Wireless Temperature Sensor: asking questions, seeking opinions

Well, I must have missed the memo because I completely missed the arrival of the Wireless Temperature Sensor. This seems to be the missing piece of kit that I have be looking for, so I have some questions and I seek your opinions.

I currently have a single Smart Thermostat, the only control I have otherwise is TRVs.

For simplicity's sake, let's imagine that my home has only 2 rooms, Kitchen and Bedroom, each has one 1 radiator. The Kitchen contains my Smart Thermostat and the Bedroom contains a Wireless Temperature Sensor. l radiators have Smart Radiator Thermostats. I want independent control of room temperature.

Questions:

Q1: In this set up, can my Smart Thermostat control the Kitchen temperature independently?

Q2: If the answer to Q1 is true, do I still have overall control of the boiler (e.g. can I effectively turn the entire home's heating off at night, regardless of room settings)?

Q3: Do all the devices need to be in range of the Tado Internet Bridge, or do they mesh to provide range?

Q4: Finally, if you use Wireless Temperature Sensors for room-by-room control, how have you found them? Can they maintain an accurate temperature? Your tips, traps, gotchas welcome!

Thanks, Charlie

Best Answer

  • charlie35slr
    charlie35slr ✭✭
    Answer ✓

    Today my kit arrived:

    1 x Wireless Smart Thermostat and 4 x SRT

    Installation was, well, variable (SRTs: 2 x textbook, 2 x kludge, resets, etc) and not helped by Tado's staunch avoidance of documenting anything. I'm used to Googling error messages and reading the vendor's instructions, not with Tado. This blind approach is unnecessary. In the app, each error message should come with suggested remedial steps, or a link. Something. Anything!

    Also, I wasn't particularly impressed with the continued lack of copy/paste option when setting up the Smart Schedules. Even the old/dumb Honeywell controller that I replaced with Tado could do this (and it had a total of 2 buttons and a switch). Quite why this obviously useful capability is missing from a smartphone app is puzzling.

    For all that, with my North/South home, this simple arrangement seems to work well and it delivers an effective two-zone system. I'm done!


    Thanks again, @GrayDav4276

Answers

  • @charlie35slr
    Please confirm "all" your TADO devices ie Bridge....Exrension Kit....etc
    Because it is unclear what your current system comprises of, it is not really possible to give you an accurate response. Also do you mean TRV or do you mean Tado SRT ?? 🤔 this is quite important to know.
  • charlie35slr
    charlie35slr ✭✭
    edited April 2021

    Thank you for your reply.

    I have a 2-year-old starter kit comprising Wireless Thermostat V3+, Wireless Receiver (boiler programmer with hot water control) and a Bridge. That's it. I have dumb TRVs on my radiators, so I am using Tado in a very basic form, which is to turn my house on and off.

    I occasionally consider doing more with Tado, but there's always something preventing me. Last time is was issues reported in this forum using a next-to-the-radiator thermostat (Smart Radiator Thermostat V3+) to read room temperature, which is why the Wireless Temperature Sensor looks interesting.

    That said, the answer to Q3 will likely decide it.

    It would cost me about a grand to do what I would like to with Tado, I just need to know if the architecture and the company are up to the job.

    Is that enough? Looking forward to your answers, thanks again.

  • charlie35slr
    charlie35slr ✭✭
    edited April 2021

    Anybody? Somebody from Tado, maybe? This is one of those occasions where answered questions equals revenue.

  • @charlie35slr

    I'll answer your Q3 first........the Tado devices need to be in range of the Tado bridge.......the system does not utilise a "mesh" to communicate.

    Q1 and Q2.......dependant on the number of Tado devices installed......then yes you can control all (Tado equipped) rooms independently ie some rooms "on" some rooms "off" and each room can be set to the temperature that you want.........there is a limitation of the total number of rooms you can have set up with Tado ( but that's for a future question......at this stage) You can turn off all Tado rooms at any time.......or any single room at any time.......the system is very flexible in this way.

    Q4.......I utilise 1 Wireless Temperature Sensor and 1 Wireless Smart Thermostat in different rooms (in my high usage/occupancy rooms)(Living room - 2 rads with SRT's......Kitchen - 1 rad with SRT......the kitchen "shares airspace" with my Utility Room - 1 rad with SRT) I like the extra granularity of temperature setting and measurement provided by these 2 devices.

    Overall.....most scenarios are achievable for "most" family homes.....if you are willing to experiment with the room/device allocations. (some users with "large" households may disagree with my last comment......everyone has their own interpretation of how a "smart heating system" should work)

    I hope that my personal views are of assistance to you.

  • charlie35slr
    charlie35slr ✭✭
    edited April 2021

    Thank you very much for your kind assistance, @GrayDav4276

    It sounds like your installation is very like what I am thinking of for Phase 2.

    Not sure where you are from, but I live in a Victorian semi-detached house with an extended, South-facing kitchen. This is by far the easiest to heat and warmest room in the house. The rest of the house, and the rooms on the North side in particular, are much cooler.

    The house is heated by a single-zone Gas Central heating system, the same system heats our water, the whole show being controlled by the Tado starter system explained above. Here's my logic to create two (sort of) zones, I will use the simplified Kitchen/Bedroom scheme that I used before:


    Kitchen (South/Warm): install SRTs on all rads and place the Wireless Smart Thermostat here.

    Bedroom and rest of house (North/Cool): place a Wireless Temperature Sensor here. No SRTs.


    My rationale is as follows. From cold, the the heating will warm the entire house until the Kitchen reaches its desired temperature, whereupon the Wireless Smart Thermostat will turn the Kitchen radiators off by triggering the SRTs. Meanwhile the heating will continue to heat the rest of the house until the Bedroom reaches its desired temperature, whereupon the Wireless Temperature Sensor will no longer ask for heat, and the heating will shut down.

    Observation: If the Kitchen asks for heat, the whole house will receive it. That's fine, because that is what I have now!

    Observation: If the Kitchen doesn't require heat, but the Bedroom asks for it, any rad without an SRT will heat up.

    Will that work?

  • LOL, as if by magic, Amazon UK has Tado SRTs at half-price... 🤔🤩