Release a smaller, cheaper Wireless Temperature Sensor for the Smart Radiator Thermostats
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25c is a reference to the air temperature, not the radiator temperature. When the air temperature begins to approach 25c the Tado trv will close. There’s no scope for going higher than this. I can’t imagine needing a higher air temperature than this but if you do then Tado probably isn’t for you.0
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@johnnyp78 I think what @SirLouen was meaning is that with the SRTs so close to the radiators, the air temp right by them could easily go over 25ºC and turn off the radiator when the actual room temp is much less.
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I’m just speaking from personal experience, but the air temp measurements from my trvs are never more than a couple of degrees out at most. Your mileage may vary though.0
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I have been reading through many of these topics and I have not seen anyone suggesting some adjustments in the offset of each SRT.
I've tried this offset, and now the radiators are working as expected. Most of my radiators were outputting around 3ºC on average according to my external digital thermometers. Now I have adjusted -3ºC on most Tado SRT and they are working wonderfully.
It was way simpler than expected, I can't see the need of using an external Temperature sensor, unless there are massive differences including the offset, although I will consider one Tado Temperature sensor in the future, for the second largest room (with 3 SRT in 3 radiators) where I don't have the Thermostat conected to my boiler, just to unify the temperature sensing.
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@SirLouen Did you see my original post here? I detail my experience of using offsets to attempt to work around the issue, but for me at least, it didn't work. As you can see from the graphs in that post. Good to hear it worked for you though. Although do note my comment about how using offsets for this use case can cause the radiator to call for heat needlessly, as when the radiator is not hot it thinks the room is XºC colder than it actually is.
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+1 this seems like a no brainer otherwise you're guessing the actual temperature of the room which defeats the purpose of the trv's. Having a temp sensor at £90 is not affordable and an outrageous price when all it is is a smart thermometer.1
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Did not see that, probably it only works for smaller rooms? I may buy a thermometer for the largest ones when they are on black friday for $50 or $60 at most. But definitely this is a rip-off by Tado. I should have purchased a different brand in a first instance. They are meant for naive users that don't need to do further integrations.
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We installed the Tado system in my house and came across the same variation in room temperature vs what the Tado SRT reports. Tried setting the offset, but found that it's a blunt instrument as the variation between actual room temperature and the SRT reported temperature changes. So manually setting the offset and forgetting about it is not a viable solution.
To get around the problem we have created a wireless temperature sensor that integrates into your Tado home system, with an accompanying app to set it up. The sensor measures the actual temperature in the room several times an hour and automatically adjusts the SRT valve(s) in the room.
This is working really well for us correcting the system to keep rooms at the correct scheduled temperatures. We, like other people on this forum, love our Tado system but weren't will to spend an additional £90 per room for a temperature sensor. We are wondering if we should make our solution available to other people. It would cost around £20 per room.
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@markiaindean That sounds like a great idea!0
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Well we are working on making it available for anyone who wants it. Just working on the an enclosure to make it look the part and polishing a few rough edges. Should be available in 1 to 2 months at which point we will let people know where they can get it.
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@markiaindean Sounds great is it available yet?
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Is this already picked up? It would be great if they introduce an affordable wireless sensor.
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The last thing tado is going to do is introduce a more affordable sensor when it has a captive audience having to shell out £60-70 for a wireless temperature sensor.0
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I managed to get mine for around £45 each, so worth tracking the price as they do drop occasionally. Made a huge improvement to the heating operation
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Just seen this thread and have an update with regards to the cheap wireless sensor. We are currently in the final stages of testing and looking to release the product, ambi, in a few weeks. It's taken longer than we hoped, we are a small family of makers and unfortunately other work got in the way.
I will post here to let you know when we are ready.
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Hi,
We have finally finished testing and jumping through the release hurdles presented to us by Google and Apple to get the ambi control App on the Apple and Google App stores. If you add an ambi wireless temperature sensor to a room it will adjust your Tado system to keep the heating on until the temperature in the room, rather than at the radiator, reaches the temperature you set. If you are interested you can purchase ambi wireless temperature sensors from our ambi website.
Home
https://community.tado.com/en-gb/home/leaving?allowTrusted=1&target=https%3A%2F%2Fambitemp.co.uk
Cheers,
Mark
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Sounds interesting 🤔 a small thing on the wall is what we need. The one from tado was with black friday stil 75eu, that's a bit expensive for 4 rooms for only measuring the room temp in approx 5 months.in a year, the rest of the year we need no heating.
Your idea looks nice but I cannot see on you website how the real product looks likes in a real environment. And how do you attach it to the wall? Can you easily remove it from the wall to charge it? It does not have feedback if the temp right? So it just a sensor with wifi connection? Does is also measure the humidity like tado does, or do they combine the measurements?
And as last you have to login with you tado credentials? That sounds a bit as a scam, is this by Tado approved?
Overal great idea, would love to have something small for this price range.0 -
@markiaindean Great job actually making this device available. How does it control Tado exactly? Does it read the Tado schedule? Do you need to do anything to stop Tado also controlling the room temp?
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How does this work?
Does it adjust the offset dynamically? Or does it just turn off the heating completely when a target temperature is reached, as the website suggests?0 -
What it does is:
- Reads the temperature in the room
- Logs into your Tado house account and gets the temperature the Tado thermostat thinks the room is at
- Calculates the temperature difference between ambi and Tado
- Sets a parameter in the Tado system call "Temperature Offset" to the calculated difference between the temperature measured in the room by the ambi sensor and the Tado thermostat
This dynamic setting of the Tado room temperature offset keeps the radiator(s) on in the room until the temperature you set in the Tado system for the room is reach at the ambi temperature sensor.
Tado remains totally in control schedule and all remain the same. ambi just adjusts the Tado room temperature offset.
With regards to your Tado username and password. This is only held on your ambi wireless temperature sensor in your house which you pass to the ambi device via bluetooth.
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Thanks Mark. Very clever! How often does it update the offset?0
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It wakes up from deep sleep and takes the temperature and adjusts the offset if it needs to every 15 minutes.
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Nice. 2 more questions, sorry. Does it communicate with Tado using the official API (can’t remember how restrictive this is), or something unofficial? And are you creating each unit by hand?0
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I just tested changing the offset. Changing the offset continues to make the SRV recalibrate. If this was to happen every 15 minutes, the noise can be a tad irritating for some people and the batteries will drain quicker. Does this change the offset without triggering a recalibration?
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Thanks Mark for answering and clarifying my concerns. Very clever how it works and a great idea.
Still some questions:
- it's only a sensor right, so no feedback on the device itself of the current temperature?
- Does it also measure the humidity (can it trigger the open window detection within Tado, if it recognises a temp drop)?
- Can you make a (basic) video or some photos of an installed version, and show how it works with the Tado app? It sounds al promising but also looks very prototype with 3d renders and not a real product.
Overall great concept, and looking forward to how this evolves.
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Thanks for your interest. Answers to your questions below:
- it's only a sensor right, so no feedback on the device itself of the current temperature?
- Yes it is just a temperature sensor and does not give you any feed back on the device. The ambi App will show you room temperature and allow you to control the ambi sensor, but your goto App to see what is happening remains the Tado App. ambi only automates the changing of the room temperature offset
- Does it also measure the humidity (can it trigger the open window detection within Tado, if it recognises a temp drop)?
- No, that remains the responsibility of Tado
- Can you make a (basic) video or some photos of an installed version, and show how it works with the Tado app? It sounds al promising but also looks very prototype with 3d renders and not a real product.
- I take your point, we will look into this. Though I assure you this is a real product, just released for sure, but we all have to start from somewhere. We are not a large multinational company just a father and son team of makers who saw a problem that people needed help with. So please excuse our lack of polished website and glossy media we'll get there eventually
Communication with Tado - Yes it communicate with Tado via the Tad API
Updating the offset and noise from the Tado thermostats - ambi communicate with Tado every 15 minutes but does not necessarily change the offset every time. It only updates the offset if it needs to so limits changes to the Tado thermostats
Manufacture of ambi - The ambi wireless sensor is simple by design to enable us to manufacture them by hand. We will get some photo publish on the website so you can see the quality of the product.
I am sure as we move forward we will find things that we want to update and improve. To enable this, we have built in the ability to distribute updates to ambi over the internet with new firmware, and of cause publish updates to ambi App via Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
1 - it's only a sensor right, so no feedback on the device itself of the current temperature?
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@markiaindean thank you, this sounds really promising.
Updating the offset and noise from the Tado thermostats- ambi communicate with Tado every 15 minutes but does not necessarily change the offset every time. It only updates the offset if it needs to so limits changes to the Tado thermostatsThis is maybe true if you have a constant temperature in a room, but if you change the temperature during day and night, I assume it will change the offset quite often.
What temperature will you see in Apple Homekit? Is this the temperature measured by the Tado TRV or by ambi?
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