Bridge lost internet connection a 4 am and required manual power reboot
I’m new to tado (installed it this week).
Since Monday the bridge worked fine (i don’t think it likes DPL networks, but that’s another post). I think the bridge was always online, but didn’t pay attention to the temperature stats etc. until tado support got back to me (yesterday) for completing the boiler install to the Smart Thermostat.
Anyway, since completing the installation yesterday, I set up schedules, etc., then went to bed.
When I woke up this morning, the radiators had remained on their last scheduled temperature of their current setting when the bridge stopped connecting to the tado servers (so it was cold).
Initially, of course, I didn’t realize why it was cold, then after seeing the tado app (iOS and web page), I realized everything was offline. At this point I checked the bridge, where I noticed that the internet LED was blinking. However, all my other internet connected devices (smart lights, google home, iPhone, computer) were all connected.
I hard rebooted the bridge (i.e. disconnected then reconnected the power). I did NOT hard reboot my internet router (as I had internet connectivity when I woke up). At this point the bridge came back online (internet status LED was solid), and it took a bit of time for each of the smart radiator thermostats to come back online. On some I turned their dial, while others I didn’t. I assume they just take a bit of time to come back online after manually hard rebooting the bridge.
Checking the temperature logs, I deduce that the bridge stopped communicating at around 04h00.
After all the description above, my questions to tado (and other experienced ‘users’) are:
- why did the bridge stop connecting at around 04h00 (see also second question) ?
- is there a way to check logs on the bridge to understand why it stopped connecting (because maybe tado servers were down or my internet connection temporarily died) ?
- if the tado bridge does create logs, can we access those logs, and custom configure the bridge to connect our own log server (some people have Synology NAS devices for example which has logging software for other devices) ?
- why did the bridge not come back up after the unknown event at approximately 04h00 (all my other internet devices were online in the morning) ?
- from my experience described above, I conclude that the smart radiator thermostats do NOT store any scheduling information locally in order to change the temperature at a scheduled time for the cases when the bridge goes down — they, instead (maybe for design reasons for manual override functionality (I think not the reason)) they NEED an online connection via the bridge to change a scheduled temperature ?
- if thermostats do NEED to be online to change a scheduled temperature, then
a. Is there a plan to improve their functionality via a SW/FW update so they can locally store schedules and not depend on online bridge connectivity ?
b. if the answer to sub question a is no, then could it be possible to have a multiple bridge configuration (two, three, etc.) for redundancy purposes (e.g. bridges go down, and one fails to come back up, but the second one takes over the online control role to keep the thermostats respecting their schedules) ?
P.S. if the bridges could be made to always come back up (except if they are really dead), then a redundancy feature would only be needed for bridge hardware death events.
With Well Wishes,
Rob
Comments
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Happens frequently to mine, the wife is NOT happy to wake up with no hot water.
I deduced the same thing, all the thermostats are totally dumb and rely on the bridge, but no it is not possible to have redundant bridges and the system is totally closed so no way to access logs. In my case the ‘router’ light flashes so it loses local connectivity, not just cloud. It also does not restore by replugging the Ethernet, you have to power cycle the bridge. So it’s a software problem, possibly the DHCP lease expiring and doesn’t refresh it or something dumb.
One thing I will be looking into is monitoring connectivity, ideally it’s possible to tell connection status through the API as that way I can use smartthings to automate power cycling a smart switch or at least to send an alert, but I have a feeling it won’t be possible. You can’t even set away status via the API.
Honestly having spent a LOT on doing the whole house I think I am going to have to rip Tado out and replace, it’s just not reliable enough. Support only ever give one answer, reset the thermostats, move them between rooms. They aren’t even very good at adapting the algorithm to the room, the underfloor heating zones fluctuate from cold to overshoot by 3 degrees, and several of the radiator thermostats get stuck on or off.0 -
Hi,
Same problem here, bridge is quite unreliable. I've checked and it looses local connectivity (even not answering to local ping) until power cycling.
Support hasn't been helpful for the moment, but either they solve the problem or they give me a full refund (and I've installed many TRVs over my house).
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I have had the same issue for the last two years without resolution - followed all support suggestions including reserving the ip address of the bridge, but still randomly the bridge disconnects every couple of days - as you say the only way to get it online again is to power cycle it (not a lot of help if you are not home).
I have Google Wifi, so my work around is to get a notification via IFTTT when the bridge goes offline, and I then power cycle the bridge via a tp-link smart plug.
This works, but I would be keen to find a real solution.0 -
Has there been an update to this issue. I now face the same having just installed the system at home. I'm not nerdy enough to biuld any workarounds here and want this system to be reliable when we are on winter vacation and would hate to come back to a cold house.
Giving it one last chance over the next few days connecting the bridge directly to the router instead of my wireless repeater which is centrally located in the house and therefore reaches the radiator thermostats the best.
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I found settings in my router that 1) always assigns the same IPv4 address to the tado internet bridge and 2) enables self-sufficient port sharing (not sure that's the right translation from german)
Since I have selected these 2 options 4 days ago the bridge never got disconnected. Not a long-term study yet but up until now 100% success rate when I used to wake up to a cold house before that every day.
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You could add a timer between the power so that, for example, every night at 4 the power is switched off and then on again. It's a hack of course but better than a cold shower @Kyrt 😉
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I have same problem but I was using a power line Ethernet adapter. Since a ran an Ethernet cable directly to router it's been much better.
I think a nightly power cycle might help with a plug timer.0 -
Installed the bulk of our devices back in October 2019. Our ISP went through a bad service patch and we had a number of incidents of the bridge not gracefully recovering from loss of Internet connection. I got in touch with Tado with a similar batch of questions as above. They advised that they were due to push a firmware update, and that together with reserving an IP for the bridge seemed to do the trick. I've not had an issue since.
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