Will Radiator Thermostats work with third party thermostats to measure room temperature?

Hi,

as many others, I have a problem with measuring the room temperature. As soon as the radiator heats up, the thermostat, that is placed basically over the radiator, immediately registers a high temperature and closes the valve. Of course off setting the measured temperature will just mess it up even more.

I know I could use a separate smart thermostat, but it is very expensive, especially for 4 rooms... So, I was thinking, can't I use a third party one? Or can Tado develop a cheaper one? At the end of the day, it does not need to have any smart functionality, as those are already present in the Radiator Thermostats. I just need a thermometer that can send what is the temperature via wi-fi, nothing else...

Answers

  • Ditsy
    Ditsy ✭✭✭

    So far we're actually finding that the TRVs are doing a great job of accurately assessing our rooms temperature. I'm sure effectiveness varies quite a lot with a number of factors though. Have you tried using the offset feature?

    https://support.tado.com/hc/en-gb/articles/201587409-I-think-that-the-real-inside-temperature-is-higher-lower-than-tado-is-showing-what-can-I-do-

  • I’ve been wondering if this can be achieved with a third-party thermostat and IFTTT. Will let you know if I find anything....
  • You cant with IFTTT, even scripting with openhab wont work unless you duplicate the entire schedule in code. The problem is that you cant access the schedule or the temp offset via the API.

    Lets say you have the room set to 21C, the room thermometer measures 20C and the tado TRV measures 22C because of a hot radiator. You could write a script that calculates the difference between actual temp and tado temp, and creates an offset in the target temp to compensate, in this case, setting it to 23C. But once you do that, you no longer know what the actual target temp was. You could store it locally in your script but that will only work until the schedule or a manual action in the app overrides it. Using temp offset would be a neater solution, but afaics, you can neither read nor set that value through the API.

    In short, I dont think its possible, unless you use your openhab (or similar platform) to constantly set the target temp, ignoring the tado app and schedule completely.

    What you can do, and what Im currently doing, is using another TRV as room sensor. Its a bit clunky, its still limited to 1C resolution, but at least its a bit cheaper than a wall mount thermostat and its pretty accurate sitting on my desk..

  • Hmm, shame, but thanks for the insight. The next thing that comes to mind is 3D printing a clip-on heat shield... Just need to design it and get a 3D printer 🤣
  • Sorry Vertigo, How could I use another TRV? I am doing it too, but the only way I found to do it was to set the 2 TRVs in the same room and then assign the temperature measurement task to one of them. Issue is that both of them have to be working (heating up) so that defeats the purpose: the one measuring should stay off
  • I mean another (in your case, third) TRV thats not mounted on a radiator,but just sitting on a desk or shelve. It wont calibrate without being mounted, but it will still work as a sensor. Added advantage of not being calibrated is that the pin doesnt move, so no sound and less battery usage.

  • Why would feet make it worse? That’s what it is designed for.

  • dennisoliver, feet? Which bit are you replying to?