The Big Idea Archive

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  • Hello everyone,


    It seems some ideas were heard by tado and my system got better and better (not without some significant sacrifices on my part :D). I figured it's time to propose another improvement - while the open window detection works well enough, it suffers from being a temperature drop detection type.

    What I would like to see is (in my preference order):

    1. An external window sensor - either magnetic or optical - hopefully not in the price range of the temperature sensor.
    2. The ability to manually set a window as open (for a time period of my choosing) combined with a notification when that time period elapses.
    3. The ability to be notified when tado's current detection system decides the window is no longer open and it resumes heating.

    I would like to stress that these are NOT complementary requirements but alternative ways to improve the window open detection of the product.

    I'm sure you have your own ideas on improving this feature so please contribute.


    Best regards and a happy new year to you and all those you hold dear,

    Andrei

  • A previous system I had did a ‘valve exercise’ every Saturday morning, going through an open/close cycle to avoid the valves sticking. This was particularly useful during the summer when the radiators were not in use for many months. Is this something which Tado have considered?

    The logic would be something like:

    At the (weekly) date and time for valve exercise, if the valve is closed and has not fully opened and fully closed since the previous exercise time, then motor the valve open, then closed, without sending a 'call for heat' to the extension kit. Raise an error if the valve fails to reach fully opened and fully closed during the exercise.

    Ideally make the exercise time, and perhaps interval, user adjustable. Otherwise set it for daytime so that the noise of the valve(s) moving causes minimum disturbance.

  • There are a few too many requests in this forum to allow setting a valve to Open/Closed state (recent ones seems to include "weekly exercising of valves" and "maintenance knob for re-pressurizing"). To some extent one can solve these problems by setting a valve to independent then blasting the temperature to 25C or whatever, but this is a manual operation and removes one's abilities to control heat in the process.

    Ideally I would like as part of the smart schedule and/or manual adjustment to change the default valve state to Open instead of Closed. Basically keep the SRT smarts to can call for heat, if the room is cold, but keeps water flow through the radiator open, if the heat is off (the circulator will stop the flow when temperature drops).

    Here is how the smart schedule can look like:

    Here is how the manual adjustment could look like

    If this feels too daunting these settings could be behind an "advanced settings" screen.

    The relevant capabilities are already there, so hopefully this is something that can be done (though honestly I am not holding up my hopes)

  • It is really a pity that you can not set manually the minimum temperature for frost protection. I am using electrical heating, which does not requires 5°C to prevent damage. It costs a lot of energy to maintain this temperature. I really would like to have the possibility to set manually the temperature for frost protection also under 5°C.
  • It is well known that limiting the boiler return temperature can have a significant positive effect on boiler efficiency and hence energy consumption/costs.

    Although Tado systems are exceptionally good in many respects, they currently do not offer a solution to control return temperature from radiators to the boiler.

    There are thermostatic return temperature limiting valves on the market designed for underfloor heating etc, but these are very expensive and possibly not the ideal solution for radiators.

    I would like to propose that Tado look at whether it is feasible to identify/design and market a solution for this whether it be to use temperature switches/sensors on every radiator return line or to use one sensor on the return line immediately before the boiler. The latter solution would need to cascade an appropriate flow reduction signal to all open valves and would need to take into account when the hot water heating is on. For the relatively low percentage of time that hot water heating is on I appreciate that it it may not be practical to limit return temperature to the boiler to an appropriate level - especially in the summer when radiators are not in use.

  • Klaus_Ludwig
    Klaus_Ludwig ✭✭✭
    edited January 2021

    ....................

  • This should absolutely be incorporated for the summer months. Surprised if it isn’t already!?
  • Change the current heating activity page from “time spent heating” to a % of potential heating used. Using the already present % on each zone.

    Would give a much better indicator of usage and cost.

    In its current state, its useless really. As you could be heating 24 hours at 10% and it would give the same reading if heating at 100% for 24 hours.
  • Incorporate into the auto geofencing mode, the eco, comfort etc modes when heating your home.

    If you want to slowly heat your home on eco mode or rapidly heat on comfort, then you can choose.
  • I bought this thinking that a smart controller was better than a GSM/internet remote. But no.

    When I leave the house I set it to away and dry mode. And then I use the remote to change it to heat 8°C. And two days before I go back I change a away to heat 24°C. As I cannot select powerful it's about 18 °C when I get there.

  • @GrilledCheese2 it would be extremely helpful to be able to download a table of the values used to create the charts:
    for all rooms
    - Room temperatures
    - Calls for heat
    - Hot water on
    - External temperature

    With that info i could work out what the problem is in our heating pipework which causes rooms to heat up even though the radiator thermostat is closed.
    Was that the sort of spreadsheet you were able to download? How did you do it?
  • Great idea. Would be a very easy routine to incorporate.

  • A lot of homes must have a household member who is the only person to use a specific room. A teenage/adult child who is the only person to use a room. A working from home office only used by a single family member or a shared house with communal facilities and separate bedrooms.

    It would be great to have an option that if a specific user leaves the building a particular space goes into away mode but not the whole house. So if for example I don't work from home but go into work my office does not heat up that day but my wife's office (got to love a covid lockdown) and the centre of the house remain worm. A teenage or adult child is away from home for a few days and their bedroom does not heat up.

    If all registered users are away the whole house goes into away mode.

  • Hi @Ben_Highlands,
    There are 'many' other threads on here asking exactly (and very similar) for these requests. Can I suggest that you carry out a search for these threads and 'add' your vote to an already open request.
  • samd
    samd ✭✭✭

    Agree with reponse above and point out additionally another post at the head off the Category:

    Hello all,

    To help keeping track of the features that are interesting for the mayority, we're going to be actively merging (if they have activity) or deleting (if they don't) all duplicate threads.

    Please always search for the feature you want to request before adding them.

  • I realise that Tado TRV thermostats tops work across a variety of TRV valves however with so many types/manufacturers of TRV's to choose from I want to know from long term users which valves they recommend ?

    I am replacing 2 radiators and want buy something that works best....

    Thanks

  • Good idea.

    Support the idea of auto excercising the valves to prevent sticking. At the moment if you want to set a brief open and close, the shortest open time is 15 minutes which is too long.

    It is the valve that is likely to stick rather than the Tado actuator. Easy to incorporate exercising and SOME degree of fault indication.

  • Avoid using an adapter by buying a TRV where the screw nut between the head and the body has a thread of M30 x 1.5.

    Don’t buy cheap, but no need to buy the most expensive as you will only use the body of the TRV. The biggest issues with cheap valves is premature failure of the gland around the valve pin, causing water to leak. And noise when the valves are partially open.

    I have Drayton TRV4 on my radiators, used them for years without any failures, but they are one of the more expensive valves on the market.

    In case you haven’t found it Tado have published a compatibility guide.


  • Not sure what the use case is for this - do you have multiple devices in each room and need to identify which is which? Otherwise, you just set up a room per device.

  • If you change the layout of your SRT's you can easily identify each one by pressing the "BLINK" button.
    I have moved some of my devices on a few occasions.....used "BLINK"....not an issue for me tbh
  • My house does have underfloor heating and is designed to work with wireless thermostats. Currently other products like Danfoss supports wireless thermostats in every room for UFH system. But I really like the products from tado but as I understand there is only support for wired thermostats for UFH systems.

  • Hi Tado.

    I wish to propose my idea for hot water cylinder tank smart thermostat temperature reading and also control of boiler for heating Hot water cylinder tank, through the Tado app and controllers.

    Currently for Non smart boilers you have the ability via the app or via the wired wall smart thermostat to set schedules and manually turn on/off the boiler to heat hot water. This in turn switches on the electrical controlled zone valve, activating the boiler. However this feature does not allow for actual water temperature information or to heat the water to a selected temperature and so it is a guess as to how hot the water is heated to or if hot enough for a bath or shower.

    Many large hot water cylinders such as Joule for example come with an aquastat pocket, that allows a temperature sensor probe to be inserted allowing for temperature readings and control.

    With the introduction of the new WiFi enabled wall thermostat surely it is now possible to modify this unit with the addition of a temperature sensor probe that can be inserted into the probe location point available on many hot water cylinders. This probe would be connected to the Tado WiFi thermostat unit allowing it to give an exact temperature reading to the Tado APP and also allowing the user to set a desired target temperature that is customisable in the APP just like the heating controls. This would be such an amazing addition to Tado and it’s a simple idea that could be produced using existing hardware, and a software / app update.

    I really like my Tado smart system but this VITAL feature is missing and is available from other smart heating suppliers now, so I feel Tado needs to catch up here or face people changing their systems. There are still millions of people who do not have so called smart boilers, just standard boilers.

    Will you please review my idea and see my attached diagram showing my proposal.

    I would love some comments and feedback from management and the community and I think it’s something that should be added to the system.

  • I have the same water tank and also thought there isn't any Smart solution for this.

  • Montage
    Montage ✭✭✭

    We have a simple cylinder thermostat in the U.K. that is used to set the target water temperature. It’s hard to believe these would get installed without that basic function

    I’m up for a smarter version and a DS18B20 wired to the extension kit would work for me.

  • I would like to suggest that the introduction of true self tuning PI (proportional integral) controls for each room would be a good step up in the efficiency stakes. In order to support this it is essential to have reliable room temperature feedback.

    In view of the latter, I would suggest that it should become standard to install TRV’s horizontally where possible to minmise radiant heat issues and the associated control cycling or alternatively to have lower cost wireless room temp sensors available. 

  • As the title says.

    I have been using the Tado thermostats for little over 2 weeks and its great being able to see historical data.

    Looking at the histogram helps me discern temperature fluctuations and time to optimal.

    What would be great is i could tell just how much heat request time the boiler has had. Like the colour coding that shows off, low, medium and high. Having say a percentage guage for a 24 hour period would help me see if one day my boiler has been more active than the next.

    This could play into saving energy and have quick reference view to compare days of high boiler usage.

  • I’ve done this - however when you mark as independent, it just removes the link from the main controller.

    The app still shows it’s trying to request head - but it doesn’t get it because it’s not running with the main controller.

    That means the stats Tado shows for boiler time - also include this phantom heat request.

    Having specific functionally for this could prevent that
  • It would be very helpful if like the TS suggests something like a scheduled master slave relation would be possible. The boiler efficiency is greatly increased when it heats multiple radiators at once, since the delta t will be higher over the feeding line vs returning. Now it could be heating all rooms not simultaneously, spending an enormous quantity of gas

  • Dear reader,

    Would it not be great if the Tado app would work without Google Play Services (GPS)? The idea is simple. I cannot think of a reason why GPS would be necessary for the app to work. For example, the app works on Apple devices, which do not use GPS either. Second, Android is an open source project, with only some 70% of Android devices being related to Google. Since I am no longer running GPS on my device, the app no longer works for me. With the expansion of the GPS independent Android market, Tado could expand its market by making it independent of GPS. Obviously, the app could still independently be promoted in the Google Play Store, for one.

    All the best,

    Thomas

  • rel: https://community.tado.com/en-gb/discussion/1412/dark-mode
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