Amazing, thanks. Couple of questions if you have the time:
1. Do you actually help you reduce bills/manage energy usage?
2. Do you use the Tado app, or HomeKit – or both?
3. We have AC too and I'm thinking of getting Tado's AC controllers, too. Any experience? Do they work together with the TRVs and thermostat?
1) I would have to say that it definitely does help reduce bills and reduce wasting energy by NOT heating areas of the house that are not needing to be heated.
My old set up was set in a way that all radiators would come on if the main thermostat dropped below its set temperature....so this thermostat was in the hall way upstairs, and when that dropped below its set temp, then it would turn on the heating and start heating up 10 radiators whether those rooms were cold or not....then by the time the hall thermostat was back up to temperature, the rest of the house felt like a sauna....wasted gas & energy.
So that is when I started looking at TRV's and stumbled upon the TADO ones.....They were expensive but I was lucky enough to buy them when they were on sale at Argos (worked out better to buy multiple starter kits, as was cheaper..£90 for 2 x TRV's & the Bridge in the starter kit, and sold the spare bridges).
So with all the radiators now fitted with the TADO trv's, ONLY the room that drops below its set temperature comes on (and the downstairs hall radiator, as that is the bypass radiator that always heats up when the heating starts)....and each room can have different temperatures and different timed schedules if you want to do that.
2) I use both the TADO and the HomeKit app, but that is because I am the ones that sets everything up, in terms of schedules, temperatures, room names and general config of the set up......my wife or the kids just needs to use the HomeKit app to manually turn the heating on if its needed.
To be fair though, once the system has been set up and tweaked to your own house needs, then you really don't use the apps much.....but both are super easy to use & control.
Over the years of ownership, TADO has made loads and loads of helpful and amazing tweaks to the TADO app, that has helped me out tremendously....the best one for me being, adding a "child lock" function onto the app....which means that if anyone manually turns the dial on the TRV...it will NOT actually do anything.....very much needed in my house, as we foster children, and children love to twiddle knobs and dials, and one of the kids always turned it on to max (25°c) when going to bed......WOW, that was a hot room in the mornings....thankfully that was when gas was only 2.5p per kWh. lol.
3) I do not have AC in the house, so can't say how that would work out.....although I would hazard a guess that if you have both the AC control unit and heating control unit's, along with all radiators fitted with the TADO trv's, then I would assume that all of it will work together in harmony and turn on and off based on the settings YOU choose in the TADO app......again...this is an assumption on my part.
I just have to say, that for me this has been the most FLAWLESS product I have EVER owned and used.....it simply just does exactly what it is supposed to do.
