Possible workaround for multi-home users on Samsung Android devices

davidlyall

Hi folks

There's been quite a few posts on the multi-home support issue which got me thinking that surely it's possible to run multiple copies of an app on your phone.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S9 and it appears that the Samsung Secure Folder feature will allow you to have a separate copy of the Tado app with different credentials for each. This should help the majority of users who have one additional property to manage

As a test, I have set up an account using one of my other email addresses and have been able to log into it. I have no devices set up so it reaches the "add device or buy Tado" screen.

My original Tado app is still working normally and showing the devices I have set up. I've not tested exhaustively but so far it looks good.

Not sure if iOS devices can do this natively but there are apps on the App Store that appear to offer this functionality. Maybe someone could test that?

Worth a look if this is something you need and you don't have Apple Homekit

HTH

cibgiu

Thanks for this suggestion.

GC

davidlyall

No worries. I should add that this would likely work on non-Samsung Android phones but you may need to download a sandbox app. The Samsung one is provide by Knox and is called Secure Folder. It appears to be on the Google app store so may be possible to install on other brands

davidlyall

Just going to bump this back to the top since it appeared to be a hot topic for several users

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davidlyall

I really can't see this being a device issue. It would appear to be down to the design of the backend system.

pamindic

You don't say how this second instance of the app can use 'secure folder' to work. Has anyone set this up, and can explain it?

davidlyall

@pamindic, Secure Folder lets you have a second copy of the app installed. You can then sign in with a different account so you can have two copies of the Tado app signed into different accounts.

I've tested it as far as setting up a second account and signing in. This didn't affect the original copy of the app for my home. I don't have a second home to set up so that's as far as I could take it but I can't see a reason why it wouldn't work

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davidlyall

@Tado_WhyNo2ndLoc , I think you'll find a lot of people ask for it on these forums but the reality is that it's a very small % of Tado users.

However, I would think that although it should be straightforward to implement, it would require changes to the entire backend of Tado so could be expensive and time consuming.

Tado has previously said something about the current hardware not supporting 2nd homes but I struggle to see what the hardware has to do with it. This is essentially a change to user accounts to support multiple locations which is all in the back-end.

Jez_P

Blink and Smart Life apps have no problem handing multiple sites, with no monthly subscription. So I guess failing to include this missing functionality despite years of customers asking for it is an active choice by Tado. Really surprising given the high quality of the system!