Tado X Thermostat - Unreachable Apple Home App

micha08

Hello there,

First time tado customer here. Previously I only used Eve Thermos in my home.

Setup experience

The setup was pretty easy. I opened the Apple Home App and scanned to Matter code and I could register the Thermostat without any problems in my home. So I wanted to test the connection so inside the Home App I wanted to turn it on/off. But the device was unreachable and was not responding. I guessed it was just a hick up, so I removed the device and registered it again as Matter device. Same behaviour :/

So I downloaded the Tado app, and opened the “Use tado devices with HomeKit” view, but again, it just says it “No response”. My next guess was, maybe the battery was low on power and maybe thats the problem. So I did go into to Apple Home App to view the battery status. But for some reason, the Tado X Thermostat does not expose the battery status in Matter… Seriously WHY??? Can I only view the battery status for my devices when I create an tado account??

So I created a tado account. Linked the Thermostat inside the app, and the battery is full. So apparently not the problem. I tried the controls and turning on/off the heat in tado, and here it worked fine. After that I used Siri to test it and it also works fine.

Here are my questions:

• Why does the controls does not work in Apple Home App?
• Why is the battery status not exposed in Matter?

Just to clarify, I have one Apple TV, HomePod mini, and iPhone 15 Pro only a few meters away… so plenty enough of Thread devices.

Emcee

Hello @micha08

Sorry your experience has been difficult.

I can't say why the controls don't work with the Apple Home app. This should not be happening as other users have been able to use the Apple Home app in conjunction with tado° X. I would suggest you contact support (via live-chat) so that we can properly record this issue and dig into the problem.

With regards to the battery status, here the issue is rooted in what clusters tado° has made available to Matter. The battery cluster created by tado° does not include battery percentage (only "Good" or "Low"). These descriptors are not compatible with Matter. It's possible the battery cluster will be changed in the future by tado°, but for now the status can only be viewed through the app.

micha08

@Emcee

Thanks for the answer. I will contact the support.

These descriptors are not compatible with Matter.

You implemented a proprietary battery status? Most of the matter devices are battery powered, so you would think the CSA-IoT put like a lot of thought into the specification of the battery status. And you just thought, no we are doing our own thing?

I guess you don’t have a sensor in the battery to accurately read the status. But how are matter devices detecting the status with AA or CR2032s? I think they just the detect the voltage drop and estimate the battery to a percentage.

But all that aside, the usecase is, when you have a home with plenty, maybe hundred matter devices from many different manufacturers, you don’t want to have to check each manufacturers app, to see if you need to swap or recharge batteries.