Heat your home can be expensive. With oil prices on the rise, systems like Tado’s Smart Thermostat V3+, which provide control and insight into your heating, are looking very attractive. Throw in a few Tado Smart Radiator Thermostats and you can create a zonal heater that only heats the rooms you’re using. You can control everything from your phone and receive notifications if there is no one at home or if a window is left, so you can turn off your heating to save money.
Although the Tado system offers flexibility and control over individual room heating, I was interested to see how it worked and how the potential savings were kept in mind. I installed the Tado Wireless Smart Thermostat V3+ Start Kit (£200) and a set of Smart Radiator Valves (£200 for a pack of 3) in my four-bed flat to find out.
Note: Tado heating systems are not currently available in the US, although the German company offers smart AC controls. Ecobee Smart Home System (9/10, WIRED recommends) is a good option.
Implementation
Photo: Tado
The Tado V3+ Starter Kit includes a smart wireless adapter (available in black or white), a wireless receiver, and an Internet bridge. I also installed smart radiator thermostats in most rooms in my house (all five). After looking at the pictures of my heating system, Tado told me to have an electrician install it. With other systems, the installation is easy for you to do yourself.
A wireless thermostat replaces your existing thermostat, and you can move it around. Then there is the wireless receiver that connects to your heating controls (this is the tricky part that requires an electrician for me). Finally, there is an Internet bridge, which connects to your router via an Ethernet cable. You can save a bit more by opting for the Wired Starter Kit (£180).
Gas central heating is common in the UK, where I live, but most systems only have one thermostat control (usually on the street) and the option to set the temperature for the whole house. Individual radiators have a number of valves that you can use to increase or decrease the temperature in multiple rooms. It is not a very flexible system. Say, for example, I only want to heat my office during the day and then my living room in the evening. I would have had to schedule the heater to run other hours and cycle and manually adjust the radiator valves.
After installing Tado’s Smart Radiator Thermostats, I can dial up individual room heaters and run schedules that only heat the parts of the house that I want heated. I installed the radiator thermostats by loosening the existing valves (TRVs) and installing new thermostats. You can scan a QR code on each item to connect to the machine, and it’s very slow. This was not a problem for me, as the controls failed on several radiator thermostats, and I had to reinstall the old valves and twist them several times and restart them. (Keep your old TRVs close by.)
Zonal Temperature Needed
Tado via Simon Hill
When the system is working, you can see the temperature in each room with a heater and set a schedule for the heater. The system heats the boiler when needed to reach the desired temperature at a certain time. (So if you set the temperature from 6 o’clock for two hours, for example, it can turn on a few minutes before 6 am). You can turn off the Early Start feature to reduce your temperature until the scheduled time. Unfortunately, smart radiator thermostats create mechanical noises that can wake sleepers.
