Device grouping

Be able to group devices in to zones/areas
Rather than having to turn all devices on if needed set a group for example downstairs/upstairs or whole house which would turn the grouped devices to the same settings
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  • Robbie
    Robbie ✭✭✭
    +1

    Grouping rooms into “zones” would be usefull.
  • https://community.tado.com/en-gb/discussion/2777/zones#latest
  • +1

    Grouping functionality is essential!

    Currently we do this with Alexa, but this is only good for "turn upstairs on/off". When setting smart schedules it is still frustrating having to do the same schedule for each and every room.

  • I have 10 radiators, all with a smart TRV.

    I have one smart thermostat in my kitchen/diner/lounge (both rads in this area have smart TRVs too)

    I have kind of worked out how to group areas through Alexa but it isn't exactly user friendly.

    it involves me not using the Tado app, which i would normally use to control heating in individual rooms (which I do more often).

    There are unscheduled times when we want to heat all of downstairs or all of upstairs, but leave the other 'zones' off. Equally, I might want to heat just occupied bedrooms upstairs rather than all of upstairs.

    To do this, i would have to go into each bedroom individually, and increase the temperature of each. rather than simply being able to heat 'Bedrooms' or 'Upstairs' or 'Downstairs'.

    I would welcome a drag and drop feature so I can maintain individuality of my rooms, but also be able to quickly change a group, without using Alexa.

  • Just a Suggestion:

    Now if we had an open access point within the App we could build macros ( sub routines) in a simple Lang ( eg SQL ), name these routines which could be called upon to achieve what your looking for.

    SQL ( usually used in data management ) is a simple language which gives conditional branching( plus a lot more ) I assume each device has its own hexadecimal Id\key, assign this key to a variable name such as “SpRoom” and your good to go, obviously you can easily group individual controllers.

    This is Dependant:

    ONLY IF the original Design incorporated the unique Id\Key in the Spec, if they didn’t, well that would be SO short sighted for future expansion of a product which has limited boundaries anyway.

    AND if The Company allows/permits this open access to “subroutines” (provided by its customers) AND provides the Code Bridge on the selected LangCode used.
    _____________________________

    I haven’t worked in the Process Control industry since the early 90’s but I feel that they the Company would be very short sighted, also doing their shareholders a disservice if they didn’t take this up.
    As a “Process Design Development Engineer” I’ve implemented and seen the Benefit of “Empowerment” of a customer base to the extent of product growth to the extent that the Company climbs to the front of the leader board! (with very little outlay)

    People with virtually NO programming experience can easily tweak the variables and Identify the the valves.

    Now if I’d achieved the “content” of the last, Sentence wouldn’t I want to talk about this to my friends, people at work…….

    So back to the Macros and how to SHARE them ?

    Wouldn’t a Technical Forum be a good place to start ?
  • +1

    I have 12 trv thermostats. Zones is exactly what I require.
  • Agree totally. Tado do seem unresponsive to anything not in and from their own bubble. This is what we do full stop. As a former software engineer I do understand issues but more transparency, richer more open interface would turn this is to a much better product.
  • This request has been on the notice board for 2 years. Can the developers give us some visibility, or is there someone who's written some code to use the unsupported API to give this functionality.

  • Probably not going to happen in the lifecycle of the current generation of tado° devices......sorry to say.

  • I thought it was possible to group valves by giving those to be grouped the same room name?

    I thought I'd read that one of the valves in that 'room' communicates with the boiler on behalf of the others, but how do you define (or find out) which one is the 'master'? And do any schedules on the 'subordinate' valves then become redundant?

  • Tado° don't make "valves" they make Smart Radiator Thermostats.......is this what you are commenting on ??🤔

  • @BridgeSide If you mean the Tado devices (not the zone valves), you can group them as a single room. The Landing here has two rads, so two Tado SRT devices grouped in the one Tado room.

    To work out which one is the 'Measuring Device', go into the Tado app > settings > room and that will tell you which is the 'Measuring Device'. Tap on the 'Measuring Device' and you can 'Blink' the individual Tado devices in the room.

  • Yes, I meant the 'TV' devices when I mentioned valves. The devices are valve heads and little use without a valve base to sit on, so I consider them to be 'valves'. I've now had my valves 'grouped' by tado support. It seems that you cannot do this yourself. When grouped a 'leader' is nominated to hold the common schedule and instruct the subordinate ones what to do, so that they mimic what the 'leader' wants. Subordinate valves (devices) can be used to manually request a boost or down-turn (so long as they're not 'child-locked') but cannot be given independent instructions. The term 'leader' was used by tado support to describe the device being used to control a group. As said, this is identified within the particular 'room' as the 'Measuring Device' in the tado app.

    Thanks for the 'Blink' tip, @wateroakley , I was not aware of that!

  • In other words, they’ve put the devices in a single room on the app and made one the measuring device.
  • That's right. (I regard a 'room' as an area under one controller)

    The 'room' appears above the controllers it's grouped with.

  • Nicely pointed out @johnnyp78 ......it makes it difficult when users apply their own nomenclature to already known items.