[Released – ver. 5.10] Manual Control of Home and Away mode

Heleen_60

I first made this request nearly a year ago, Tado are obviously not interested in implementing it, despite the customer demand.

It would make me view the whole system in a much better light.

How do I upvote?

colinw49

They clearly have no interest in the customer; without this feature they aren’t providing a system with adequate control. They should be ashamed of themselves. What’s more there is no real way of lodging a complaint!

Carux

I installed the V3 + thermostat and 15 thermostatic heads which on the software I grouped into eight different zones with three heating time bands for each zone.

The hardware works well while the software has a serious defect: there is no possibility to manually manage the Set Away.

The only way is to have the software automatically managed by geolocation by setting a distance from home (from 400m to 3km).

So if when I am outside I want to remove the Set Away because someone else has to go home there is no immediate function to do so, so if I get discharged or break the phone I should enter a cold house, without considering the need for example to activate heating at least two days before going to a mountain home.

According to the scientist who designed the software to independently activate my Set Away I should manually change the temperature set for each of the three time slots in each of the eight zones (a total of 24 settings) and then re-edit them when I want to deactivate it.

It would be enough to enable for the user the same push button that the geolocation makes appear on the home page when it detects the approach or departure of the user, so it is a function already existing and deliberately obscured.

I worked on database and software design for 40 years and an absurdity so I never saw it.

It has been almost a year since other users have reported this problem to support Tado but have simply been ignored.

gwr

It's a bizarre approach to selling equipment. Like Carux, I had thought I would buy more controllers. But if I have to reset the temperature on each of them every time I leave the house as well as when I plan to return, I'm not going to bother. Changing one house thermostat is less of a hassle though still irritating.

Tbh if I'd fully understood the Tado system (which the marketing material is very shy about) I wouldn't have gone for it. Relying on a cloud based system means if Tado goes belly-up the whole investment is wasted, whereas other equipment I have is still operational though the manufacturer ceased to exist years ago.

The least the Tado could do is to adapt the software to user requirements, rather than trying to change users to match their software. Perhaps they don't monitor the forums, as there is no evidence of any response, so it might be worth raising a complaint directly with them.

colinw49

I am about to return 10 radiator thermostats, 1 room thermostat and extension kit with bridge to Amazon for a refund as they not fit for purpose due to this missing feature :(

dougie175

I want this feature as much as anyone but I honestly don't think it will come, unless they put it as part of the presence detection package. The reason I say that is if they allow someone without presence detection the ability to turn the system on and off away from their home they can just use something the IFTTT to do the presence detection for them and avoid having to buy the feature from Tado.

If someone has the geofencing presence detection feature I can see no logical reason why this option should not be available to them.

RobH

In case it’s any use to anyone, you might like to know that it is very easy to set Home and Away scenes in the iOS Home app which you can use to control any number of Tado devices (and other devices if you have them) with one button press. This is almost as good as being able to do it within the Tado app.

gwr

Thanks RobH, I'm on Android but have managed to link it to Google Home. Still investigating what that offers.

dougie175

If you guys come up with a solution to tell tado we are home when we are not via Android phone please do post the info and this would really help me when grandparents are watching my children during the winter months!

gwr

Progress: on Android phone I've added Tado to Google Home as an additional device (Home screen, click + in top left, select: Set up device/works with google (delay while list populates)/Add new (select Tado). That should add thermostat to your Google Home screen.)

Then edit routines: Google Home/settings/more settings/assistant/routines/(select one and add new thermostat setting)

Activate this routine and the thermostat setting will change. I don't use voice control and it still works (Google Home screen/routines/(select routine)) I haven't tried it remotely but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

However, I only have one thermostat. Will it work if you have multiple rooms/controllers? With luck they will all appear and can be added to the routine so one click will change everything. I'm not buying more kit until I know whether this will work, though.

Anyone able to advise?

dougie175

I'll test when I get a second I have many many thermostats and zones!

dougie175

Not sure If I am being thick but I can only see a option to set certain zones to a certain temperature? Not actually set the zones to home?

The same control can be achieved via IFTTT but its much nicer to use and has a lot more options.

I'm supposed to be working so haven't spent ages on the google home but when creating a routine I couldn't see a set to home or away option?

dougie175

With IFTTT, on Android you could have a widget/button on your homescreen that you could make it set all of your radiators to a desired temp for a desired duration.

Also alongside that using webcore on smartthings you could use presence detection and house sensors to help know if someone is home to keep heating on / turn off when coupled up with ifttt. You used to be able to compete everything without Smartthings but tado never officially supported smartthings and the user built app no longer works

RobH

I wasn’t suggesting you could set Home or Away modes specifically but that you could get the same effect in Apple Home (I’ll assume Android Home is similar) by setting up a “scene” that sets one or more thermostats to the same temperature as would be set in the Home or Away mode. Once you have a “scene” setup you can invoke it using either your voice or going via the Home app or a widget.

i haven’t checked yet but I’m assuming that it will only take effect until the next scheduled change which is why it’s not as good as actually being able to switch to Home or Away mode but it’s still useful for short term changes.

dougie175

Ah right it was just a bit confusing when you said its very easy to set home and away scenes in the iOS home app that was confusing it sounded like to could use it to tell tado to be home or away which is what we are all after.

Control of the system via IFTTT, Apple, Google has always been an option but as far as I am aware none of these system can force tado to away/home

RobH

Just a further thought although I haven’t actually tried this yet. It should be possible on iOS to use the Home Automation facility within the Shortcuts app to automatically turn down all the thermostats when the last person leaves the house and turn them all back up when the first person returns home. That isn't as good as the Tado paid for “auto assist” option as it is less flexible with the geofencing so I think it will only turn back on once you are back home (or very close) rather than when you are on the way. However, you could always use the approach in my previous posting to turn it up manually.

gwr

Once google home recognises Tado you need to set a routine (e.g. new temperature/s) and if you then implement the routine the change will be immediate and last until the next scheduled change. If you can see several thermostats or rooms in google you should be able to add each of them to the same routine with the temperature you wish (not tested by me, see above). Duplicate this to reverse the process. That gives you one "Leaving home" routine and one "coming home" routine to implement whenever you wish.

I looked at IFTTT but the android app is getting very poor reviews at present and I hope that google home is a more mainstream and reliable solution in the longer term. I could be quite wrong of course...

dougie175

As someone who has used both Google Home and IFTTT, IFTTT is a far better solution for this scenario, it gives you a lot more options such as being able to set how long you want the manual control to apply for compared to google which will only apply until the next automatic mode change, using the next mode change could be very annoying if you have a lot of temperature changes throughout the day in your schedules like i do

davieb1969

+1 for this feature.

gwr

Ok, I see the problem with Google Home reverting to the automatic schedule at next change. I've looked at IFTTT, which I thought was a concept but now realise is a system. I can't find any published applets to change the temperature, though you can turn the system off or revert to auto. Can someone explain how I should be approaching this?

dougie175

Open IFTTT, click get more. Then top right click the + symbol.
Then on the next screen press + again and search for tado. Then it should be fairly self explanatory. IFTTT is a very handy powerful little app but I don't find it well set out to get tp the bit where you make your own rules.

Once you find it as described above it's very simple to make rule after rule

gwr

Thanks Dougie. I was looking for a widget but there aren't any useful ones so I've set up minimum and maximum T applet and will try running that to see if it works. I also have Tado's own revert to auto applet. They really don't want to help with this though!

dougie175

Another nice trick I use IFTTT for is with the bathroom radiator tado thermostat. If humidity rises above 70% then set temperature to 22°C for 2 hours.

Basically this puts the heating up in the bathroom and helps dry the bathroom up after someone goes for a shower. It works very well and kicks in within about 2 minutes of the shower going on.

Alongside my humidity start bathroom extractor fan these keep the bathroom dry without having to set schedules for bathroom heating as I never really know when we are going to shower

gwr

Good plan on humidity. So far I can get pre-written Tado buttons to operate but the more useful applets I've assembled myself are not working. Must try harder.

ttl0

Hi,

I just installed a Tado smart thermostat, extension kit, and two TRVs and, like many, was shocked when I realised there is no way to manually set Home and Away states.

I understand the "auto-assist" feature, but as many people have pointed out, this does not work in all cases. In order for this to work, everyone in the family needs to have a smartphone that tado tracks all the time AND they need to bring their phone with them all the time. There are many times my kids or my wife leave the house without their phone, so Tado would assume they are home.

I understand they want to generate subscription revenue. I'd be willing to pay for the subscription if it included manual Away/Home control as part of the package.

Having said that, I have figured out a work around. It requires using both Apple Homekit and IFTT, but it does seem to work.

Briefly, you first disable geolocation for Tado on all devices. Then, create an Apple HomeKit scene that turns off the heating. Then, you can create a IFTT widget for "Return Tado to Auto mode" which seems to mean "go back to the normal schedule." and, as you've turned off geo-fencing, Tado will think you're home and warm up the house.

AlexC

@ttl0 would you mind elaborating a little on the way you’ve automated using HomeKit/ifttt?

—
Update.. i think I’ve got a version working.. Siri Shortcuts help a lot

Vertigo

Im controlling tado via Home Assistant, which lets me automate, well, everything basically. Its linked with my alarm, lights, home cinema, door bell,. So for instance when I arm my alarm in away mode, obviously no one will be home, so i turn my tado's down. HA can also determine that by using its own or any other tracker. When I enable movie mode, I turn up the heat in the living room, stuff like that.

However, tado API gives only limited control. This is true for google home, iftt, or anything else. I cant see or adjust the schedule, I can see but have no control over home/away, so I have to fake away mode by setting some low temp on all thermostats. And whenever I override a temp, its "permanent", i can not change it for an hour or until next scheduled change, so I find myself replicating the schedule in home assistant.

If you think it through then, if Im using Home assistant location and presence tracker, home assistant "fake" away mode and schedule, when Im using HA's far, far superior reporting and graphs, then whats the point of tado over any other zigbee or zwave thermostat and trv? not much. In fact, those do not work against me like tado does, by forcing cloud round trips making my input changes slow as hell, and they dont put me at risk of tado closing down their unsupported API access.

Supposedly these issues can be solved by using tado in Homekit mode, which HA also supports. Then you would get full control, bypassing the cloud. Ive only briefly tested this with a spare bridge, and it appears to work, but then tado makes my life hard again by not letting me pair a device back and forth between the homekit test setup and my actual deployed system without contacting support and waiting 3 days. I really hate not having control over my own hardware. Tado, I paid for it in, in full.

Narev

The thing im wondering is, why haven't we seen an official response from Tado on this yet? If so many people require this feature you would expect some sort of comment on it. I can live with a yes, or with a no, but the lack of feedback from the official channel is kinda painful.

ttl0

@AlexC, sure.

I created a "scene" in the Homekit Home app that turns off each zone. Then I created a Siri shortcut to run that scene. When it runs, it turns off all the zones. You can add a widget to the screen (when you swipe right-left from the first home screen or lock screen).

Then, In IFTT, I created a Button Widget that triggers the tado "Return to tado Auto mode". Using the IFTT app on iOS, you can add that as a widget.

So, tap the Siri "Heating Off" button when I leave and the Return to Auto button from IFTT when we're heading home.

ttl0

@AlexC, sure.

I created a "scene" in the Homekit Home app that turns off each zone. Then I created a Siri shortcut to run that scene. When it runs, it turns off all the zones.

Then, In IFTT, I created a Button Widget that triggers the tado "Return to tado Auto mode". Using the IFTT app on iOS, you can add that as a widget.

So, tap the Siry "Heating Off" button when we leave and then tap the IFTT "Heating On" button when we're heading home.