Smart AC Thermostat Battery Pack & Homekit Upgrade
Hello folks!
I'm a tado enthusiast and I built quite an ecosystem at home: always felt that tado products have an extra kick both in design and experience customization which made me choose them above the competitors.
I was a bit turned off by the Smart AC Thermostat USB cable hanging along the wall and plugged in the adapter (tiny, but still)... so I got an idea: wouldn't it be great to develop a battery pack to fit in the back of the device which would allow it a slick and clean look (such as the regular Thermostat)? I believe it should be possibile to achieve a successful product given the way the AC Thermostat is built and the thin shape it has would allow for it to gain an extra layer without losing its design.
As for the Homekit upgrade idea: I'm not aware of all the possibilities Homekit has about AC but I know for sure that it does support both Temperature AND fan options (as shown by Mysa Smart Thermostat for AC https://shop.getmysa.com/products/mysa-ac?country=CA). It would be great for all of us Homekit users to have the best integration possibile as we have for the heating devices.
I do understand that developing a whole new product to integrate an existing one might sound crazy, but I'm sure I'm not the only one hating that cable.
As for the Homekit update: I believe it only makes sense to take full advantage of this major platform!
Thank you all!
Comments
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Both are interesting suggestions. I'll give you my fair assessment:
Batteries; very, very slim chance. High development cost, low take rate.
Homekit; much higher potential. We are kind of limited by the tools Apple gives us, but you've given an example of another company. Let me bring this to the attention of our Devs.
edit1: Looking at that website though, they are very 'inspired' by our design. Must be a compliment. Anyway, we can still learn from this.1 -
@Fran_88 @Rob The reason Mysa smart airconditioner can change fanspeed in homekit is because they declare the airco a thermostat device AND a ventilator device in Homekit. With that workaround Mysa can set the temperature of the airco AND set the fanspeed in homekit.
Tado Smart AC declares the airco a climate device (airconditioner) which does not (yet) have the option to change the fanspeed in Homekit. Yes, Apple should add fanspeed with the airco category, but Mysa did a fine job working around this limitation.
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@MichielTado Exactly. I found the mysa website not very helpful, but I observed exactly what you described in a youtube video. Mysa worked around Apple's limitations. The solution is not very elegant by having two tiles per one device, but it's better than no (Homekit) solution at all.
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@Rob You can actually group the two accessories as one tile in the Home app. So no need to use two tiles to set temperature/heating/cooling and fanspeed. It works basically the same as Tado Smart AC with the benefit of fanspeed setting.
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Not being an Apple user, I'll take your word for it. Regardless, they made it work and as tado° we could learn from this.
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Thanks both of you @Rob @MichielTado for the acknowledgement and the support!
I'm really excited to see if this idea from mysa can be integrated in tado in the future.
In the meantime another possibility to improve the value of Smart AC, could be to develop Siri Shortcuts integration allowing the users to create their own Siri command through the options available in the tado App.
This would give us the chance to control the tado app via Siri (and consequentially via Homepod) without even having the devices added to Homekit.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit/offering_actions_in_the_shortcuts_app this might give you an idea of the possibilities.
I noticed it's something that was brought up in some threads but nobody from tado seemed to engage in those conversations.
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Kinda sad that in the meantime Netatmo managed to release a new product, same features, different price tag, that can control temperature and fan speed just like mysa does while my tado still can’t!! I don’t wanna change device! My tado is prettier!
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