Develop a "basic backup schedule" mode for when Tado outage or loss of internet
Comments
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@Will Good point. I'd assumed that the ideal approach would be to store the basic backup schedule in the bridge, as my understanding is that it is the bridge which communicates to all the individual devices around your home. It would also be the first to know of any internet connection issue. But if this isn't possible, then maybe an alternative would be for each device to store its own backup schedule.
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i just upgraded my TADO app and I’ve suddenly lost my connection to the server.. I’m now experiencing the above for about the 10th time in just over 12 months.
TADO, please give your users an update to offline scheduling capability, or you are going to lose many off us in a short period.
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People have mentioned that tado probably don't - for understandable business reasons - want the system to be locally programmable. I've thought of a couple of potential solutions to this massive issue that strike me, which I don't think would require tado to make it locally programmable. Clearly I can't tell how feasible these would be given that specs of the devices and the server/device protocols aren't available, but perhaps they may have some mileage.
1) Just store the smart schedules locally. Given that this would essentially be a backup functionality, I think most users would be happy to at least have their existing smart schedules carry on, even if they can't alter them or control the heating through the app during the net outage. This could perhaps be accomplished through either:
a) if the devices (either room thermostats and TRVs or the internet bridge) have the hardware (storage/memory, RTCs, etc) to store and run the schedules locally, pushing this capability out in firmware updates; or
b) releasing an upgraded Internet Bridge with this capability.
2) Release an upgraded Internet Bridge that can store/retain the smart schedules and also has backup bluetooth capability and build this capability to communicate directly with the bridge into the App. If tado is worried that people will workaround this to create a solution without their servers (e.g. use an old phone without a SIM), they could make it work only if there's at least periodic mobile internet connectivity.
I can't see how this would be impossible, even if none of these options quite work.
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One admittedly convoluted solution would be to mirror the smart schedule locally with home assistant using automations, appdaemon or the various scheduler custom components and just have it kick in when the internet cuts out. Just make sure home assistant is controlling tado using the homekit controller component so it works locally.
Or better yet, bypass tado smart schedule altogether.
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I support this.
I am in favour of loss of server connection or internet failure mode being to maintain last known schedule using local memory as opposed to having to rely on the current solution of manual control of each and every device.
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I was going to use Tado with my new Viessmann boiler until I discovered it does not work without an internet connection. I cant believe this is the case. every couple of years since moving here we loose our phone line for between a week and two. Just last year it was for 2 weeks. I do not get a mobile signal at the house either. If I did I would ditch the landline and go mobile only. Doing that would mean when not at home there would be no internet available. Turning the heating on to a preset level by default and removing the timer controls when the internet is lost is breaks the boiler plus legislation. It should be fixed
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Still no reply from Tado. Nice.0
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just had a look at the boilerplus legislation, it states
The legislation is part of the Building Regulations, which must be followed by law.
and
• Boiler interlock, time and temperature control must be present and operational.
when the internet is lost they are not present so breach the regulations. It does not say an input can be provided which defeats the time and temperature controls.
For me reading the legislation means the heating should work at all times as installed with no dependencies. The internet can provide additional benefits such as logging and a database that can provide statistical information gathered from all users. Then we could all know how efficient our heating is and information would also be available on typical, best and worst efficiencies of heating systems. Especially so, if dwelling type size etc were part of the data capture.
Quite liked the look of the Tado, so am really dissapointed with this internet issue. May be breaking the law if I have it installed.
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@lost_customer Given this site supports members of many countries, can I assume the Building regs quoted are EU or UK or both?
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samd
Regs quoted are for England, part of UK
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I’d try Netatmo then, I believe that system stores the heating schedules locally so they keep working in case of connectivity loss. Tado will just maintain last temperature.0
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Yeah, but they don’t have radiator valves. And if they do, they cannot ask for heat themselves I think (only regulate heat that’s already available). Which is why I chose tado (and considered netatmo). Could be wrong though @Sim.0
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Drayton wiser's smart radiator valves work like Tado's and can call for heat independently. Plus you can lock them from the app. Not sure about Hive's TRV's.
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Just wanted to post a quote from Tado-support on a request I recently made, just to put more concrete into their rigid policy of not hearing their customer out.
"The tado° devices cannot store the Smart Schedule, it is only in the cloud. This is not schedule to change soon.
Please consider that we cannot make further comments on our internal processes."
Brilliant, and I was just starting to hope they would at least start investigating the possibilities...
murr
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What can I say? That is what I expected, the negligence level is high like Mt. Everest.
Thanks Tado letting us paying for your stuff, it is an honor. I think I am moving to another brand.1 -
I've just talked with customer service and wrote our problem.
In the reply which was extremely fast I was told that they investigated the possibility of local schedule earlier and didn't seem to be trivial. However I must accept that Tado needs stable internet connection and there are only _a few_ customer having problem with internet loss therefore need local schedule.
Everybody can judge own their own how satisfied with the reply...0 -
Well, I live in a rural area and during winter internet connectivity is a recurring issue.
As a new Tado customer I just learned the hard way. During my first winter with Tado, Smart Schedule not turning off during internet blackouts has already costed me more fuel that last winter.
I talked to support and they said I suggested the offline smart schedule here, just to find out it's been requested back in Jan 2019.
I wanted to return my tado but it was purchased back in November, and warranty period is over. I hate it.
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Hi @XVG if you bought it last November then it will still be under guarantee with Tado.
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+1. Absolutely. Having a massive crisis right now Because I expected this to be the default somehow. Plus I’m discovering massive range problems as well, so this would pretty much never work for a radiator in the basement0
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This has bacome the 2nd highest ranked improvement idea and still no answer from customer service.0
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Hi all,
Just a comment from tado's side on this highly requested feature.
Product Management, the management, the development teams are aware of this request but we would like to inform everyone that adding a local schedule to the current hardware is not as trivial as you might think.
One of the technical reasons is that the current hardware is fully unaware of the concept of time, this is how the whole underlying firmware was set up and adding a notion of time to the firmware would require an immense amount of resources. All "time keeping" is done server side, which simplifies a lot of potential sync issues between the tado hardware and the server.
At this point in time, it is the companies decision to rather spend those development resources on other projects such as the upcoming Child Lock, Global ON/OFF etc.... and keep the V3+ hardware as an "Always Internet Connected" device as it was designed from the start.
What do we want to look into to possibly reduce the impact of not having a local schedule?
- Improve the reliability of the radio connection between the tado bridge and individual devices.
- Improve the reliability of the connection to the cloud from the tado bridge (making sure the bridge does not lose connection unless there is a real internet outage, which is very rare).
Please note that local scheduling is still possible with the current hardware by fully utilising the Apple HomeKit integration. This is a local integration that will allow you to use the "time keeping" of your Apple Hardware locally.
Please feel free to keep this discussion going and tag me if you have any specific questions.
Kind regards,
Jurian
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@Jurian thanks. Can you clarify the HK Details?
I connected all of them to HK with an Apple TV as the base. Does that mean that even if the app tells me no remote access possible my schedules will still run?0 -
OR.,, do I have to build HK automations to make it work?0
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@mschieszl You would need to set up your whole schedule over HomeKit
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@Jurian As a customer I don't understand tado's reasoning on this. Global on/off should not have taken much resource to deliver given you're just grouping functionality that already exists - many of us were already using external systems to achieve the equivalent of global on/off. The lack of a backup schedule probably affects every single household using tado, possibly once or twice a year and if anyone is unlucky, more often. Child lock only affects those with children of a certain age, so really you're failing to respond to the majority of your customers.
Surely not all of the V3 hardware needs to be aware of time? Why can't you upgrade the Internet bridge, or the software app? Or offer a V4 bridge that resolves this issue? Loss of connection to the tado service doesn't always mean a loss of internet connection, and loss of internet connect doesn't mean that the bridge can't still connect with devices on the Wi-Fi network such as the devices we use the mobile apps on, for those that use them a NAS, etc. People are becoming more and more aware of the benefits of local control, so this issue is only likely to hurt tado more and more going forward.
I can't speak for the rest of tado's customers, but due to this issue not only can I not recommend the system to others, I feel duty bound to point out to them why tado is not a good option. I also have no intention of upgrading to newer or replacement hardware as necessary unless this issue is resolved.
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@Jurian Thanks for your explanation on why this is tricky. I think it sounds reasonable that you've decided not to try and achieve this on hardware that was never designed to deal with all the elements involved, even if this was a potential oversight when initially developing the hardware/firmware.
As @Ditsy mentioned, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on whether this is something that could be achieved with a new bridge (you don't have to necessarily confirm if this is something being worked on, just if it is a feasible solution, or if there is something else we are missing). Thanks!
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I was unaware that the Tado architecture was built on no local knowledge of time, but (as an IT Architect myself) can understand the original design decisions behind this - and I can therefore understand the concern about the complexity of rearchitecting the system to add local timekeeping and cope with any resulting time sync issues.
However, as one way to approach this, surely the Tado bridge could be sync'ing its time back to the Tado service when it connected and, if the service is down or Internet connectivity lost, then and only then would the local time be needed - together with the "backup" schedule. Once internet connectivity was re-established, the system would revert to full online mode, with all timing, etc. from the service - and only added step of syncing the internal clock at reconnection and every hour or so (like many clock sync tasks on other devices).
I can understand that this is still a relatively complex change, but surely if this were approached as a separate "offline mode" module within the bridge that would only be used when there was no connectivity - maybe even calling on the integration points used for Apple Kit, etc. as a way to maintain separation between the new module and the main online-mode code. The main code would then only need to add a simple time-sync process as well as the handling of switching between online and offline modes based on connectivity status.
Obviously there would also be complexity in how this was then surfaced for users, but otherwise could this approach (albeit with a slightly less "pure" architectural model) provide what is being requested for offline working (and what may be/become a regulatory issue for some countries) without the fundamental re-architecture of the design that seems to be the concern from the engineering teams.
I agree that improving reliability (and recoverablity) for the online/wireless services is also something that is really important, but there are plenty of scenarios where Internet connectivity can be an issue and even if this is a low probability event, it can be a major impact for those users and so really should be addressed in some form.
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Oh man, I just bought 6 more radiators and two smart thermos....
With this and the range problems I am facing a big dilemma.
Bridge on first floor, radiator in basement not reachable...
Since Feb the bridge looses connection every 2-3 days to even the radiators close to it....
just removed the bridge from HK and adding it again because the devices did not update in HK - now the bridge is not being added....
and even if it would - the bridge is the gate to the devices so if the bridge cannot get to the radiator even the HK schedule would not be applied.
Put a couple hundred euros in this setup and its falling apart....
I would put 4 bridges in the house if they could just work as repeaters
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