Tado

[Garald]

What do people think of

 

https://www.tado.com/all-en

 

and similar systems (such as?)?

 

Anything I should have in mind if using them together with a heat-pump with adaptive heat-flow temperatures?

[JohnMo]

Just let your heat pump control look after temps, if you are using adaptive control.

[joth]

Lots of opinions of them in this very recent thread. 

It depends on the heat loss profile of the house in question but tldr unless there's a very specific problem you're trying to solve that it's suited for, you're almost certainly going to save on both capital and running costs by using the ASHP manufacturer's proprietary controls on their own, per @JohnMo comment

 

 

 

 

Edited February 9 by joth

[Garald]

The specific problems are: the ground-floor studio (north-facing) is 3C cooler than the library/main room; the attic can be 1-2C cooler (in winter). That's fine when nobody is using the studio, or when the person in the studio is a fan of 17C, but not otherwise.

 

Summary: rooms that heat naturally to different temperatures (due to different orientation, to the extent that the radiators are overdimensioned (they are all overdimensioned - this was a renovation, and I used a safety factor of two even for new radiators) and also to different insulation quality, though I'm addressing this last problem); sometimes this is good and sometimes it is not.

[TonyT]

Get the controller from the same manufacturer has the heat pump so there are non3rd party issues.

[joth]

4 hours ago, Garald said:

The specific problems are: the ground-floor studio (north-facing) is 3C cooler than the library/main room; the attic can be 1-2C cooler (in winter). That's fine when nobody is using the studio, or when the person in the studio is a fan of 17C, but not otherwise.

 

Summary: rooms that heat naturally to different temperatures (due to different orientation, to the extent that the radiators are overdimensioned (they are all overdimensioned - this was a renovation, and I used a safety factor of two even for new radiators) and also to different insulation quality, though I'm addressing this last problem); sometimes this is good and sometimes it is not.

 

This issue is with adaptive flow compensation. What temperature is it generally flowing at? 

Do you have it on a timer schedule or running 24/7 ?

With well oversized rads and left of for long periods it should be able to modulate down to a very low flow temp which would mean the rads in warmer rooms having negligible output. But if for some reason something is making it run at a higher temp than per room controls of some sort are very likely to be needed. 

Edited February 9 by joth

[Lofty718]

Balance the radiators to give more flow to the cooler rooms, second line of defence would be TRV's on the radiators

 

On/off controls on a heat pump is a no no. You want it open loop and dumping low temperature heat into as much floorspace as often as posssible

[Garald]

1 hour ago, joth said:

 

This issue is with adaptive flow compensation. What temperature is it generally flowing at? 

Do you have it on a timer schedule or running 24/7 ?

 

Right now it should be running at a very low flow temperature (25C or so) since it's 12C outside. I'm not using a timer - should I? 

 

I have a wireless thermostat, which I generally keep in the warmest, sunniest room. I ended up giving the thermostat to a guest who was staying in the guest room (yes, the room with that metal outside door that I am trying to insulate better...) - with the effect that the temperature there rose to 20.5C, and that in the sunny room to 23.5C!

 

I'll get a WiFi adapter for the heat pump.so that I can verify that flow temperature is as low as the heat curve I've set indicates.

[Garald]

1 hour ago, Lofty718 said:

Balance the radiators to give more flow to the cooler rooms, second line of defence would be TRV's on the radiators

 

On/off controls on a heat pump is a no no. You want it open loop and dumping low temperature heat into as much floorspace as often as posssible

 

Tado is a TRV, no? Does it actually set things on and off?

 

I tried balancing the radiators, to no perceptible effect. I guess the zeroeth line of insulation is to work on any weaknesses in the insulation in the studio, but it will always be a bit cooler than other rooms (ground floor, N orientation).

[Garald]

Update: I turned the radiators in the (south-facing) library down to almost 0, and yes, now things are much better: no room is warmer than 21 (the library is at 21; it's still the warmest room) and no room is colder than 18.5. (I also insulated a cold metal door in the downstairs studio using a 2cm-thick layer of cork.)

Edited March 14 by Garald

[Adsibob]

I used to think Tado was great. I now realise it’s not. It’s an ok product, but very overpriced and the marketing is misleading.

 Good as a basic smart thermostat. Good for logging data such as temperature and humidity and this can help teach you how and when a room loses or gains heat from weather.

Good remote features.

 

But all the other guff is nonsense. It doesn’t do proper weather compensation and it won’t play nicely with most sophisticated heating systems, even with Veissman boilers, despite the misleading advertising.

 

 There is a law suit there somewhere…

Edited March 14 by Adsibob

[HughF]

22 hours ago, Adsibob said:

I used to think Tado was great. I now realise it’s not. It’s an ok product, but very overpriced and the marketing is misleading.

 Good as a basic smart thermostat. Good for logging data such as temperature and humidity and this can help teach you how and when a room loses or gains heat from weather.

Good remote features.

 

But all the other guff is nonsense. It doesn’t do proper weather compensation and it won’t play nicely with most sophisticated heating systems, even with Veissman boilers, despite the misleading advertising.

 

 There is a law suit there somewhere…

Tado sold in the UK is very often the non-opentherm capable version. Apparently ‘heating engineers’ (I use that term loosely) weren’t able to understand how to set it up so tado just stopped selling the OT compatible version over here.

[Garald]

So, in the end, what's the verdict? Should I just get old-fashioned TRVs with markings such as 1, 2, 3, etc.? Or are there more modern TRVs that allow finer control, or let their setting be modified remotely by means of an app, yet cost less than Tado? (I'd also need at least some TRVs with the option 'stay completely open' - namely, the ones for the coldest room or two, where I might take the thermostat for the entire ASHP system - but I suppose that "5" is just as good as that.)

 

Can I install TRVs myself? Right now I just have knobs that I can turn left or right but have no markings on them.

Edited June 4 by Garald

[MrPotts]

Smart TRV’s such as Tado, Hive etc are just basic on/off controls with a bit of fancy marketing around their “smart” features. Having said that I have a hybrid Wiser system where I use a combination of smart TRV’s and manual TRV’s.

Edited June 5 by MrPotts