Custom Heating Control: How I replaced my TADO Thermostat with Home Assistant's Generic Thermostat

[@oliverbutterfield9844]

Thanks Tomas, nice to see the generic thermostat being out through its paces. Will be interested to see how this evolves!

[@antoinerivoire]

Great video. I have been thinking about something similar. I have Drayton Wiser and Home Assistant running for several years. I changed boiler this summer and went for Greenstar 4000 because of reviews and support, but I failed to recognise that it's not open therm compatible. I went the emsesp route, and I've been thinking about using relays to avoid cycling so much, and keep the boiler in its most efficient range. The wiser system is well integrated in home assistant, and gives a heat demand %, which could be used to alter the heating flow temp, I think. Great video, you're ahead of me and I look forward to learning from your experience.

[@tomasmcguinness]

The Drayton Wiser sounds great. I've hear the name, but never used one. If you're getting a heat demand, you could indeed use the ems-esp to adjust the flow. I do something similar using the outside temperature and NodeRed. I'll be posting another video at the end of the week which is "one month with the generic thermostat". I've been really pleased with it so far.

[@DarkwaterV2]

laughed out loud at 36:10, thanks for taking the time to make this!

[@tomasmcguinness]

Thanks!

[@jameswestcott4191]

Really useful video as I was about to get a Tado system until wading through all their marketing and seeing your video to realise local control is only via HomeKit, all scheduling is in the cloud, awkward to control flow temperature and a subscription for advanced services. I’ve come to the same conclusion as you and build my own in HA.

[@tomasmcguinness]

And I learned the other day that if you lose your internet connection, the Tado cannot work offline so your heating won’t even come on!!!

[@UKenGB]

​@@tomasmcguinness Or it stays on. When there's any sort of comms problem (like a TRV can simply go 'off-line') they remain in the same state, possibly burning up all those savings they keep telling me about, yet cannot possibly know. I've been running on Tado for a few years, but I did not know beforehand that it CANNOT work locally. Nor that it CANNOT reach throughout a reasonably sized house (hence TRVs randomly going off-line). I could go on. Made the decision a while ago to move to HA and hardware that can be integrated and controlled by that, so no longer at the mercy of anyone's half baked proprietary development project.

[@tomasmcguinness]

It gets worse!!! I’m glad I’m off their ecosystem. What hardware did you replace it with?

[@thieskenl2884]

Hey Tom. I also use shelly on my heatpump system. I also control 2 zone's with 2 shelly 1 to control 2 seperate underfloor heating zones. Tip with the General Thermostat. Don't use this line: initial_hvac_mode: "heat" and target_temp. It turn's the hearting on after rebooting home assistant. I also use the Aqare temp humit sensors. And try to use The File Editor addon to edit you configuration.yaml file :) climate: - platform: generic_thermostat name: Vloerverwarming kantoor heater: input_boolean.kantoor_warmtevraag_vloer target_sensor: sensor.kantoor_t_en_h_sensor_temperature min_temp: 15 max_temp: 23 ac_mode: false # target_temp: 17 cold_tolerance: 0.2 hot_tolerance: 0 min_cycle_duration: seconds: 5 keep_alive: minutes: 3 # initial_hvac_mode: "heat" away_temp: 16 precision: 0.5

[@tomasmcguinness]

Glad to know I’m not crazy :) Thanks for the tips on the thermostat!

[@muscaiu]

Well explained! What a great feeling when the heater turned on for me as well! 🚀🚀🚀

[@AlasdairMacleod007]

Extremely helpful video - thank you for sharing and for all of the useful information about Tado but more importantly some alternatives. I was about to try Tado but I think the Home Assistant approach is a better plan although this does make the Heating Control a bit 'non standard' for support.

[@tomasmcguinness]

It’s non standard, but honestly, I haven’t found it to be an issue. By putting the thermostat into HomeKit, it’s available on my wife’s phone. What’s interesting is that the 20 set point means she’s never adjusted it. If anything, she’s been too warm 😂

[@petrskapa793]

If you kept the Tado and got a Vaillant boiler instead, you could use their eBus communication, and hence, weather / load compensation straight away, it does work. At the same time, I think Tado can do Bosch EMS, too, I just never tried it. What is good about Tado is it learns as it goes and does save energy on top of the ability to control each radiator or underfloor circuit separately. But nice trick with the realys.

[@tomasmcguinness]

Swapping the boiler out did cross my mind; better control and a smaller size. My plans for a heat pump mean it would be good money after bad. I did like the Tado. Nice hardware and nice software.

[@tiborkulcsar4321]

A little side note, the floor heating pump should be installed facing towards the manifold. All of these circulation pumps have to be installed with horizontally. Currently it is tiled a bit up as the manifolds are offset. This way the pump wears out quickly.

[@tomasmcguinness]

Really?? You trust people to install this stuff correctly.

[@annakissed3226]

Watching this stopped me from buying Tado. I am wondering what you think of the new Tado X product line and it's intergration with Home Assistant via Matter & Threads. They are launching new kit all the time that's intergrates with their controller app but should interferace with home assistance as well again via matter & threadd. Just saw Paul Hibberts take on all of this and wondered what your takeaway was?

[@tomasmcguinness]

Hi, I haven’t seen their new kit yet, but my problem with Tado was never their kit or how it integrated with home assistant. Their hardware is excellent and well designed. Having Matter support is a great step forward as it will mean total local control without the cloud. That is certainly interesting! However, my main issue was the way it controlled my boiler. They could only off me on/off control, which isn’t very efficient. They were turning my boiler on and off up to 10 or 22 times an hour!! With my own very basic control, I have that down to maybe 2, which is much better for my boiler and better from gas consumption point of view. If you are considering their controller, I would look to ensure it can provide digital control. This might be via OpenTherm or the boiler’s native protocol. If they are offering digital control, then I would certainly consider it! The smart home side of things just isn’t the primary consideration for me when it comes to home heating. I chose Tado initially because it works either way HomeKit. I’d have been better off spending the money on Worcester Bosch control! If you do go for it, please report back!

[@PaulRBinding]

Interesting video Tom, thanks for the detail. At 21:20 you mentioned using what looks like a turbine water flow meter as a heat meter and I’m very interested how you’ve managed to integrate this into Homeassistant? I’m trying to use a similar turbine for measuring water flow using an ESP8266 but having random results. Cheers.

[@tomasmcguinness]

It's a YF-B5 hall sensor flow meter. What sort of one do you have?

[@stefanos9882]

I have a clarification question. From what I've seen boiler controllers are split in two categories, volt free and mains powered switches. As far as I understand, and from looking at how your tado was wired, Tado thermostats have Volt Free Contacts and so does the shelly?

[@tomasmcguinness]

Fundamentally, the Tado and the Shelly are just switches. The "volt free" or "dry contact" part means the switch itself gets no power from the device. It's just open or closed. This is quite a good explanation: kzbin.info/www/bejne/omG6dYOwgbJ6b6M. In terms of my system, I'm using a switched live, so that is fed into the shelly on one side and the other side goes to the boiler.

[@markhoffman]

What was wrong with the Bosch controls that performs modulation of the burner?

[@tomasmcguinness]

When I bought the TADO, I knew nothing about modulation and proper controls. Having 1st party controls would be ideal, but as I explain, I didn’t want to throw more money at the problem when Im planning on replacing my boiler in the next year or two.

[@mavr76]

Tado can use EMS bus and modulate the temperature of your boiler, just need to be config in that mode (D17)

[@tomasmcguinness]

It certainly can now, if you have the right hardware. My wireless extender had no digital outputs.

[@yoshidis4]

Excellent video! Just wanted to ask you if your boiler supports OpenTherm? I'm currently looking for a HA solution for an OpenTherm boiler.

[@tomasmcguinness]

Thanks! Sadly, it doesn’t support OpenTherm, I wish it did! I’ve come across a few OpenTherm gateways that work with HA, so I’m sure you’ll find one!

[@cvarsani2190]

does your boiler allow range rating to drop it down to something more sensible like 8Kw ?

[@tomasmcguinness]

Yes, it can drop down to around 6kW, but given my house needs around 7 it’s -3, it’s still daft. I have limited my boiler’s max power to 50% too, which helps reduces full 35kW burn!

[@tomcollis]

I probably missed this but did you get rid of the Tado TRVs & Thermostats? Does that mean you don't have zone heating, where you could effectively heat a single room? I'm in a similar situation but I'm using a Tado Thermostat which thankfully works as my zone controller via OpenTherm with my boiler, but I would prefer to see more data, especially the current temperature / power level to understand or confirm the working of the tado. I don't understand how so called 'smart' heating systems just use a relay, i understand it's easy to replace a single thermostat setup for most but when you have a box that goes near the boiler like the tado extension or hive, it seems ridiculous.

[@tomasmcguinness]

First, thanks for watching the video and thanks for commenting. I did indeed remove everything TADO. I had two thermostats and 8 TRVs in total, but I removed the TRVs almost as soon as I added them. I had several issues with them: 1. The didn't report the temperature correctly, so some rooms ended up cold as the TRV turned off too quickly. Turns out having the thermometer right on top of the heat source is bad idea. They can be linked to a wall mounted thermostat, but they were £100 a pop to purchase! 2. I was also using the TADO "call for heat" open, where an individual room could turn on the boiler. This just caused my boiler to stop and start 20 times a day as each room's temperature moved differently. 3. I tried to zone the rooms, turning some down or off at different parts of the day. As I began to think more about the heat movement inside a house, I realised this was probably pointless since having a cold or colder room just pulls heat from other parts of the house. Heat geek since confirmed this for me (www.heatgeek.com/stop-turning-off-radiators-in-unused-rooms-it-costs-more/) Smart heating systems are a con if they don't digitally interface with the boiler, which the vast majority don't. This, I think, is a cost and support issue with 3rd party controls. I have a lot more work to do on my system in terms of getting it all setup, with schedules etc. but I feel I've more control now and that I can tailor the behaviour to suit my house.

[@kenbone4535]

Treat the whole house as one room, been installing systems in Europe like this for years.

[@mehowq]

Sorry @@tomasmcguinness so what did you replace your Tado TRVs with?

[@tomasmcguinness]

Nothing. I don’t have any TRVs. This isn’t an issue really. If it’s very sunny my office might get too warm, so I think I’ll put a TRV in there. I found the house is more comfortable if all the rooms are warm, even when not used.

[@allthingsrenewable9017]

Zone heating is a waste of time in most of the UK property's, with good WC weather compensation you need very minimal control over rooms, most standard TRVS do this. This is exactly how heat pumps work, low slow constant input, to maintain constant comfort temperatures.

[@tonyknors672]

Clear ! Thank you !!!

[@tomasmcguinness]

Glad you found this useful!

[@timballam3675]

OMG why no hot water priority and external temperature compensation?

[@tomasmcguinness]

I do have priority hot water (enabled by the resistor trick). The external temp compensation is handled by software at present.

[@kevinmurphy4348]

Hi Tomas, really enjoyed that video. I am currently renovating a chalet bungalow and had a new Vailant combination boiler installed a few months ago. I am just about to begin installing underfloor heating downstairs and was looking at getting Tado....after watching your video I think I might not. I have not purchased any of the manifolds etc yet so it was so nice to watch this. I will have a few radiators upstairs and underfloor down stairs..... Any recommendations as to what I should buy. Thanks in advance, Kevin

[@tomasmcguinness]

Knowing what I know now, I think I'd go for 1st party controls. If you have a new Vaillant combi, it should support weather compensation and digital control and the Vaillant controls would be guaranteed to work with your boiler. You can see their range here - www.vaillant.co.uk/homeowners/products/heating-controls-thermostats/smart-controls/. I've heard good things about their controls from people with their heat pumps (weather compensation etc), so I would expect the same from boiler controls. That said, the Tado might support the digital control on your boiler. You would need to reach out to them and check the compatibility. I think combi boilers are easier since you don't have any values to worry about :) I know that Tado have started doing more with digital control, so you might be in luck if you wanted to use their eco system. The biggest consideration is that underfloor heating and radiators behave differently and have different considerations in terms of their use. Have you had a heat loss survey done on the property? Personally, I wouldn't go with Tado again. I got a bad taste in my mouth after their support brushed me off. I spend quite a bit of money on their gear and was signed up for their online services, so I didn't like how the treated my request to adjust the min run period. I've gone down the DIY route as I didn't want to spend any more money on control systems. I'm now free to experiment and see how my house and heating behaves this winter.

[@kevinmurphy4348]

Thanks for you super speedy and really informative reply. I feel really stupid for not actually even thinking about my boiler manufacturer having a suitable control system. I have had a quick look at what they offer and I think this will probably be the route I use. Thanks again Tomas, I really appreciate you replying and setting me on a far more sensible path. Cheers, Kevin

[@tomasmcguinness]

@kevinmurphy4348 I didn’t consider it at the time myself! Would have saved myself a lot of money and time 🤣 Let me know how you get on!

[@cottawalla]

So the boiler is heating water which then goes straight to the radiators and floor coils? You seem to missing a buffer tank for your hydronics. Or did I miss something?

[@tomasmcguinness]

Correct. What makes you say I'm missing a buffer tank?

[@cottawalla]

@@tomasmcguinness you said that the boiler is cycling too often, which suggests it doesn't have a large enough mass of water to heat. You say the boiler is oversized somewhat, so a buffer tank would probably help. I do note that the 23kW heat pump that I have, which has a buffer tank because I have a mixed array of radiators and FCUs, can operate without the buffer tank if it's connected to radiators or underfloor only, which is probably similar to what you have. However, it can also vary its output over a considerable range.

[@tomasmcguinness]

It's not the boiler cycling because the return temp has gotten too high, rather the TADO was turning it on and off too frequently.

[@jayvarads]

Great video 👍 thank you for the guide. I have done something similar using ZigBee relays. Like the way you have done the dashboard. Subscribed to see more 😊

[@tomasmcguinness]

Awesome! I’ve not used any ZigBee relays yet. Any make you recommend?

[@datoon83]

Tado used to support OpenTherm. I'm thinking about ditching all my tado's and have a simple single open system, we just installed a HP. Smart thermostats aren't overly smart in my experience.

[@tomasmcguinness]

Thanks for watching. The open system is what I've ended up with. I have removed *all* my Tado stuff now. It's sitting in a box, and I'll try and find it a good home. I'm almost 100% happy with the Home Assistant control. Just needs a few more tweaks here and there, especially around the *start* time. For example, it was 5 degrees outside when going to bed, but temp dropped to below zero over night. Heating came on at 5am, as usual, but that isn't enough time to get the house up to temp!! Maybe it's just my setback? Hmmmm Anyway, the open system is working out well for me :)

[@datoon83]

@@tomasmcguinness funny you should mention that. Whilst we use differing heating mechanisms - so I can't comment on a gas boiler. I've now gone with a setback temperature of 1 degree below our desired temperature degree. So we have a desired single room temperature of 18 - our setback is 17. We now run the heating from 0240 till 2200. I'm still experimenting a lot with the HP - to try and get the most efficient way to run it. What I've realised is 20 years of running gas central heating is completely wrong! You probably can do a similar setup for gas central heating...

[@fearthesmeag]

Nice vid Tomas - Im a little confused, do you need a switch for the heather: string. As I have a Aqara E1 TRV which I want to turn the radiator off when a set temp is reached via an Agara temp sensor.

[@tomasmcguinness]

Thanks. I don’t understand the question “switch for the heather: string” - can you rephrase it?

[@fearthesmeag]

@@tomasmcguinness apologies yes - on the HA guide, the heater ID (see below) - does it have to be a switch? climate: - platform: generic_thermostat name: Study heater: switch.study_heater target_sensor: sensor.study_temperature I was wondering if it could be possible to just use the HVOC mode (which has not worked in my case): climate: - platform: generic_thermostat name: Living Room heater: climate.living_room_trv_thermostat target_sensor: sensor.living_room_temperature_sensor_temperature_3

[@tomasmcguinness]

I see what you mean! You want close the TRV when the HA thermostat reaches the temperature?

[@fearthesmeag]

@@tomasmcguinness yeah thats the one - I think it has something to do with HVAC (heat off) which Im unable to find. BTW, the TRV is paired via Zigbee - I think Homekit might have more/better options to possibly do this (from what Iv read).

[@tomasmcguinness]

Can Home Assistant control the Aqara TRV? If yes, I would add a Switch helper that represents the TRV being open or closed. When the Home Assistant thermostat (climate) reaches temperature, it would turn this switch off. You can then add an automation that closed the TRV when this switch is turned off or open the TRV when it's switched on.

[@sbdpro2]

Tado can modulate the power of the furnace, but only if it's connected via the bus system If it's turning that fast on and off, the temperature has to rise very fast for the thermostat to switch the boiler off. Maybe it was too close to the radiator? I would have tried put it further away from the heat source in the room, then it would have taken longer for tado to recognize the increasing temperature. But all in all, the custom solution is defenitely better because it doesn't need cloud connection and it costs nothing per month. Good work!

[@tomasmcguinness]

You’re right, it can. But the wireless extension model that I have has no digital connection and the Tado also doesn’t support the EMS protocol 🤷‍♂️ In terms of its position, it wasn’t close to the radiator. I was conscious of that when I mounted it. Not a problem now anyway :)

[@blakrj]

@@tomasmcguinness The EU version does support the Nefit EMS Bus - cdn.brandfolder.io/607DGEMS/as/pqx5xtgcxkr3ck8rk4w8wj3/Extensiekit_Handleiding.pdf

[@JCCool-s5u]

Sorry but on/off control of a boiler compared to the modulating mechanism of Tado is far less effective, no ?

[@tomasmcguinness]

The TADO operates my boiler with on/off control anyway. Every time it restarts the boiler, the output jumps to max for a few minutes. If found that just having the boiler on for an hour with a low flow temp is using much less gas. I think on a better designed system, the TADO would have been okay, but my boiler is 35kW, so it guzzles gas when it starts up.

[@adrianis]

tado do support OpenTherm and other digital interfaces, instead of analog on/off relay! EU version has that and UK version hasn't

[@tomasmcguinness]

There is a special version of their gateway available in the UK that does now support OpenTherm and EMS. Sadly, my boiler doesn’t support it 🤷‍♂️

[@russellrunciman]

Mind blown

[@tomasmcguinness]

Any questions, please ask!

[@russellrunciman]

@@tomasmcguinness 👍

[@kenbone4535]

What are you doing !!!!!. Hope your well Tom, regards Ken Bone

[@tomasmcguinness]

Keeping you entertained, Ken 😂

[@geejaybee]

The Tado you had is the non Opentherm/ems version sold in the UK. The EU version has that modulation

[@tomasmcguinness]

The EMS support is non existent in the UK and my boiler doesn’t support OpenTherm either. You can buy the OpenTherm version in the UK now, but it’s not help to me.

[@ercanyilmaz8108]

Aha. Because my Tado has already an OpenTherm feature and Iwas wondering why in this video it's told that Tado is only an on / off hermistate.

[@sygad1]

I have the Honeywell Evohome and I am also not impressed with it, slow servers, very poor UX and TRVs that seem to randomly break.....which at £70 a pop is not what I want

[@tomasmcguinness]

Evohome usually comes highly recommended, so I'm surprised.

[@sygad1]

@@tomasmcguinness I read those exact same reviews, 5 years ago and largely the same thing being said today. It's considered to be one of the best, but I can tell you from 5 years of use, i'd rip it out in a heartbeat if I hadn't invested close to £1k in the whole thing.

[@tomasmcguinness]

@sygad1 I wasn’t probably £500 in the TADO hole (thankfully I got most it refurbished) but I’m pleased I took it all out :)

[@scotsman8678]

I would watch rodger Busby skills builder videos on heat pumps before going down that road. If you are concerned about usage costs. Heat pumps tend to be 3 times more expensive to run on electricity than an equivalent gas boiler. Unless you're property is super insulated, triple glazing etc. Underfloor heating throughout, they only heat up to 40° half of what a boiler can do so radiators are cool to the touch.

[@tomasmcguinness]

Thanks for commenting. I watched some of his videos. I don't agree they tend to be more expensive to run. They certainly can, but it's no different than the stupid boiler I have. It's running costs are so high because it's about 3 times large than it needs to be. Heat pump installations need to be well designed to operate efficiently. Crappy gas boiler installations are no different, it's just been ignored as the price of gas has been so low, it didn't matter if they worked efficiently. I have added insulation where possible, which helps enormously, but I don't have triple glazing and I need a new front door too. My boiler runs at 45° and it has no trouble keeping my house warm, even when it's -4 or -5 outside. I've been trying to educate myself about heat loss, flow rates, radiators etc. before jumping in. Everything I've learned about heat pumps show me they can work must better than gas, but it's all in the design.

[@kenbone4535]

Roger Busby is in no way an expert on heat pumps, i would put him at the bottom run of that ladder. How do i know, I've been installing heat pumps for over 15 years, if they don't work how come they are extensively installed in colder country's in Europe. I have one in a 1950s 3 bed semi. Which is also run via Home Assistant. 😁

[@antoinerivoire]

Also that's quite an old video and he has done some with the heatgeeks where he backtracks on a lot of what he says there.

[@tomasmcguinness]

I know it's been a while since we exchanged comments on this, but I think you might be interested in my latest video - I show how my house is being heated at present with radiators at about 30 degrees - kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJ_VgIuEfJJmaLc