Complete smart heating solution from tado
5/5
After reading reviews of 5 different smart heating systems, I decided to buy a complete solution from tado. Wasn't disappointed. Our setup consists of 23 smart radiator thermostats, 2 smart thermostats, internet bridge and extension box for hot water. Although the product is marketed as ‘DIY’, in my case I wouldn’t dare to install it myself. My installation required rewiring existing heating zones, so the new smart thermostats bypass the old three-way programming unit; so I was glad I had a skilled gas engineer to do it for me. Probably because my old system wasn’t a straightforward replacement (the management of heating zones ‘moved’ from the old programmer unit to two smart thermostats), tado couldn’t supply complete like-for-like install instructions. Instead the gas engineer and myself had to go back of forth with tado support several times. Tado support guys were exceptionally responsive – through IM, emails and even on the phone. So at the end everything was installed and is working as designed.
All three types of tado devices – smart thermostat, smart radiator thermostat, extension kit and the internet bridge are of high quality build (I even managed to drop one of the radiator thermostats on hard tiled floor, with no visible damage). The installation steps were well thought-through, clear and easy to follow. The overall management of devices and heating through the web app, windows app or mobile app (Android) is very good. Would suggest a few improvements – copy and paste of heating schedules would simplify the initial setup, a master ‘heating off’ button would be useful too. Though these functions might be coming in the future, they were mentioned in forums or the responses from tado support.
Too early for me to judge whether we’ve started realising any significant energy savings, but being able to turn off individual rooms which are unused must be helping the overall energy bill. Automatic geofencing also works nicely and as expected, while it keeps track of all four members of our family. Each room/thermostat has an ability to adjust the measured temperature vs the actual temperature (in cases where the radiator is e.g. behind a curtain). Overall very satisfied with tado, can only highly recommend.