Geofencing not working

John61

I also have the same issue with geofencing not working. I raised this issue with Tado and got the following response

Thank you for your patience.

The target temperature increased 1 hour before you were home, it was just not enough to trigger a heat demand before 7:23PM. This means you were moving faster than the App knows how to compensate for.

I have responded pointing out that the target temperature on arrival home has been around 3-4 degrees below where it should be! So there is no chance of the heating being correct It’s not that the house can’t heat fast enough.

My suspicion, which I’ve challenged them on, is that the system simply does not update regularly enough to set the temperature at a correct level because it doesn’t seem to calibrate the speed at which a phone is moving towards the home with adjusting the target heat. I’ve asked the question of what speed does it work at since today I was on a speed limited motorway travelling at 50mph for the final half an hour of my journey and we were still 3 degrees short of the correct target temp on arrival.

Frankly, I suspect that the technology simply doesn’t work. In which case Tado should be more clear about what it can and can’t do. I’ve also asked for my prescription back since manual control seems the only solution until they get some better tech.

John61

Just to also add that I have been through all the checks that Tado suggest, App open, location services on, etc etc

wateroakley

hello @John61 we use geofencing a lot, both auto and manual. Some observations.

We only use our iPhones and removed the tablets from the geo settings.

We use the default 400m setting.

Leaving home is easy, it always spots when we are outside 400m. Unless we have set manual ‘home’.

Heading home, locally, nothing happens till we reach 400m.

Heading home, an hour away, we manually tell Tado we are ‘home’ and the heating comes on. If we forget to set it back to ‘auto’ Tado assumes we are at home.

Whilst google can provide reports on traffic volumes and speeds for navigation systems, I’m struggling to think of how travelling at different motorway speeds would affect times and settings for Tado temperatures?

John61

Hi wateroakley.
I mentioned the travel speed issue only because Tado told me I was going too fast for the App to respond…! The implication was that if you are doing anything more than walking geofencing can’t cope….!!
I tend to agree with you that what you do is seemingly the only way to return to a house at your desired temperature, but if that’s the case then I’ve paid a subscription for something that simply does not work and I’d like my money back.
What I don’t understand is why the system doesn’t seem to be able to get the heating set to my required temperature when on the “comfort “ setting even by the time I return home. It knows how close my phone is to home and yet it is still set to heat to some 3-4 degrees below the required temperature on arrival.
I’ve monitored this quite closely and could see in our most recent trip that the system started to incrementally increase the target temperature when we were over an hour from home. Thereafter though it simply doesn’t increase it quickly enough.

wateroakley

@John61 We rely on the geo-fencing to turn off the heating when we are out, saving gas and ££. I've not used it for automating the arrival temperature.

Since the New Year, i've adjusted the 'away' settings in one room from 'eco' to 'balance'. This appears to keep the room heated to 15 deg C when we are 'away'. When we reverted manually to 'home' it bumped up and set the expected 20 deg C.

The 'eco' setting keeps the other rooms 'off' until we intervene manually or near home.

I'll give 'comfort' a try on our next childcare day and see how it behaves for us.

John61

Thanks for reply @wateroakley. We do the same and the switching off works just fine and , as you say, obviously saves money.
It just frustrating that what could be absolutely brilliant seems to be let down by an easily solvable problem of the app tracking where the phone is and calculating the speed with which it is approaching the home and the required temp increase in the estimated time left to arrival and setting the target temperature accordingly.
For Tado to tell me that I was travelling too fast for the app to make adjustments seems a very poor excuse.

wateroakley

@John61 We gave the ‘comfort’ away settings a try on Wednesday evening, with the kitchen. All other rooms set to eco. 45 miles from home, typically one hour. 15 miles on rural roads then 30 motorway miles at 60-65 mph. The kitchen increased target temperature as we went along and had reached target temperature when we arrived home. To get this result it’s obviously dependent on the rad sizing for the room to heat up in the time. Pleasantly surprised.

wateroakley

Graph from tado

Xxxx