installed in an airing cupboard adjacent to a hot water tank. Our house has a traditional system with gas boiler providing hot water and heating radiators as separate circuits. The Tado thermostat was easy to fit and set up but the thermostat itself is not 'smart' and cannot be programmed, it relies on a mobile app to provide the schedule and desired temperature settings. In addition to the thermostat and app, there is a 'bridge' which connects to an Internet hub/router. However, the weakness I discovered is that the bridge and thermostat become disconnected easily. Once that happens the app is useless. Advice from Tado support was to relocate the bridge to a position 3 - 5 metres from the thermostat and ensure that the bridge is upright and away from metal objects, walls and sources of radio interference! I tried various locations without success. As Tado's support forum shows, the problem of the thermostat disconnecting from the bridge is very common. After persevering for several weeks, I finally gave up, removed Tado and replaced my old Honeywell thermostat. I shall return the Tado as unfit for purpose.