Best Wifi enabled thermostat
Discussion
I really don't think Tado will do any further development. The last update was a big deal - it told you just what sort of pollen was at high levels.
I don't care whether it is tree pollen, grass pollen, flower pollen or faecal pollen.
At the minute it works fine for me - I won't be updating the app or the firmware, or going to the subscription option. It has more than paid for itself already, and I'll keep it as it is until they go bust - which they will, if they don't start doing useful things with it.
I don't care whether it is tree pollen, grass pollen, flower pollen or faecal pollen.
At the minute it works fine for me - I won't be updating the app or the firmware, or going to the subscription option. It has more than paid for itself already, and I'll keep it as it is until they go bust - which they will, if they don't start doing useful things with it.
Harry Flashman said:
By the way, as posted earlier, Evohome is amazing when it works.
If you find yourself having to reinstall the system, be prepared to ask for help. The online workflow is terrible, and the telephone support nonexistent.
All working now, but has made me rethink if I would use the system again. Any electronic system that needs a professional installer to make it work is not a safe choice. Luckily the person that did mine believes in after sales service and answered my call, and helped.
All the other local installers I called were not available, or not I terested as I was not a client already. Two had given up on the work as it was too complex. And this is London.
I re-installed mine from scratch, if by re-install I mean reset the main controller, then reset all the TRVs and re-added them, setup zones etc, just last month. Now I am very technical, but even so I thought it was pretty simple - what bit of it did you feel needs a trained installer?If you find yourself having to reinstall the system, be prepared to ask for help. The online workflow is terrible, and the telephone support nonexistent.
All working now, but has made me rethink if I would use the system again. Any electronic system that needs a professional installer to make it work is not a safe choice. Luckily the person that did mine believes in after sales service and answered my call, and helped.
All the other local installers I called were not available, or not I terested as I was not a client already. Two had given up on the work as it was too complex. And this is London.
Curious, not criticising. One of my neighbours claims to work on the Honeywell team that does the evohome software. I can give him your feedback
guindilias said:
That's hardly a massive change though, is it? They have what, 30 software engineers? And the best they can manage is a new graph and a way to tell you that you should pay them to service your boiler?
I was hoping for a “scratch my balls” feature but that was sorely lacking.As someone else said - what else do you want?
They launched some new hardware recently (overpriced IMO).
ben5575 said:
A genuine question (as in I'm not trying to be argumentative) - I've got an app that can control the heating in any room I want when I want it.
What else do I need from it? What am I missing out on?
I was thinking about this as I have a similar facility with my Wiser system. It would be quite useful to be able to set up multi-room zones. For instance downstairs I only go in 2 of 5 rooms, it would be good to have the ability to control both of them together.What else do I need from it? What am I missing out on?
Have a look at their user forum, and all the requests for small improvements or bug fixes that they completely ignore. They might take one software engineer a day to code.
But instead they put in utterly pointless features like telling you exactly what type of pollen is high - do you use that feature, do you think many people do?
They ignore their user base, try to push subscription based features that they originally said would be free (they deleted their "roadmap" a few years ago as so many people were complaining that they hadn't even started the car, let alone progressing along the roadmap), and there are a load of things they could do - integration with home automation dashboards, control features able to be linked without other "smart home" systems etc.
All this was on their roadmap but then they decided it was better to start charging for geofencing, telling you about the air quality, pushing their overpriced boiler servicing and so on...
Their responses here tell you a bit about just how much they listen to their users - https://community.tado.com/en-gb/discussion/8/tado...
But instead they put in utterly pointless features like telling you exactly what type of pollen is high - do you use that feature, do you think many people do?
They ignore their user base, try to push subscription based features that they originally said would be free (they deleted their "roadmap" a few years ago as so many people were complaining that they hadn't even started the car, let alone progressing along the roadmap), and there are a load of things they could do - integration with home automation dashboards, control features able to be linked without other "smart home" systems etc.
All this was on their roadmap but then they decided it was better to start charging for geofencing, telling you about the air quality, pushing their overpriced boiler servicing and so on...
Their responses here tell you a bit about just how much they listen to their users - https://community.tado.com/en-gb/discussion/8/tado...
guindilias said:
That's hardly a massive change though, is it? They have what, 30 software engineers? And the best they can manage is a new graph and a way to tell you that you should pay them to service your boiler?
Had a look at the keynote thing from the start of the month to see what's new. The protect thing relies on Open Therm, which you can't use if you're using the Extension Kit to control the hot water because they haven't updated the hardware since they added hot water control so they used the Open Therm digital controller bits for the hot water.And while it might be able to tell you when the heating was actually on - it does this already in the graphs - it won't tell you when the boiler was on for hot water because it can't know without updating the hardware. It knows when you tell it to make hotwater available, but it doesn't know when this resulted in the boiler having to come.
The only way to use the new stuff with one of the most common setups is to use a different setup to control the hotwater.
The boiler monitoring is basically an ingestion of the user manual step-by-step problem solver then call your engineer and it'll let you know on your phone that the boiler has packed in a few minutes before you realise because it's cold.
They have also changed the software in the background so that you can use a V3 wireless thermostat to over-ride the smart TRV. Hardly rocket science.
The frustrating thing is that although it really needs an extension kit upgrade, they could use the Smart Thermostat to control the Hot water with only simple software changes - tick box so the thermostat doesn't feed the temperature dashboard and disable the temperature feed. You can do this now, but the temperature set limit is 25 degrees, so if the house gets too hot you'll lose hot water. It's really minor changes to software. Hardware wise it only needs the temperature sensor modifying so it can take an external feed from a thermostat in the tank and then the rest is software again. They're 95% there.
Has anyone dabbled with the new-ish hardware from heatmiser? Eg. the window/door switches. Quite smart, my porch thermostat clicks on every time I open the door for more than about 30 seconds so ordered one to try out. Works pretty well! Don't know what the payback time will be though, possibly never!
paulrockliffe said:
Had a look at the keynote thing from the start of the month to see what's new. The protect thing relies on Open Therm, which you can't use if you're using the Extension Kit to control the hot water because they haven't updated the hardware since they added hot water control so they used the Open Therm digital controller bits for the hot water.
And while it might be able to tell you when the heating was actually on - it does this already in the graphs - it won't tell you when the boiler was on for hot water because it can't know without updating the hardware. It knows when you tell it to make hotwater available, but it doesn't know when this resulted in the boiler having to come.
The only way to use the new stuff with one of the most common setups is to use a different setup to control the hotwater.
The boiler monitoring is basically an ingestion of the user manual step-by-step problem solver then call your engineer and it'll let you know on your phone that the boiler has packed in a few minutes before you realise because it's cold.
They have also changed the software in the background so that you can use a V3 wireless thermostat to over-ride the smart TRV. Hardly rocket science.
The frustrating thing is that although it really needs an extension kit upgrade, they could use the Smart Thermostat to control the Hot water with only simple software changes - tick box so the thermostat doesn't feed the temperature dashboard and disable the temperature feed. You can do this now, but the temperature set limit is 25 degrees, so if the house gets too hot you'll lose hot water. It's really minor changes to software. Hardware wise it only needs the temperature sensor modifying so it can take an external feed from a thermostat in the tank and then the rest is software again. They're 95% there.
And their AC controller - if you want to use your AC in heat mode to keep frost away, bad luck - 16 degrees is the minimum. You can't set it to 5 degrees or whatever. Again, just a software change, but it's more important to tell you what type of pollen is in the outside air.And while it might be able to tell you when the heating was actually on - it does this already in the graphs - it won't tell you when the boiler was on for hot water because it can't know without updating the hardware. It knows when you tell it to make hotwater available, but it doesn't know when this resulted in the boiler having to come.
The only way to use the new stuff with one of the most common setups is to use a different setup to control the hotwater.
The boiler monitoring is basically an ingestion of the user manual step-by-step problem solver then call your engineer and it'll let you know on your phone that the boiler has packed in a few minutes before you realise because it's cold.
They have also changed the software in the background so that you can use a V3 wireless thermostat to over-ride the smart TRV. Hardly rocket science.
The frustrating thing is that although it really needs an extension kit upgrade, they could use the Smart Thermostat to control the Hot water with only simple software changes - tick box so the thermostat doesn't feed the temperature dashboard and disable the temperature feed. You can do this now, but the temperature set limit is 25 degrees, so if the house gets too hot you'll lose hot water. It's really minor changes to software. Hardware wise it only needs the temperature sensor modifying so it can take an external feed from a thermostat in the tank and then the rest is software again. They're 95% there.
I emailed them to ask if the AC controller could be run from a battery pack, instead of having to be permanenty pluggedin. No, because it uses a "Powerful IR LED" to send the instructions (which you teach it from the AC remote) to the AC unit. I pointed out that the AC remote has a "Powerful IR LED" as well and seems to get on just fine with a pair of AAAs - no response.
guindilias said:
I really don't think Tado will do any further development. The last update was a big deal - it told you just what sort of pollen was at high levels.
I don't care whether it is tree pollen, grass pollen, flower pollen or faecal pollen.
At the minute it works fine for me - I won't be updating the app or the firmware, or going to the subscription option. It has more than paid for itself already, and I'll keep it as it is until they go bust - which they will, if they don't start doing useful things with it.
I’ve been looking at this, and the big problem with Tado seems to be their cloud model. Everything comes over the wire. So if you have no Internet, the heating just carries on doing what it was doing when your connection went down. Which may be “off’. They’re doing it so they can charge you at some stage - you want you heating to carry on working - give us £10 a month.I don't care whether it is tree pollen, grass pollen, flower pollen or faecal pollen.
At the minute it works fine for me - I won't be updating the app or the firmware, or going to the subscription option. It has more than paid for itself already, and I'll keep it as it is until they go bust - which they will, if they don't start doing useful things with it.
I nearly bought it, feature wise it seems to be a good system, but I think Wiser is better.
The feature I really want is “half wit mode”. We occasionally rent the house out, and i’l like to be able to switch all the cleverness off and have a simple thermostat in the hall with the temperature displayed on it.
Harry Flashman said:
Apart from mi child ripping the display off one, they've been fine. Bad batch?
This almost happened to me this morning, darling daughter started playing with the screen, a quick explanation to a 13 month old that its not to be touched didn't go down well so i moved a chair in front of it now so she can't get near it haha! What do people think to having one on a towel rad in a bathroom? I've done it but i'm thinking the moisture of accidental water splashing is going to ruin it.
PugwasHDJ80 said:
Does anyone else have any problems with reliability of the evohome heads? I'm down 4 now in three years and they aren't cheap!
A couple of mine (the newer style ones with the flip up screens) have played up - they appear to stop working, but if you give them a strategic 'tap' they power back up. I've cleaned the tin battery contacts and pushed the bottom battery contacts up a bit to make sure they press against the battery properly and they seem to be behaving themselves. richatnort said:
What do people think to having one on a towel rad in a bathroom? I've done it but i'm thinking the moisture of accidental water splashing is going to ruin it.
I've had HR92s on the radiator in one bathroom and the towel rail rad in another for about 3 years and they've been exactly as reliable as the others in the house - that is, 100%. I think the only reason to avoid them is that they're a bit obtrusive against a nice sleek chrome towel rail.
There seems to be a lot of love for Evohome on this thread and relatively few mentions of the Heat Genius system that appears to offer similar large house functionality at a similar if not slightly cheaper price, are there problems / downsides with Heat Genius or is it just that Evohome is more popular because it's more established in the market? I've been watching a few Heat Genius videos and played with the configurator and been quite impressed with what I've seen so far.
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