Multi Zone Smart Thermostats

Soldato
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Correct me if im wrong.....the tado system (and the evohome) achieves multizones by adding TVR's to rads and then individually controlling them?
So you would only need the one thermostat downstairs and not another one upstairs?

Is that right?

I would image that's how it would work, however the boiler would still be firing no matter how many TRV's were activated. I guess it's getting more refined control rather than heating a zone/area, you can heart an individual room.
 
Soldato
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Correct me if im wrong.....the tado system (and the evohome) achieves multizones by adding TVR's to rads and then individually controlling them?
So you would only need the one thermostat downstairs and not another one upstairs?

Is that right?

Think of it more of putting a thermostat/trv on each radiator. You have no central thermostat, though you can select the controller to act as the thermostat for the room its in.
I went with evohome as its much more expandable than Tado. For instance for my bathroom i plan on not using the radiator trv but having an underfloor actuated valve controlled by a room thermostat and also linking it to the shower and bath so when you start or run a bath the towel rail will come on for 30 minutes.
 
Associate
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As i understand it, you still need to have the a central thermostat with the tado system. The trv's communicate with it and that in turn communicates with the boiler / extension kit.

Tado have just emailed to say my instalation instrucrtions are now available, quite a quick turn around really. Time to crack on with it!
 
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Kol

Kol

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Let us know how you get on Dwaindibbly. If it's anything like me wiring in my extension kit to my Main combi eco elite it was easy. Just follow the steps one by one and you'll be golden.

RE: the smart thermostats, you could get away with not having the central thermostat but it's not recommended. That's only if you don't have your own boiler which you can't control. If you do, you want the thermostat and then the TRVs. The thermostat will control your boiler turning it on/off. If you just have TRVs you'd have to have your boiler going 24/7 as the TRV will only turn off the radiator.

tado said:
If you have your own boiler, we recommend using the Smart Thermostat for central control in addition to individual radiator control. This will save even more energy.
 
Soldato
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Associate
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@Dwaindibbly Hey bud - how'd you get on? Fairly straight forward?

Sorry been meaning to reply but got caught up with a few things.

Straight forward, yes. Without a few little issues no.

I wired it up as per the instructions, which is basically three wires to the junction box on the boiler and three on the extension kit. Turned on the boiler and the kit lit up and synced with the app, 10 secs later the light went out on the kit, I thought I’d blown a fuse or something so I checked and rechecked all the wiring, still nothing.

I then called Tado, they answered straight away, after I explained the issue they talked me through some troubleshooting, which didn’t solve the issue, so the support chap asked me to send him pictures of the wiring and escalated the problem with technical support. 10 mins later I get a call from the same guy, he asked me to swap two wires round on my boiler and voila, it was all working.

I was very happy with the support I received, which in total probably ended up being 40mins, he wouldn’t hang up till it was all sorted.

The next day I checked the Tado app to see how my schedules worked / tempsdurimg the evening. I noticed that my lads room called for heat but the boiler didn’t fire up!

This is dragging on now so basically another call to customer support found the my extension kit needed a firmware upgrade to communicate with the Rev. They pushed that through and everything worked as it should.
 
Soldato
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Sorry been meaning to reply but got caught up with a few things.

Straight forward, yes. Without a few little issues no.

I wired it up as per the instructions, which is basically three wires to the junction box on the boiler and three on the extension kit. Turned on the boiler and the kit lit up and synced with the app, 10 secs later the light went out on the kit, I thought I’d blown a fuse or something so I checked and rechecked all the wiring, still nothing.

I then called Tado, they answered straight away, after I explained the issue they talked me through some troubleshooting, which didn’t solve the issue, so the support chap asked me to send him pictures of the wiring and escalated the problem with technical support. 10 mins later I get a call from the same guy, he asked me to swap two wires round on my boiler and voila, it was all working.

I was very happy with the support I received, which in total probably ended up being 40mins, he wouldn’t hang up till it was all sorted.

The next day I checked the Tado app to see how my schedules worked / tempsdurimg the evening. I noticed that my lads room called for heat but the boiler didn’t fire up!

This is dragging on now so basically another call to customer support found the my extension kit needed a firmware upgrade to communicate with the Rev. They pushed that through and everything worked as it should.

All systems can have issues, its a sign of a good company if they are there to help. During my Evohome fitting, it wouldn't fire up call to Idea and they advised the Evohome Opentherm bridge tends to have a loose wire inside from transit, sure enough refitted the wire and away it went.

Im amazed how much learning has been going on with the Evohome, it now knows what flow temp each room and combinations of require to get them up to temp and maintain. Doesnt overshoot at all anymore either, switches off the boiler early and the residual heat brings the room up the last 0.5c. It also stops heating about 20-40 mins early for each room as it knows how long it holds heat.
 
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Indeed, I would have been surprised if there wasn’t any niggles to iron out and I couldn’t fault the support at all, 1st class.

It’s all very clever stuff, would you say the learning is a combination of your evo and your opentherm boiler?
 
Soldato
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Indeed, I would have been surprised if there wasn’t any niggles to iron out and I couldn’t fault the support at all, 1st class.

It’s all very clever stuff, would you say the learning is a combination of your evo and your opentherm boiler?
Evohome does all the learning the Opentherm just let's evohome control the flow temperature and pump.
 
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Having had tado for 3 years in my old flat, controlling hot water and a single zone heating, I have been planning on installing tado v3 in the new house which has two zones installed with two normal thermostats. However, the two zones plus hot water setup seems to be confusing tado support. One tado agent was saying I need TRVs to achieve two zone control (a tad expensive atm), while another stated that two zones are fine, but that I can't have hot water simultaneously. My initial idea was that the extension kit and two thermostats should do the trick, but now I am seriously considering moving to Nest... Anyone here had a similar setup? It doesn't seem that complicated!
 
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Soldato
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Any luck with installing this yet?


Yes its all installed and up and running. Longest part was replacing the faceplate for the programmer, that's purely because of my lack of knowledge with heating diagrams.

In reality it was a straight swap, and worked instantly.

So far so good, 2 rooms have the smart TRV's, they work flawlessly (I little loud , but its only for 1 second), and i can control them from my phone or manually (my 3 year old daughter now knows how to increase the temperature in her room if she wants).

The main thermostat being wireless is great, its not fixed to on position and i can move it about as i like, currently its next to my fish tank.

And the hub on the wall that replaced the programmer is so simple, if my wife wants extra water all she needs to to is hold down water for three seconds without faffing about on the app.

For £200 compared to the competitor systems, it is so cheap and £200 got me a system that would have cost upwards of £300 for the tado. And it just works with no major bugs.

The app is in its infancy, it works with a few bugs, but it does what i need including individual timing options for each room. There is no Geo location like the competitors, but i am sure that can be programmed in. My hub keeps loosing wireless signal, but i think that's an environmental factor of my house rather than the equipment. I did the whole install in less than an hour (excluding my lack of ability to understand the wiring diagram initially).

I did record my install, and once i know how to edit videos i'll put it up.
 
Soldato
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Yes its all installed and up and running. Longest part was replacing the faceplate for the programmer, that's purely because of my lack of knowledge with heating diagrams.

In reality it was a straight swap, and worked instantly.

So far so good, 2 rooms have the smart TRV's, they work flawlessly (I little loud , but its only for 1 second), and i can control them from my phone or manually (my 3 year old daughter now knows how to increase the temperature in her room if she wants).

The main thermostat being wireless is great, its not fixed to on position and i can move it about as i like, currently its next to my fish tank.

And the hub on the wall that replaced the programmer is so simple, if my wife wants extra water all she needs to to is hold down water for three seconds without faffing about on the app.

For £200 compared to the competitor systems, it is so cheap and £200 got me a system that would have cost upwards of £300 for the tado. And it just works with no major bugs.

The app is in its infancy, it works with a few bugs, but it does what i need including individual timing options for each room. There is no Geo location like the competitors, but i am sure that can be programmed in. My hub keeps loosing wireless signal, but i think that's an environmental factor of my house rather than the equipment. I did the whole install in less than an hour (excluding my lack of ability to understand the wiring diagram initially).

I did record my install, and once i know how to edit videos i'll put it up.

Seems like a great way of people getting into the whole smart heating cheaply. Yes there are no bells and whistles but it does the core function of individual room heating control.
 
Soldato
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Seems like a great way of people getting into the whole smart heating cheaply. Yes there are no bells and whistles but it does the core function of individual room heating control.


Yes, its simple and good for core functionality.

It does have features which i am sure will be used in the future such as an OpenTherm input.

And i am sure as the app matures the extra features that we see Hive, NEST and Tado have will be added. That's the great thing about software, the hardware is in place and the rest should just be updated (Lets hope anyway).
 
Soldato
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Yes, its simple and good for core functionality.

It does have features which i am sure will be used in the future such as an OpenTherm input.

And i am sure as the app matures the extra features that we see Hive, NEST and Tado have will be added. That's the great thing about software, the hardware is in place and the rest should just be updated (Lets hope anyway).

Bits I would miss are the screen on the TRV, plus things like open window detection.

Do those TRVs cycle the valve automatically. So that the valves remain free.

Does it support Ifttt if so you can do geofencing through that.
 
Soldato
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Bits I would miss are the screen on the TRV, plus things like open window detection.

Do those TRVs cycle the valve automatically. So that the valves remain free.

Does it support Ifttt if so you can do geofencing through that.

Interesting questions!

I have not seen any publicly available SDK or API, the only current connectivity is with Alexa.

How do the other systems deal with open window detection? Apparently this TRV does do open window detection but i dont know how or if there are any alerts that its detected an open window. It also has weather compensation and monitors the thermal properties of the home (Somehow, no data given back as to how and whats its done).

Cycling of TRV's not sure, but again they could stick that in the app to periodically cycle to TRV's?

Its all made in Britain..not sure if that's a bonus for the system!
 
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