Using HomeKits Home/Away feature instead of Tado’s subscription based option

ABW

Hi All, I am looking at replacing my faulty Nest thermostat with a native HomeKit compatible thermostat. The Tado wired thermostat is the current front runner but I noticed that two features important to me required a subscription (Door/Window opening alerts, triggering heating switching off/down and the Home/Away feature).

I don’t want to signup to another subscription and had the follow thought/question - Does anyone know, and possibly already does this, if you can use HomeKit’s Home/Away feature to do the same as Tado’s? Also, using a sensor on a window, could you create a HomeKit automation that simply sets the thermostat to off when the window is opened, and back on to a set temp when shut?

Thanks in advance.

Wjcb

You can do that partially. With HomeKit you can only set the temperature of the thermostat and valves. So you could set them to lower temperatures when a window opens or you leave your house. You cannot however tell them via HomeKit to resume their schedules when arriving at home or when a window is closed again. You can only set a new temperature.

tado treats any change by HomeKit as a manual change, as if you changed the temperature on the thermostat or valve itself.

ABW

Thanks for the prompt reply. So if I read this correctly I could create 2 automations (for each of my scenarios, 4 in total) with one lowering the temp (opening the window or leaving home) and the other setting the desired temp (when window closed or returning home). Once temp of house reaches the desired temp the heating switched off anyway.

Wjcb

Yes, you could. Keep in mind that you have to program this in the HomeKit Home app for every thermostat and tado valve. Home and Away can be programmed for all at once, but for windows and doors you want to program this per room.

Also keep in mind there are different settings for how a room reacts to a 'manual' change. There are 3 options. I don't know the correct English wording (I'm Dutch) but they are:

• Keep manual change until next automatic change according to schedule
• Keep manual change for a set time
• Keep manual change until ended by user (by re-activating the schedule again)

So you have to decide how to configure this in combination with you Home Kit automations.

ABW

I’ll only be using a single thermostat with no valves so that will make this easier and understood regarding the 3 options. Thanks very much for your assistance, you have confirmed exactly what I wanted to hear!

dileeparanawake

Have this request / issue too. Personally I think Tado should enable home/away toggle using homekit automations. I am not comfortable sharing my location with 3rd parties. Additionally it's crazy to pay £29.99. / y just for geofencing automation. I think Tado should enable homekit away / home toggle. I appreciate software has a maintenance cost so maybe £10/y for this but £29.99 feels exploitative.