What does a Wireless Temperature Sensor do?
My setup is as follows:
Wireless Receiver
4 x Smart Rad Valves Basic (STRV)
1 x Wireless Temperature Sensor (WTS)
I only wish to heat the rooms I am using often. The question: What does the Wireless Temperature Sensor do?
Where should I put the WTS (no inappropriate answers please)?
If I place it in a room with a STRV, which takes precedence?
Do I need it at all?
I would appreciate any ideas, thank you
Answers
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It can provide a more accurate temp reading than a trv, especially in a room with multiple trvs are ones that are hidden behind furniture. You can set any Tado device to be the measuring device but usually people use the wireless temp sensor for the above reason.
Place it somewhere in a room away from, radiators, direct sunlight and draughts and it should be reasonably accurate.0 -
Personally I’ve read the answers on this and other threads to the question and still don’t understand what the temperature sensor does, how it does it, or what temperature I should set it to. Nor do I understand the problem with one of the tado radiator heads I’m having in a particular room.
I have eight rooms with tado V3 radiator heads, a bridge connected to the router, and a hallway with a temperature sensor.
All the radiators and the sensor appear on the app and can be adjusted. The one radiator head in a small draughty room doesn’t seem to work properly, even after replacing it, and even after disabling the ‘window open’ sensor. The radiator doesn’t get beyond barely warm whatever its setting or the hallway sensor setting. (I use the room for about an hour a day so currently now using an industrial electric radiator until I can fix the tado problem there or just put the old mechanical radiator knob back on instead of the tado.)
My understanding (and I’m happy to be corrected) is that the hallway temperature sensor controls the boiler. So if I’m not using most of the rooms most of the day it is as well to set it low (eg 18 degrees) otherwise the boiler is working overtime to heat water that’s not being used much. If I’m using most of the house I should set it at an average of temperature, maybe 21 degrees. (This is guesswork.)
Any fixes, and/or physical explanations to clarify would be most welcome.0 -
Thank you johnnyp78 for your comments, I think I get it.
However, a little known fact of the room stat is that it controls the domestic hot water - why?
I did not know what the room stat did so turned it off. Big mistake. I had no hot water, so called out my plumber who changed the motorised valve to no effect. Only after contact with Tado Germany were we told if you have a room stat it must be turned on to obtain HW. They could not tell me why just a very germanic 'it is mandatory'. I am still none the wiser as to why a room stat should have anything to do with HW.
I am generally pleased with Tado but it is much too complicated for its own good.
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@Anubis Hello. The Tado system gives you a lots of choices for the settings.
The basics for your 8 TRVs and a Wireless starter kit with a Wireless Temperature sensor …
- The Wireless Receiver is the 'Zone Controller' and is wired into your heating system. Usually the S-Plan or Y-plan zone valves, or sometimes the boiler. The receiver is configured to suit Combi, S/Y-plan or Gravity HW.
- Both the TRVs and Wireless temperature sensor can call the zone controller for heat.
- Alternatively, the TRVs can be set as 'Independent' and act as a temperature/schedule TRV, but won't call for heat.
- The Wireless Temperature sensor can go in a Room where there is Rad without a TRV, or in a Room with a Rad and Tado TRV (they will work together). Don't use it where there is a dumb TRV on the Rad.
- EDIT: The Wireless temperature sensor also controls the Hot Water. Dont turn off or disable the sensor, nor let the batteries go flat. Otherwise you won't get any hot water.
Assuming A) 8 rads in 8 rooms with 8 TRVs, plus one rad in the hallway (without a TRV) where the wireless temperature sensor sits …
- In the App settings, assign every Room to the 'Zone Controller' (the wireless receiver).
- Every Room can call for heat and the radiator in the hall will always be heated.
Assuming B) you have no rad in the hallway …
- Move the Wireless Temperature sensor to your most-used Room.
- 'Move' the Wireless Temperature sensor in the App to that Room.
- Check in the App settings that the Wireless temperature sensor is the 'measuring device'.
For the 'cold rad' room …
- Check that the Room is set in the App to the Zone Controller so that it can call for heat.
- If the rad is cold, there is lack of water flow.
- First suspect is the pin on the TRV valve body is siezed. Using the flat blade of a screwdriver, check that the pin moves freely, down and up. Take the batteries out of the TRV for at least minute, refit and remount. The TRV should then re-calibrate.
- Second suspect is air trapped in the radiator, which would need bleeding.
- Third suspect is the TRV valve. Incompatible, e.g some BG branded Pegler valves, the dumb TRV will work but not Tado. Uni-directional, eg an older Drayton valve, fitted the wrong way round. Take look at the valve for any indications of manufacture, and one direction or bi-directional.
- You could try swapping the TRVs with another Room to eliminate the possibility of a faulty TRV.
For 'Open Window'.
- This is simply looking at the temperature delta over a short time period.
- Temperature dropping quickly assumes you've opened a window (or door), perhaps for ventilation. The system then decides you would want to turn off the heating to stop wasting energy and ££.
Hope this helps.
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Thanks for replying. Interesting, but no, not really helping. Have checked the pin, it’s ok. The ‘faulty TRV possibility is 99% eliminated after buying a second TRV with same behaviour. Plumbers bled the pipes. Radiator works fine but only with an ordinary cheap knob not connected to anything. Hall doesn’t need heated. Turning the hall radiator on (using a pair of pliers) so the sensor on the wall can ‘sense’ it just wastes energy and makes the hallway too hot. Boiler works fine for hot water even with radiators turned down. No idea what a zone controller is.0
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Some thoughts:
1. Do you have another smart trv head you could swap in and see if it makes a difference?
2. Falling that, use the app to set a temperature offset on that trv until it's opening curve is set right.
I have one rad which seems to face a bay window and the humidity profile and chill factor in the area does create wierd pockets of cold. Making that trv subject to the wireless seashore placed in the room changed the heat curve after three months and stabilised the room over the following winter.0 -
to policywonk…
1. yes have swapped, see my post details
2. I’m a beginner. Your terminology is not clear to me… ‘opening curve’ etc. Moving the sensor will involve decor.0 -
Hi. Interesting choice of username: @Anubis!
This link helps to describe how one recalibrates the Smart TRV, so that its temperature reading is adjusted to address the difference between the temperature it senses around it, and the temperature you register from, say, 30-50cm away. I think that the real inside temperature is higher/lower than what tado° is showing. What can I do? | Help Center for tado° V3+ and earlier devices
Using that guide, you should be able to adjust the opening and closing logical measured temperature of the Smart TRV so that it is more aligned with the felt temperature. Hence if you feel only 17 degrees, when it is set to trigger at a logical measured 21 degrees, you can place an offset of 4 degrees to make up the difference and bring the thermostat alignment closer to your sensed, desired temperature. Over the next few months the algorithms will change and acquire statistics on the speed at which your radiator changes its temperature, when there is a call for heat. Tado use the statistics to change the amount of heat demanded so that the radiator speeds up swiftly but when close to its targe temperature the heat allowed through the radiator is restricted, thus reducing the risk of the room overheating. Given that a need to raise a room's temperature by one degree Celcius leads to the amount of heat being used in the room doubling, Tado systems conserve energy by producing a heat output curve, rather than a steady rise in heat output - and curve is shaped by each device's reading of heat need.
Is that more helpful?
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