Tado working well, but data reporting is nonsense. What gives?

eezytiger
eezytiger ✭✭✭
edited November 2021 in General Questions & Topics

Hi. I've had Tado installed for one month and the heating performance has met expectations perfectly. However, the data coming out of the system for end user reporting is just nonsense.

For example, the lounge radiator was off overnight, but started heating this morning on cue. It's now a bit after midday. Now here's where it goes bonkers.

The lounge SRT is reporting 21.4C against a target of 21.0. Heating should be off in the lounge. In fact, the boiler is not fired up. The pump is not running. The radiator is cooling down.

But Tado says that the lounge is heating at 35%. Well, (A) it shouldn't be, and (B) it patently isn't.

If I look at the report for the day so far it claims no heating whatsoever in the lounge today. Well that can't be right either. The radiator absolutely warmed up, and now it is cooling down.

This data reporting from Tado is complete twaddle.

I'd appreciate a response from Tado please.


Comments

  • cbd20
    cbd20 ✭✭✭
    @eezytiger out of interest, can you post the graph for today for the lounge to see what that shows? Also, are you connected by simple relay or eBus?
  • eezytiger
    eezytiger ✭✭✭
    edited November 2021

    @cbd20 The boiler is connected via eBus. Here's the lounge graph for today....


  • cbd20
    cbd20 ✭✭✭
    @eezytiger so my system is only connected via simple relay so I see a slightly different pattern of behaviour when it comes to heat requests.

    One thing I have noticed is that the heating activity numbers in the Care & Protect screen only update periodically, and if I had to guess based on what I've seen, maybe only when a heating period ends does it update. So possibly yours will sit at 0% reported until tado genuinely thinks it's no longer requesting heat. This is a complete guess on my part though. It'd be interesting to see if the number suddenly jumps up when tado thinks the lounge is no longer heating.
  • @cbd20 You could be right, it might be lag in the numbers, but I have not noticed it to be so bad before, not that I have been looking too hard. It just shocked me first to see heating at 35% when the boiler was not running and then the cumulative heating hours of zero after the system had been "heating" the lounge for maybe an hour or so.

    How much lag is to be expected? Usually I see a delay of only a few seconds between an SRT operating and the heating status changing in the "heating now" screen.

    Furthermore, lag aside, I don't understand the value of the data. What use is it to be told that the xyz room is heating when the boiler is off and the somewhat tepid radiator is cooling down. It does not seem a useful metric at all. It doesn't really correlate to anything of value. I mean, Tado says that my system is "heating" for, say, 22 hours out of 24, but the boiler is not running for anything like that amount of time.

    If I look at the half hourly consumption figures the boiler is often only consuming about 1kWh per hour, yet it's minimum output is 9kW, so to put out only 1 kWh per hour it is only in burn mode for about 7 minutes per hour.

    So overall I understand the data from my energy supplier and it makes sense. In contrast the "heating hours" from Tado seem to be almost meaningless data with not much correlation with anything tangible and no useful information to be gleaned.

  • I also have to wonder what "3% heating" means. Is there any point? More smoke, mirrors and general nonsense?


  • cbd20
    cbd20 ✭✭✭
    @eezytiger I think the actual heating activity is pretty instant when a room starts heating, it'll appear in that table. I just think the total hours may be delayed, as I've witnessed numbers lower than expected and then later in the day it's updated.

    I do agree with you that some of the numbers are questionable. With the relay setup I have, a very low heat request (1 wavey line), pretty much means the boiler won't come on at all.

    My guess is there is an interaction between how the system handles many rooms and their respective heat requests that's not exposed to the end user...

    For example, I bet that a room requesting a very low heat request on its own probably has the radiator valve open, but doesn't actually bother asking the boiler for heat as it'd be a waste of energy. However, if a colder room suddenly demands a higher heating request, assuming that there is one, it'll be "ready" to take advantage.

    Again, all speculation on my part, and of course doesn't help make sense of the numbers...

    We need somebody from tado to explain.
  • Also just to add that Rooms that are Independent (doesn't demand heat but opens valve to use the circulating heated water).....these rooms are shown with a heating % and this obviously "skews" any data provided......these radiator(s) will heat up but don't actually cause the boiler to "fire up" so therefore should not be used as a part of the Usage data.....
  • @GrayDav4276 FWIW I have nine radiators and seven Tado SRTs. None of them are independent and so any of them, including the lounge, can call for heat. The other two radiators - hall and bathroom - are left "open" for pump overrun.

    However, the bathroom has a wireless temperature sensor, commanding the smart wired thermostat in the hall, so it too can call for heat when required. This is a far better arrangement for bathroom comfort than putting the hall in control of anything.

    Thus the only completely passive radiator is in the hall, being fed (rather generous) scraps whenever any other radiator requests heat. Of course, the bathroom also gets a free lunch if any other radiator is feeling peckish, so its heating stats are pretty meaningless.