Mike Wuerthele
Home automation company has launched the Smart Climate Assistant utilizing HomeKit for controlling its thermostats and smart radiator valves for its customers mostly in the EU and UK— but the HomeKit support promised for the Intelligent AC Control by the same company will likely never surface.
At Friday's IFA show in Berlin, Tado showed off its Smart Climate Assistant, with open window detection determined by changes in temperature or humidity, a repair services button to summon HVAC help from an expert, weather adaption based on the forecast and current conditions, and geofencing. The update is not very relevant to U.S. users, as the Smart Thermostat and Smart Radiator Thermostat are only available elsewhere.
Tado's sole product in the US is the Smart AC Control. It connects to just about any infrared-controlled air conditioner, and utilizes a smartphone for control.
While Tado once promised HomeKit compatibility when the product launched in the summer of 2015, that support is not coming. A customer of the product detailed the abandonment of the support in Reddit thread, the details of which have since been confirmed by AppleInsider.
"We thought we could get it HomeKit compatible and in theory it is possible but our WiFi Chip does not support IPv6 only IPv4. The issue is that HomeKit requires that the device fully supports IPv6," Tado claimed. "This was not clear in the design phase. This issue makes it impossible for us to make the Smart AC Control HomeKit compatible."
It is not clear why Tado makes that specific claim about the "design phase," as support of the IPv6 stack has been mandated since very early HomeKit product developer's information. It is possible, that Tado Smart AC Control that shipped in late 2015 entered development before HomeKit was revealed in June of 2014.
Technically savvy users with suitable always-on hardware who wish to use the Tado Smart AC Control can connect the device through HomeBridge with a plugin specifically designed for the device.
Charles Martin
Wesley Hilliard
Marko Zivkovic
Malcolm Owen
Andrew Orr
Christine McKee
4 Comments
I converted my entire central heating system to Tado a couple of months back. They did a Black Friday deal on purchasing the system which in my case was a smart thermostat starter kit, bridge and radiator thermostats. I wanted the learning thermostat experience of Nest with the promise of HomeKit support - at that time Tado was advertising that it's Bridge v2 was HomeKit compatible. I have to say my experience so far has been terrible. Firstly my order didn't ship until March... but unfortunately not with the HomeKit bridge as promised, but rather v1 with promise of a free upgrade. All the packaging sported HomeKit support logo - all had blank stickers stuck over them. Clearly Tado have either been over optimistic or under informed along the way with their HomeKit integration plans. I opted for an installed service which didn't go to plan with the electrician having to make separate trips over to weeks to complete the installation. Then later in the summer the promised v2 bridge did finally arrive and I have to admit, it does seem to work pretty well with the Home app and I'm looking forward to further enhancements there with iOS 11. However, in less than six months, three out of the total seven radiator valves I have failed and need to be replaced. Customer service with Tado leaves a lot to be desired - turnaround times for messages with their technical advisers are usually 24-48 hrs at a time - so if you do need advice or a warranty replacement it will take at least a week or two to get that sorted. It's a shame, it's a nice looking product, has a good spec and has the potential to be great, but I think for now it's somewhat half baked and the company is struggling to cope. I'm not surprised that they've not made good on the promise of an A/C control at all.
I have had Tado heating controls for nearly 3 years. At the beginning the experince including installation, software and customer support were all great. In the last year things have not been so good. I ordered the HomeKit Bridge (v3, v2 is Compatble with Amazon Echo but not Apple) early on. It's arrival kept slippping back and back but finally it came this summer. Based upon my experiences with 4 smart radiators they have not lived up to expectations. Originally batteries were said to last 2 years but mine have been for far less, typically 4-6 months. Tado have now admitted to the problem. I was informed this was a software issue that might be addressed by an update. The other issue for me has been the ever more complicated software. When it was simple l could easily operate the software and everything was simple. Now l struggle as l find it too confusing.
BY mentioning climate half of the US population won't believe it works.
I converted all of my radiator valves to Tado TRVs (13 in total), I have the smart thermostat and the extension kit. While the v3 (homekit) hub took a while to finally ship as a free upgrade, it DOES work well. Customer service on Tado has been great - in contrast to the comment above, my email conversations with Tado guys usually get a response within minutes, not days. It's not been all smooth sailing of course - I've had 2 TRV's replaced already and need another 2 replaced this month as they're not "behaving correctly" I'm told. The system is still in it's infancy and as the updates get released and added, will only get better with time. Given the size and age of my house, I'm quite confident I'll recoup the outlay in around 18months vs what I used to be paying for on my gas & electricity bills.