Please fix the Energy IQ feature ...
Following on from another conversation here (and inspired by @eezytiger ) I checked with OVO as to how they are calculating the figures shown on their website. I put together this spreadsheet and, given the fluctuations due to the calorific value of gas, it seems to tally up.
Now that I understand this, I can point out where the Energy IQ feature is flawed.
- My tariff price is set to £/kWh, which I enter into tado
- Any data I add (meter readings) are then set to kWh, however, my meter measures m3. And this is the problem with the app.
In order for me to be able to enter a kWh value in the app, I need to take the kWh consumption from the previous day (from the OVO website), add this to a fictitious 'meter reading' (is actually a cumulative total) and enter this. However, the tado app doesn't allow the decimal precision needed.
The 'Display Unit' setting might make it easier to enter accurate meter readings, however, this is only applied to the Energy IQ consumption curve, and not the meter reading. And so is unhelpful.
For completeness, the OVO guidance in converting m3 meter reading to kWh is:
1 - Take your meter reading (m3)
2 - Multiply by a Volume Correction Factor (1.02264)
3 - Multiply by the gas Calorific value (40.0) - this may vary by supplier
4 - Divide by kWh conversion factor (3.6)
5 - Gives kWh (calculated)
In my opinion, this algorithm should be built into the tado app, along with the automatic gathering of the meter readings.
This would, I believe, make this a killer feature, and one worth the £26 / year (or perhaps more).
Comments
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disagree, as Energy IQ is only for the single device connected to 'HEATING' not the full gas usage (including hot water, cooking wall heaters, etc), so unless you can get 'meter readings for the single connected device' it would still be pretty useless feature.
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Having fiddled a bit more with the app, it seems that the easiest solution for the developers would be to perform the tariff conversion from kWh to m3.
This would allow the app user to enter meter readings (should be automated) and get some rough indication.
As @andyblac mentions above, there’s still an assumption that the heating system is the sole consumer of gas.
Parking this assertion (which is correct) for a moment, the Energy IQ is still useful in telling me which radiators are consuming the most heat. Again, parking the argument that the concept of heat exists (ask your local physicist for more details on this one), I think that’s a useful bit of information to know.
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My experience of the heating stats for individual radiators is that they are monumentally flawed. Any time a radiator is asking for heat it is counted as heating time. It doesn't matter whether the boiler is actually on or not.
I'm no longer a subscriber to the paid service, but I've seen heating hours of almost 24 hours for a single day when, according to my gas consumption that day, it was impossible for the boiler to have been lit for more than six hours.
Surely heating hours can only be equal to boiler on time.
Further, even if Tado thinks the boiler is on - i.e. Tado has requested it to fire - the boiler might have other ideas, if it has reached max flow temperature, shut off and will then enter anti-cycling mode for some more minutes.
As I said elsewhere for the Energy IQ discussion, Tado maths is nowhere near as useful as supplier gas consumption data - IMHO. One is conjecture. The other is facts.
As for heating consumption vs hot water and cooking, the latter two are trivial in comparison with heating consumption during the heating season. If you look at your summer gas consumption you can make a pretty good estimate for the deduction to be made during winter for these things. For our household that's around 70 kWh per month.
Tado simply doesn't have insight into these "facts". I do. And I don't have to pay for them.
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I use M3 meter readings as I have an m3 meter. It's still wrong even when it's given m3 meter readings.
A straight active heating hours is all that is needed but Tado cannot or will not even provide that. My care and protect figure is showing 16 hours a day heating and has been for weeks. It's nothing like that. It's probably 4 hours at a guess. I could probably add it up by going to the main thermostat graph but it's not worth the bother. Independent TRVs are racking up heating time when the boiler isn't even on. It should only be devices that can start the boiler that should be doing that and it should stop when the main control thermostat clicks the boiler off.
Boiler clicks on: start timer. Boiler clicks off: stop timer. When it starts again add to current timer. It's not that tricky is it? This is school child level programming frankly. End of day is Midnight. Reset timer at midnight. Bit of a case statement for when the boiler is on or off over midnight and how you count the minutes and avoid losing the current boiler state.
Then special conditions for clock change twice a year. This is probably the hardest bit.
If you can't offer an accurate active heating time all the calculations will just be wrong no matter how many gas readings you give it.
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Unless Tado buys loop or makes something similar I don’t really see the point of this, though even then the figures I get from loop are totally different to the usage shown in the eon next app (I’m more inclined to trust loop).0
