Tado X for large house - 40 trv’s, 5 zones

Kaz911

Is there a way to get Tado X to work reliable for a large property.

I know there is a limit per bridge of 20-30 devices - and the app says 30 devices(ish)

But our client has 24 rooms with TRV’s - some with 2 or more radiators (so 40 radiators in total)

It is all split into 5 zones - 1 for each floor - plus towel radiators is on a separate zone.

System is running with 2 parallel boilers (for now) - and 2 parallel hot water tanks - but prime focus is to get radiators automated - and the Tado X TRV’s are very low noise compared to some others.

Plan was to put a Wired Thermostat per floor replacing the current DigiStat*2’s. And then a single Wired thermostat as “master” for the towel radiators. But we would far exceed Tado X’s number of devices.

Could it be solved with multiple Wireless bridges? It won’t solve the app issue of total device count though?

kind regards

/k

policywonk

@Kaz911 Our charity has a similar scale of problems using the V3 series, serving 3 boilers, two with one HW cylinder, one with three HW cylinders. It was handled as three seperate control systems, one for each boiler (and its accompanying rads, cylinders, zones) - and thus three bridges - each set up on its on VLAN, to ensure that nothing interfered with its WAN communication. It can be done even with the V3 series (but, so given the investment in Matter and Thread protocols in the X series this should be much easier

Tado were very aware of this challenge 10 years ago. Would be surprised, genuinely surprised if they hadnt worked the solution into the X series. They undertook significant work with Matter and Thread which became the foundation of the X series addressing the limit on addressible items in a property the use of multiple thread routers to relay on connections (in large properties). Technically the use of Matter and Thread overcomes problems in university apartment blocks where on external IP address is used but many virtual homes are present in the block.

Tado first line support staff may baulk at this, if they tell you it is not recommended, get it escalated. It should be within the X series capacity to handle. You'll need to contact pre-sales support, explain the entire layout:

• Present them as one logical home with multiple boilers.
• Identify the model of each boiler and set out each boilers's zone control layout and how those zones are controlled.
• Give the number of radiators on each zone for each boiler
• Give the number of radiators on each zone needing Smart TRV heads.
• Explain it is a very large property - ask how the routers need to be placed to ensure adequate communication.

Dont accept push back, demand it be raised to a team which has fuller purchase on what it takes to make it work with the X series.

I suspect that each bridge is, like the V3 series, only intended to handle one boiler's family of devices - and that may mean that three Tado accounts may be needed- thats what we have in the V3 series. Do check with them on that.

Do keep us informed and if you have problems definitely come back and we'll help escalate it.

policywonk

Just had a response from Tado Support, which you may find useful. It is relevant to your challenge.

I asked them whether the X series can handle two boilers in one logical home. The answer I got was:

Yes, it's possible, if the boilers are compatible with Line X. However, please keep in mind that only one hot water zone per account is possible. They then asked for more information about the setting.

Now, this is interesting. If I get this correctly - you'll need to ensure that the two hot water tanks are triggered together once, perhaps with local thermostatically controlled local zone valves, deciding when to stop flow of heat to either or both.

But it means that both boilers can theoretically be run coherently and together under X. Do let us know how your exchange with Tado goes.

Kaz911

Thank you very much for all your help - but I think I have given up on Tado.

If you have to push hard to get solutions - then it is not worth the headache if something fails. Then it will be blame game and no-one is the winner.

I have done a test setup - and I’m not impressed with the software (iOS) and functions at all. The Tado X is missing so many “standard” features available on other systems. Apart from that having occupancy rely ONLY on phone location - simply does not work for the client as GPS/location is not allowed on phones to track by 3rd parties. I personally would not allow it in my home install either.

I like the TRV’s - they seem well made - which is why we wanted to try Tado.

I had hoped Tado X would add functionality vs v3 - but reading through the discussions here - it seems unlikely that any new functionality will be introduced - so no better than most Asian software…

So I guess we are back to one of the “Old Suppliers” going forward.

One could hope that in the future Tado would create “Zone Thermostats” as the WiFi gateways - so each zone could manage 20-30 sub devices. Then with 4 floors that would be 80 to 120 total devices. And hope for the app would be able to handle Zone split rooms so App does not slow down with lots of rooms.

Thanks again for your help!

/k

policywonk

The problem is having 80 devices sharing even Wifi7 tri-bands. We're facing a situation where a new generation of radio communicaton needs to be developed. Thread routers are still bound to existing wifi standards; can see why you refer to the need for wifi gateways each with their own protected channel. Technically Thread can handle this, but dont know how Tado have structured their Matter layer.

Good luck. Will close this thread.