Tado learning period

tadouser1000

Apologies if this has been answered before, I couldn't find it in search results so here it goes:

How long does Tado initially take to learn the heating properties of a room?

Is this an ongoing process? For example if something has changed the dynamics of how long it takes to heat a room (bleeding radiator, increasing water temperature, flushing system etc) will Tado adjust the heating properties automatically?

Can this be reset on a room by room basis by Tado so it restarts the learning process?

Klaus_Ludwig

The following was written by @AdamJ on 11th Feb.

QUOTE

I emailed tado about this and below is their reply. This is the first I’ve heard about it only being for “very slow systems”. This doesn’t seem to be mentioned in tado’s marketing or support articles...

Thank you for your message.

Early Start is intended to compensate very slow systems only, underfloor heating mainly. Radiators are not slow systems. We advise you to disable Early Start for any zone with Smart Radiator Thermostats installed. 

As a workaround, you can set the time blocks of the Smart Schedule 5-10 minutes earlier and it will do the trick.

UNQUOTE

Klaus_Ludwig

and by @jimmymc on 12th Feb.

QUOTE

Last week I had this message from support to a query on how their learning compares with Nest:

"We have this feature, its called "early start".

But I have to warn you, the feature is a little bugged right now. We are probably going to fix the feature in the next 1-2 years."

Not what I was hoping, but was grateful for the honest answer.

UNQUOTE

tadouser1000

@Klaus_Ludwig thank you for your response. I wasn't actually thinking of early start. Tado learns how quickly a room heats up so it knows when to shut the valve to maintain temperature next time. I would love to know if this learning process is ongoing or just at the start of an install.

I've noticed the valves stay open for longer in my poorly insulated rooms and I get bigger temperature overshoot for these rooms (probably to compensate for extra heat loss)

Klaus_Ludwig

Hi @tadouser1000,

Tado claim that they use PID algorithms for room temperature control. I assume that these are on their servers. Not all PID algorithms are self tuning. I would be very interested to know if theirs are. It is a total waste of time having any complex heating control algorithms if the temperature monitoring is not accurate in the first place. Having the temperature sensor in the SRT is not ideal and if the SRT is mounted vertically adjacent to the radiator (as opposed to horizontally) you have no chance of the temperature reading being reliable due to the effect of variable radiant heat from the radiator. Perhaps you might ask them if the PID algorithms are continuously self tuning as it is unlikely that anyone else will know for certain...

Franita

See also this topic.

https://community.tado.com/nl/discussion/8677/het-maken-van-vroege-start-en-verwarmen-voor-aankomst-2e-discussie

Klaus_Ludwig

Hi @Franita,

I will respond on your link as my understanding is that OP @tadouser1000 was referring to PID control in general rather than early start.

tadouser1000

Yes I was referring to PID control. I've disabled early start after bad experiences with the feature

Froggy

Did anyone manage to get a definite answer on this?

Due to the the radiant heat effect on temperature measurement (as mentioned by @Klaus_Ludwig above), I have "paired" each of my radiator valves with a Tado wireless temperature sensor. This isn't cheap, but at least the room temperature is correct and the radiator heats the room in a consistent way (rather than repeated "bursts" throughout the day, if that makes sense?). I assume this is a more efficient (as well as effective) way to use my boiler.

Anyway, I installed the last 2 of these temperature sensors in the past week in 2 separate rooms and they are currently both overshooting the target. I'm hoping that the learning process is underway and that performance will improve, but I'm still not 100% sure that Tado does actually learn!! Does anyone?

As for @tadouser1000 specific question, I would assume that, if the room dynamics changes then you should reset the devices affected (in my case, I would reset both the radiator valve and the temperature sensor in the affected room). I would do that by removing the batteries for a bit, put them back in after 10s+ and possibly push the reset button (there is one on the valves, but I haven't seen one on the temperature sensors).

Again, it would be nice if Tado could confirm those assumptions though! 😉

Froggy

Oh, and I am not using early start anywhere. I gave up on that ages ago!

tadouser1000

@Froggy didn't get an answer on this unfortunately

Henrikc

@ Froggy and a question to others….how to factory reset the smart thermostat?

Froggy, you write in respect to resetting:

<<<I would do that by removing the batteries for a bit, put them back in after 10s+ and possibly push the reset button (there is one on the valves….>>>

When you say valves, I trust you refer to the smart radiator thermostat, but the button to my knowledge is (only) for pairing, while battery removal 30 sec. only enables (re)calibration of the actuator to the travel of the valve pin.

I have looked for a possibility to factory reset the smart radiator thermostat (there is a small hole under the battery cover to the bottom right that could be a reset port?), but not found any documentation for this and how to potentially do it.

Does anyone know how to factory reset the smart thermostat, please?

Rgds H.