Installing Smart Thermostat (Tado)

Accomodation, House and Garden
1
Hi guys,

In my apartment, I have underfloor heating controlled from a central unit. I then have every room as a separate zone with it's own (ugly, analog!) thermostat, like this:

http://www.hager.de/produktkatalog-neuheiten/schalterprogramme-und-gebaeudesteuerung/wippen-abdeckungen/abdeckungen-fuer-dimmer-und-thermostate/wya700/27124.htm

With the behind the scenes gubbins like this:

http://www.hager.de/produktkatalog-neuheiten/schalterprogramme-und-gebaeudesteuerung/up-elektronik-einsaetze/raumtemperatur-regler-einsaetze/wuc70/25277.htm

Sadly, it seems this isn't compatible with the bigger brands of smart thermostat

Sadly it seems this isn't compatible with the bigger brands of smart thermostat like Nest, Netatmo, etc, but I believe I have found a brand it is compatible with, a German / Swiss company called Tado:

https://www.tado.com/ch-en/thermostat-setup

Does anyone have any experience of installing / wiring this up? I've sought advice from some of the electricians at work, and *think* I could do it myself, but would definitely appreciate guidance from anyone who had already done this, or is naturally good at electrics and finds this stuff easy.

Cheers,

StirB

2
It would be easy. Room thermostats are basically just an ON/OFF switch * connected to the valve that controls the water flow for the underfloor heating.

* the ON bit being triggered by a fall in temperature.

If your current thermostats are flush mounting, you may want to find out whether this company provides flush mounting thermostats rather than surface mounting ones. If they do, you'll need to give measurements of the cut out to them to ensure they'll fit.

But - do make sure the power is OFF when changing the thermostats and you'll need a meter to check this as the live wire may not go back to the room wiring but to a junction box - adjacent to the valves.

I did consider changing ours once but decided that once the thermostats had been set correctly, they would never need adjusting and ours haven't been adjusted for the last few years.

But yes, if you like gadgets...

None of our thermostats were wired up correctly by our electrician when we bought our place so I did it myself as they wouldn't admit to there being anything wrong.

3
Ok, thanks for the encouragement Tom, I think I shall have a crack at it!

And yes, at the end of the day, it isn't really anything to do with efficiency, I just want to have shiny gadgets ;-)

4
Update:

I bought the Tado starter kit and it arrived yesterday afternoon.

Connecting the bridge up to the router was very easy, no special skills required.

An electrician was on site, and he showed me how to dismantle the old thermostat, and more importantly, which wire was which! So I had a Phase/Live wire [grey], a NO (Normally Open) wire [orange] and a Neutral [blue].

Mounting the Tado backplate was pretty easy - you can either stick it on with the provided double-sided tape (i did this initially) or screw it into the old holes/make news ones with the gubbins provided. I eventually ended up screwing it into place. Everything inside is labelled well, so it was easy to match up where the wires went.

This is where stuff got a bit complex - my old thermostat was in their knowledgebase, however, my boiler apparently wasn't, so i had to stop the online process and call an advisor (in the UK, ouch). It took a while, but he was able to allow me to bypass the online boiler setup (mandatory, annoying) and then helped me to connect my Tado to the Tado bridge, this took a long time for some reason, but we got it done in the end.

The phone / web browser functionality is great and you can register multiple phones, so it knows if anyone is home, and if not will allow temp to fall, until your phone comes within range again, when it will begin to heat to your desired temp. Alternatively, you can just put it on a timer...still playing about with all the options.

I have ordered 3 of the additional thermostat units to replace the other 3 analog thermostats in the house, but they are only shipping from November onwards, so I guess I'll report back then! So far though, it's a thumbs up from me...if I managed to install it on my own, anyone can tbh.