Really good to get your retrospective view on Tado. Many of us are in a similar position where we invested in Tado back when there were few options available. I share your views on the limitations... mostly the reliance on the cloud, but at least it integrates pretty well with HA, loads of sensors and the opentherm features are a bonus. I think Tado deserve credit for longevity with its product design when they were one of the first on the scene. Back in 2017 I installed 9 x wireless smart thermostats, 9 x TRVs and an extension kit for hot water and each piece of kit is running as well as day 1. Only very rarely I have experienced Tado server issues but at least local control using the physical device controls is the fall-back. I don't have experience of the alternatives but I have my eye on the Shelly TRVs. Today they probably have an edge over Tado with longer battery life, USB-C charging and local integration in HA.. it would be good to get people's experiences of the alternatives.

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

I've tested Shelly TRV's - they are OK I would say. PRO is internal rechargeable battery and WiFi connectivity. CON is WiFi as it goes often to sleep and takes time to wakeup and send update or receive it but also it's HUGE compared to tado. If I didn't have tado, I would probably go for Zigbee alternatives.

@bennylloyd-willner9667

Жыл бұрын

@@BeardedTinker hi! I am investing quite a lot in our home this year with our ultimate goal to be almost fully self sufficient regarding electricity, food, and heating/cooling. Shelly is a favourite manufacturer so far. I will probably have Zigbee devices too for sensors on the farm (horses, rabbits, chicken coop, moist/temp in soil growing veggies etc) , so I wonder if you know good Zigbee TRVs that works well with HA as well as easily interacts with external temp sensors. I've watched a couple of videos on Shelly TRV and it looks really easy to use with external temp sensors for greater accuracy in rooms.

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

@@bennylloyd-willner9667 I'm currently testing 3 different Zigbee valves (+ Shelly just as comparison). But due to time constraints, it will take some time. Mot of the manufacturers just repack-rebrand one another, so while there are options at the end, not that many. Out of 3 I have, 2 are very similar and comes down to personal preference in design I think, while 1 does have fewer options. Mind you, that doesn't necessarily mean it worse. Maybe it's even better as it's simpler to setup and control. BUT, the big difference is ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT. Her you'll see a very big difference on what is exposed to HA, what you can control etc. ZHA is far more limiting in terms of that over Zigbee2MQTT. So at the end, TRVs most of them will work just ok. Moes one (I have on channel video about it) is optimum I think in terms of price performance, works with ZHA and with Zigbee2MQTT. Sorry I couldn't help more, but not an easy answer. And - check my video on Better Thermostat - that one can be real help with any TRV, including Shelly.

@bennylloyd-willner9667

Жыл бұрын

@@BeardedTinker you help me a lot. You are one of the about five channels I watch and get new knowledge from. I'm not sure yet on what TRVs to get, I haven't even decided on how many. I have decided to not buy for all 24 radiators tho, I am investing a lot this year but not that much 😁. I'm looking forward seeing your solar panel project proceed. Even though I live in a house with about 100 sq m of South facing roof, I will still get valuable information from your setup and thoughts, I'm sure 👍

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

@@bennylloyd-willner9667 go slow :) I only have about 30-40% of all valves as smart TRVs. Acually, more is not important for me as others are just set to heat up whenever smart TRVs need heat.. and that's sufficient. I think I would even be on loss if I would automate all of them.

Thanks Andrej! I use Honeywell Evohome now since 2017. I am very happy with it. Unfortunately there no local control, so cloud only.

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

I get why they do it - they can offload AI/machine learning to cloud and keep more expensive components away from end devices, but...

8:20 - I would be also displeased if I was forced into a subscription service. In the United States I use Life360 for my Geofencing on my HA and HE (Hubitat) and it costs $14.99/mo for gold membership (I just checked and this is €14.39). The Life360 is also tied to the device (for the gold plan you can get unlimited locations and at least two devices onto a plan, but I think this may also be unlimited). I am not sure, but Life360 may be available in at least some of the EU. A fine video as always, sir.

A HOT (pun intended) topic this season and I'm sorry I didn't know about the PWM modulation capabilities of heat pumps. These systems are indeed having better capabilities to gain efficiency than the 'primitive' on/off can have. I'm still trying to figure out our house optimal conditions for when to trigger, how much, etc - and believe that with some planning to see future sun heating the windows, or schedule for us to leave the house - we could gain a bit of efficiency there. Otherwise, the more savings-oriented solution we're thinking is to have Solar energy panels (next year plans) that would directly heat a DC heating element inside a bigger boiler that would act as a buffer. If the house had solar batteries, after finishing the charge, it would 'store' energy in the boiler by heating the water. And for comfort, when the needs for hot water come - either solar, or the existing gas heater would warm it up inside the boiler/buffer. Long-term plans that need more thinking, but hope to have the smart-house activities working like they're planned in my head. Thank you for sharing this knowledge and again for making the time to continue posting them!

Thanks, Andrej! Your content is really cool and useful 👍 I have a question about the water floor heating system, I'm planning to do a couple of zoned heating in my house but not sure which thermostats to pick for the rooms. Do you have any suggestions? (also I would like the thermostats can be added to HA)

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Thank you Luka!!! I'm really not that good with floor heating and afraid to recommend something that wouldn't work. I know that tado works with it support.tado.com/en/articles/3482224-how-does-tado-control-underfloor-heating-systems Other systems also support it but it all depends on your setup, zones, pumps,......

@arnovdmeer

Жыл бұрын

Plugwise has a floor heating solution

I have tado for 5+ years and it's working very well. Unfortunately I did not get this lifetimee subscription, and just now I got info they are increasing subscription pricing to 3.99 per month. I hate cloud for this , and will try to move to homeassitant controlled heating only.

@BeardedTinker

4 ай бұрын

Yeah... Those subscriptions are going too far IMHO lately... Waiting for subscription for my toilet next... No cloud - no service. There is a way around it - HomeKit integration for HA could be "better" option but standard HA integration also works great.

In my experience, Tado Care & Protect didn't work as expected with Remeha Avanta (OpenTherm connection). It wasn't indicating anything when the boiler was switched off. Also, during a maintenance activity we had a water leak making the boiler empty. Everything looked good to Tado.

@BeardedTinker

11 ай бұрын

(hope that this doesn't sound as me defending them). This all depends on implementation of opentherm protocol on boiler side. For example like Aqara Zigbee devices - they implement things that they want not everything according to standard. I did receive so far warning when it was trying to heat but temperature was not increasing...

Thanks for the interesting video! I'm investigating the purchase of a new thermostat because I also want to control the rooms separately so I'm following your videos closely. A few years ago I bought an ATAG boiler. I did not pay proper attention to the Opentherm support. I now learned that Opentherm is only supported on ATAG thermostats and is locked out for other brands! So basically when I would introduce another brand thermostat I could only benefit from on/off functionality. I would like the thermostat to still function even if my Home Assistant fails. In these circumstances would you still recommend the Tado system?

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

You need to check with tado for support for this boiler. Unfortunately most of the companies try to lock you in, but 8f they did implement protocol according to the standard, it should work. But please check with tado, their support should clear this.

man, with the prices hitting the roof (last 12m the increase was from 10p to 50p per kWh in UK - 5 times!!!) we need to really not only observe but also intelligently control the usage - hopefully HA helps with that and few add ons ;-) But the biggest problem what I see here is: INEFFICIENT home insulation. We are WASTING energy to heat up the air around the house! I am living in reasonably new house and the windows are like.... somewhere in Africa! That is simply waste of money - not only on the local (read: my pocket) level but also the global one (read: waste waste waste). So irrespective how automated home we have, we cannot really do much about that (at least as long as you live in the rent house/flat). Eh... Your video as usual is very useful. What I am doing right now is moving all cloud devices to work locally ONLY - and reasons for that are quite obvious. Also: no subscriptions please for me (except the obvious ones of course - i.e Netflix)

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, the prices are really wild - our government did freeze prices until March/April, but who know what will be after that. And you are right about energy loss. We did replace all our windows for newer ones with higher energy efficiency, but still it's not perfect and some walls don't have any insulation, while that is no issue for now, when weather is like late spring, but in winter that doe shave a very serious impact.

Nice video again! What do you think, will it be possible to use "dual" mode for tado, like have a regular cloud integration, and set up a "local" one, so you can control it if cloud gets offline/internet connection breaks for a long time? Will it work, for let's say "emergency" cases, what's your opinion?

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Thank you Matija! Not sure 100% because tado needs bridge to send commands to valves. If you activate HomeKit version of integration, that one should be local control, so yes, you could control it fully locally, but never tried to disconnect internet and try it that way.

Cheers for that. I know you touched on the local side of homekit and TADO. Can TADO be both on HA and in Home Kit ? Does this then create duplicate sensors or does it just work ? Thanks again 👍

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

It creates both - so for each device you get for example two climate devices. One with name pulled from cloud, other no name (it uses serial number of device) for local.

Hey tinker, another great vid. I noticed on your dash you've got your hot water temp (55). Where and how are you getting that data point? Is it coming from tado or another device?

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Yes, that's correct. Hot water temperature is pulled by tado from boiler (but tado can also set & control it).

@robytuddle

Жыл бұрын

Thank you@@BeardedTinker. I'll have closer look at mine

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Just to add - you do need eBus connection for this.

I bought 8 nedis smart trv's - they work really well inside HA with a sonoff usb controller. I'm just getting my head around scheduling. It would prob be easier with the Smart Life app but I don't have the hub for that

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Those look really nice with that display. As for scheduling, did you try new schedule inside HA? Really should play a bit with that to see how to use it for heating...

@tonybrandt3740

Жыл бұрын

@@BeardedTinker yes, I'm looking to do the scheduling in HA. I tried to find Schedy & try that but only got as far as installing appdaemon.... I'm still quite new to all this. It's fun! Thanks for your videos 😊

Good video, at the dashboard you have few graph cards showing multiple temperature entities - what kind of card is it?

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

That is HACS Frontend component - Mini Graph Card - here is the link: github.com/kalkih/mini-graph-card

@ryszardgorazda1580

Жыл бұрын

@@BeardedTinker thanks

Hopefully you can help me. I have recently installed my Tado to my Baxi Assure 30 Combi boiler with the tado wired connections in NO and COM. This is purely turning the boiler on and off without modulating it. Can I move the same wires from NO and COM to + and - and then go to the boiler and move the other end of those wires to the Opentherm terminals? Is that what you did on yours?

@BeardedTinker

7 ай бұрын

I can't tell you what I did - not because of what I did, but I'm not qualified electrician or heating guy and doing something wrong can electrocute you, damage your boiler, thermostat or both, but also cause fire. In general, that's correct, but it depends on boiler type you have - you have to check schematics for it to make sure that + & - are indeed eBus wires, a not for example exposed 110/220V contacts. When you make sure and triple check, all is OK, you'll also need to reconfigure tado thermostat. You'll need to go in service menu on device itself and change one parameter. For that I searched tado online forum - there is guide on how to go to service menu, and change to eBus/OpenTherm configuration. But again, this also depends if your boiler is on supported list.

Wow that heater man.... I've changed my heater 5 years ago, and got a really dumb but efficient one. After 5 years I had to do mandatory maintenance and it has 96.4% efficiency. But it has just two wires for thermostat and there's no support for opentherm or other protocols

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Technology is really improving. I still remember very old one we had when I was a kid that small flame inside burning all of the time as starter... But even 5 year old should be very efficient too. One that I replaced was 12-15 years old.

I use Moes smart radiator valves. They’re Chinese and some of the translations are really confusing but they’re also much cheaper. No geolocation though and they don’t have Opentherm. For example, an option is called “TempHand” and their symbol for Manual is a hand. It actually means manual temporarily (till the next set time period). Also the boost time has a Chinese symbol that means seconds, not minutes. I had to ask a chinese friend because is you clocked on it to ask google translate it took you to the settings. And “filler temp” or something like that is actually (I think) just a simple offset. The “set temp” is a manual set temp, but not an automatic set temp or an “eco mode” set temp, which means you think you’re having no effect but if you sit near the valve you can hear the motor. Haven’t integrated with Home Assistant yet as my SD card died. That is direct over zigbee and I’ve seen it’s possible on KZread clips. The UI will hopefully be much clearer than the one they send to Tuya. I have two Nest and they can’t combine multiple NEST and do opentherm anyway. I think. Their customer support didn’t know and answered questions I had not asked. In other systems they talk wirelessly and there is a Master device which takes control. Not entirely sure why theirs can’t just use the thread protocol they already use to connect the room thermostat and nest protect smoke alarms; guess not enough users would like both OpenTherm and multiple thermostats. Incidentally turning the thermostats horizontal rather than vertical has a surprisingly big effect on the temperature accuracy. Where possible I have depressurised the system and turned them. Looks a bit weird and makes the display harder to read but I don’t often use smart valves directly anyway.

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

I know Moes valve. Made a video on it. Currently have 3 different valves from them that I'm testing. My recommendation, if you can/are using Home Assistant try Better Thermostat. It adds few things that does cheaper thermostats are missing. Plus it works nicely than with external temps sensors if you have them - which allows you to position sensor where it's important to you to reach desired temperature.

Is the radiator valve status available in HA in percent? (To what extent the valve is opened?)

@BeardedTinker

7 ай бұрын

For this valve, and at this point no. You can see number of steps when in idle or how many steps it takes to close it. Some other valves have it but very rarely.

I have looked at lots of videos on Heating cost. What a lot of people tend to forget is the combi boiler uses electricity as well as gas. People just look at there gas usage cost without taking into account the electricity it uses.

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

That's correct - I was surprised at electricity used by mine both in good and bad way. Wish I could pull data from it into Home Assistant as it already tracks it.

@kevinhenryviii

Жыл бұрын

@@BeardedTinker I have a Shelly 1pm wired in to my fused switch which gives me my electricity usage. When the heating is on it starts of at 80w then comes down between 70 and 50w

@kevinhenryviii

Жыл бұрын

By the way my set up is a combi boiler and an all Tado setup for control. I Can’t fault the Tado system since I’ve had it.

How do you get the requested heating percentage in home assistant? Is this provided from the Tado integration? Do you have the Tado and the Vaillant thermostat both connected to the ebus?

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

This information is provided by tado. Even if your heater doesn't support it, tado will show you how much it needs in % via sensor. This is communicated via eBus connection between tado and Vaillant in my case.

@Roeland54

Жыл бұрын

@@BeardedTinker thanks I have found the heating %. Thank you for the video. I have a new vaillant ecotec boiler with tado sinds yesterday. 😁

VR33 module for opentherm or direct connection to boiler ? Pozz

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Will double check a bit later, but I think I didn't need VR33 module and that it was a direct connection.

@GoranOs

Жыл бұрын

@@BeardedTinker Thanks

@GoranOs

Жыл бұрын

@@BeardedTinker Now I see that Tado also supports ebus. I have a nest thermostat that only supports opentherm, so I had to connect VR33 as well.

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

@@GoranOs Vaillant calls it something different, it's not 100% following standard but tado works with some of them. I did a bit of research as I really wanted this option with new boiler and from forums, not all is supported.

I've replaced my gas boiler whit a heat pump 👍

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

That's great! For us still i'st more economical to use gas instead of electricity - even with all of the problems with prices and availability. But biggest problem I had was I needed to do it ASAP without ability to go any other way - as current setup died and we needed quick replacement. That's why I didn't even had chance to look at alternatives.

@synco1985

Жыл бұрын

I am guessing your house is well insolated.

Waaaait, It cant be. I dont want to intrude as I am here only for the HA content and it is totally besides the point of the video. Are you related to you know who?

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Completely out of topic, but... Yes 😂

Have recently spent a small fortune on replacing my Nest & ZigBee sensors, buying into the Tado platform "Black Edition". It is indeed a very neat system, and seems to works very nicely. Though I have noticed my combi boiler does seem to be on more often...we shall see how that fares as the bills go. The subscription fee is not welcome at all, even if everything seems to be going that way.....so with that yearly cost, I'm unsure if it will save me money overall Vs my previous setup. It is nice though.

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, subscriptions... Everything is going that way unfortunately. But if tado is working as it should, you should save on cost with it.

No Zwave/Zigbee... ridiculous.

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

Yes, no need for Zigbee/Z-Wave hub - just plain old WiFi ;)

Not my cup of tea this TADO, wish you could be more open to other products

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

I did test few similar products but most of them didn't provide same functionality overall out of box. But hope to test some others too in future.

@bennylloyd-willner9667

Жыл бұрын

To have a channel focused on one or a few manufacturers can be a positive thing too. There are a couple of great HA channels and I think their combined knowledge grows bigger and better if they do different systems/product lines and not all of them test all products. Just my thought on it. I get a nugget here and a nugget there and even if I'm not going the TADO route, I still got valuable information from this. I respect your view, I'm just saying that viewers want different things so it's not easy for content creators to fully satisfy us all every time 😁 Keep "Home Assistanting" ❤️

@BeardedTinker

Жыл бұрын

@@bennylloyd-willner9667 thanks for that one. I do have other options on channel too (Moes smart valve + Shelly), also, video before this one was looking at generic options, not needing any closed system. And as a matter of fact, I'm currently testing 4 valves more extensively. But still, I love my setup - if I wouldn't, I would exchange it and it's been running long before HA even existed ;)