Develop a "basic backup schedule" mode for when Tado outage or loss of internet
tado EDIT 10.02.2021: Please read my statement on this topic here: https://community.tado.com/en-gb/discussion/comment/22789/#Comment_22789
Original post:
When Tado devices lose access to the Tado servers, either due to a Tado server outage (as has occured a few times), or due to temporary internet issues at the property, the Smart Radiator Valves effectively stick in their current schedule temperature state. This means the heating can fail to turn off overnight, fail to turn on in the morning, fail to turn on when returing home etc, and require the user to manually activate/deactivate each zone on a zone's device.
I understand that the "Smart Schedule" can't be used without an internet connection as Tado uses data such as the weather outside and the user's location to decide how the schedule should operate, but during an outage the Tado system should at least fall back to a basic schedule state, where it just follows the timing schedule like a normal, non-smart progammer does. Currently, without an internet connection Tado is significantly worse than a standard "dumb" programmer, it should be at least the same.
Comments
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..................+1
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Yes please. This winter I woke up to a freezing cold home because my router had packed in overnight and the temperature didn't get turned up in the morning. Remembering the schedule would be ideal, but at the very least it should be able to remember the next upcoming scheduled change for each zone, or the ability to define the behaviour in the event of no Internet connection.
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Yes. Good idea......0
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+1 - I would pay a premium for a version that would be able to continue to operate without the cloud service being contactable. This could have been offered in the form of an "Internet Bridge +" that had local control capability.
AWS have recognised this requirement with IoT Greengrass, and it looks like Tado runs out of AWS so it might be achievable?
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+1
This is an excellent idea. Ironically, this is how imagined that the system would work.
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@charlie35slr - I also thought it would fall back to a locally stored schedule and was very surprised when I found one night that it had heated all night because it had lost the Internet connection.
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I have already suggested a local control device to cater for issues beyond the home. Thus if your internet has failed or there is a service outage, the Tado heating controls would continue via a local control Device. I.e. raspberry pi or similar device. However this has not been acknowledged by Tado. This was during a prolonged investigation as to a local service outage. However no fault was found.
Also suggested the Tado. Ridge should be more robust in error recovery
kk
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+1 on this one too. Good idea.0
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Wow! This what I notified more times last years to Tado. If you programed 20 degrees till 9 am and then 18 degrees, if at 8:59 your connection starts fail, the set temperature stucks to 20 degree and if you already left home and the fail persists your boiler runs and runs rising your bill. This happened to me....
And connection fail does not only mean internet connection fail, but also device to bridge connection fail that in a big house could really happens. Some time heppens to me!
Unlikely, this is a big architecture bug: really all the intelligence in on the cloud and for this reason it is probably that they have designed the devices with minimal hardware that now probably cannot fit/support a "local backup" schedule".
A wholly cloud dependent system could be use if a missing connection with the server causes only slight/acceptable effects on user experience! Waking up in a freeze or pay increased bill are not a slight/acceptable effects user experience. An house heating system is not a system to be controlled through a totally cloud dependent logic, a backup solution must be always be present!!!
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TBH, if I had known that a loss of internet would leave the system in its last known position, I would not have invested in a Tado system. It should have at least a basic fall back position so that it heats to the schedule based on the assumption that someone is home.
I was thinking about installing Tado for my elderly Mother but imagine if the internet went offline during winter. Come on tado, this is an important issue.
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For sure Tado would never tell you that....
Check new nice similar issue:
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This is an absolute 'must have' capability. I had imagined it would work like this but then I was told by Tado support that it does not. This is a serious shortcoming and should be a development priority in my view.
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I too had no idea this would happen, but because Tado is programmed via the cloud rather than local hardware it is understandable.
Hopefully Tado can come up with a workaround soon to ensure that if the internet signal is lost the next programmed event can still occur.
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Would be a +1 from me also
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Yes just brought mine and 2nd night hot water heating all night due to internet loss. Tado should hold a schedule or when a network lost is detected the user should be sent a warning and the system should turn the hot water off and heating to frost protection . The user then has the option to control manually come on TADO this is a basic requirement1
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+1 to this. The device should store the basic program so that if the connection fails it can just assume someone is home and follow the basic schedule like a normal programmable thermostat would do.
A notification in the app that the system is not reachable from the cloud would also be good to alert the owner that this is hapenning.
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Great idea! Another +10
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I didn't even think of this before purchasing and would expect some sort of local override to be possible.
Would be nice to have update from Tado
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This is a very important missing feature, I'm disappointed this doesn't exist already, especially as the FAQ isn't clear that scheduling will be lost without an Internet connection.
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Agreed! I had assumed that this would be how Tado would work if there's a connection failure, so it's disappointing to learn that it doesn't work this way already.
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Agreed, please work towards implementing this Tado.0
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I have asked several times for a local controller that would keep the Tado home systems running in the event of a internet outage. I would suggest that for all home users the Internet connection is a single point of failure.
A localised system say on a raspberry Pi would keep things ticking over till the internet comes back online. Then the Raspberry Pi and the Tado systems could resynch again if required.
This is not rocket science
KK
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Its not rocket science, but it appears to be a strategic business decision to not give customers control over their hardware and instead force the use of their cloud. If a Pi can do it during an outage, it can do it 24/7 and people could develop their own solutions for scheduling and geofencing and multi home and what have you, and then tado cant charge you a fee for turning your heat on or off and they can no longer sell your data because we wouldnt be sending them any.
In fairness, its not only tado that does this. My former video doorbell wouldnt ring (let alone record) without Amazon's cloud. Before flashing a custom firmware, my wifi lightbulbs wouldnt go on without a chinese cloud.
IoT seems to stand for Internet of Things you have to buy but arent allowed to control.
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Absolutely!!! Has happened to me to nightmare. This should be put as a priority Tado developers come on..0
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Reading this has turned a potential new tado installation from a good idea into a showstopper.
The needs to be worked out it it is to be considered a credible service. It may fly for other automated services - but basics like heating and hot water? Who the hell came up with this flawed operating model?
I'm out!
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Yes, please, implement this feature0
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I too would have been very hesitant to buy if I had known how vulnerable the system is to intrenet connection failure. "Carry on as at time of failure" is just not a viable failsafe strategy.
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I have read all the comments, but I'm not 100% sure of the exact nature of this problem. Let's say a room is currently 18 degrees, and the current schedule is set to 20 degrees, and the next schedule change is 16 degrees.
The internet then cuts out. Which of these will happen:
a) Since the heating is currently activated (as it's trying to raise the temperature from 18 degrees to 20 degrees), the heating will then remain "on" indefinitely. Even when the room reaches and goes beyond 20 degrees, the heating will stay on and the room will get very hot.
b) Since the heating is currently set to 20 degrees, it will stay on until 20 degrees is reached. It will then continue to go on and off to maintain the room at 20 degrees. The next schedule change of 16 degrees will never occur.
It seems unfathomable to me that (a) is what happens. And yet (b) doesn't seem like a big deal.
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The correct answer is (b). But it kinda is a big deal if you have a slow heating system or if you wake up to a cold shower. What makes it even worse is that the bridge has a tendency not to reconnect even after your router does, so even having a short outage at any time may leave the system inoperable. My mesh routers automatically reboot each night, ive had to connect my bridge elsewhere to avoid problems, but Im getting range issues there.
There is also no good reason why any of this should happen and so many single points of failure are introduced; your (w)lan, router, internet connection, ISP and tado cloud. A basic schedule would not use more than a single Kb of memory. If a 10 euro wall mounted thermostat can do this, its a reasonable expectation for a 130 euro "smart" thermostat to do so too.
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@Vertigo Thanks for clarifying. Understood. I think it's unfortunately something we have to put up with, as I find it unlikely that Tado would want to add any sort of local functionality at this point. It would just make it easier to hack the system to run locally and bypass their cloud functionality entirely.
I've only just joined the forum and there are many, many functions that could be added with very little work that would provide a lot of benefit to users. But they're not being added. Some I think are understandable, due to Tado's business interests, and I think this is possibly one of them. But for most of them it is absurd that they are not being delivered (such as the manual home/away switch, TRV child lock, etc). They could even be delivered as part of the premium service and drive some extra revenue for them!
Lots of great and well-reasoned comments on here (including from yourself) yet no response at all from Tado. Part of the reason I chose Tado is that I saw pictures of a large and young development team - I assumed it had an active and agile development process. How wrong I was!
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