Tado V3+ thermastat issues

Not resolved yet, my mum is trying to get the Electrician and the plumber in together. It’s like trying to get any sense out of Trump, it's an almost impossible task. 

Given that (if it isnt heating when it should) if we persist in raising/lowering the temps or boosting etc it more often than not comes to life and then typically works for the day or at least some of it. the first point might be the issue. 

1. One is that the relay(s) in the receiver occasionally doesn't work, this is still my top target right now.   Forcing the water on just works (hitting the test button on the receiver), but not so the heating, it only seems to be related to the heating side. That could be the sticky relay that has been mentioned.

2. I’ve seen some other anomalous things happening, the Receiver has been unreachable a few times now remotely late at night, which meant I couldnt really do anything, I cant advanced anything or raise lower the temps, its always happened late at night. nothing I do brings that element back to life.  It's always sprung back to life at one point before the schedule kicks in.  Not sure if this has any bearing. 

Thats kind of where we are right now, I’ve visiting again back end of January so I can look at it again if it's not been resolved.  My sister is in the process of changing her broadband to fibre with an emphasise on ensuring wifi coverage is significantly better. 

thanks for asking though. 

Hi ​@TayUK 

My understanding is that the Tado comes in three parts.

• Wireless Temperature Sensor
• Wireless Receiver (Programmer with Hot Water Control)
• Internet Bridge

The internet bridge I believe is wired directly into the wi-fi router, so this connection is wired and not wireless. The wireless connection between the three units is totally independent of the wi-fi router and uses a totally different frequency (868 MHz  aka 6LoWPAN) . So changing broadband and wi-fi router should not have any effect on the operation of the Tado.

I think you mentioned that (currently) the schedules are stored in the cloud so if internet is lost then the schedule sticks with the current settings until the internet is restored.

I have a Hive system and it frequently tells me that it cant connect to stat or boiler and then after a few seconds tells me all is well. I have checked signal strength and it says it is fine. A neighbour has the Tado (they lost water pressure and the symptoms were initially similar to yours). The Tado seems much more reliable although the internet bridge is situated half way between the boiler and the stat.

As you suggest could be dicky relay, loose wire, or issues with the diverter valve.

I sympathise with your predicament. My mum lives 75 minutes drive away. In one respect she is fortunate to be living in a council house so slightly easier to get people in to fix it (although often takes three visits before it is fixed). Every time I go over I check pressures and temps just to make sure.

We’re trying to rule out anything that could have some influence over the system.  There are other reasons for changing the broadband too,  but as I do not know fully how the Tado connectivity works we thought we’d hedge our bets, there are issues with connectivity in the house and frankly its 2024 she needs to keep up with the tech, plus family coming round it helps too.  

I contacted Tado over Christmas and they enabled offline scheduling so that shouldn’t be an issue now. This doesnt appear to have any bearing on the issues were seeing. 

The offline issue seems to be something new, what I see is show below, it may or may not have any bearing on this issue but I cant rule anything out. the other device report as being online, since Im concentrating on the receiver this sent up the flags..I noticed last night too but when I check at 7am it was contactable again.  

Sorry ​@TayUK I was being a little slow. This relates to the broadband not the heating.

Again the IF.

Is your mother being converted to fibre only, where the phone line is replaced by VOIP (Voice over internet)?

With conventional “copper” systems the wires to the exchange share the internet signal and the voice signal for the phones (hence the splitter they often provide). The exchange also supplies the power to the phones (the REN or ringer effective number on each phone determines how many phones the exchange can drive). Your voice travels as an analogue signal to the exchange where it is converted and passed over their network.

On fibre/VOIP systems a small (home powered) interface converts the incoming signal to something suitable for the WAN socket on the back of the router. The router then communicates with VOIP handsets over wi-fi. Your voice is converted to a digital signal which is passed over the internet. Less demand on the exchange as it is dealing only with digital signals and clearer communications and less noise.

The problem: The interface and router are powered my the home’s electricity supply, so, in the event of a power cut, the “landline” phones will not work. If the occupant is vulnerable then they may fit battery backup to the two units but these are rather bulky (each bigger than the router). Also many care alarms are not compatible, however the BT Hub does have a “conventional” phone socket on the back that the alarm can plug into. Finally the changeover is not seamless (well the two I know of weren’t). There can be a period of several weeks when (I think this was the way round) incoming calls come in on the old phone line, whilst outgoing calls must be made on the new system.

So worth checking what is being fitted?

And finally some providers provide “essentials” packages (see BT Home Essentials Broadband | Universal Credit Broadband sorry for the BT plug but this is what my mother is on). 36 Mb/s should be ample for your mother on her own as this would easily cover streaming UHD movies.

Sorry to give you something else to think about.

B

She has had various copper based BB for a number of years, only recently since moving lots of stuff to sky has she had problems with it.  

Over the last coupla months she has been complaining about poor wifi speeds, I know, I know, wifi nothing to do with BB per se, but this links into another issue.  

She has pretty poor cellular coverage for all the major providers, her house is solid!! despite being a bungalow when we had this built 15-20 years ago, we wanted it built to exceed current standards at the time.  Its got great insulation and terrible cellular signal.   

I did once consider a pico cell to boost cellular but it was too much like hard work, Im a retired Global Network Manager (You did such a nice explanation of how it all works too, sorry), and even I baulked at the cost of the fixed line behind the pico cell.    

So we utilised wifi calling, this meant she generally had better cell calls when in the house. Then several months back people were complaining about calls dropping on the mobile. Eventually I decided it was probably all to do with the BB, even her home POTS phone dropped calls sometimes. Clearly there is an issue there and it needs to be sorted, there is no equipment needing that old circuit and frankly its the weakest link, she still has a mobile that works should he landline die. If needs be and at some time in the future I can stick a UPS in there but as I said, she has a mobile. 

It’ll be fibre going in, City Fibre stuck in some fibre earlier in the year and this is live in the area, I saw a few nice deals with decent wifi extenders but my sister wants to give Sky a kicking and get them to sort it, maybe they’ll offer her fibre, I’m not sure if Sky would simple use open reaches fibre or if there are deals to utilise City Fibre.     

I’m now impatient and just want it done, monitoring her security cameras over fibre would be significantly better for me too, and I might just put some remote management for her Apple devices too, supporting an 85 ish year old with tech is, erm, challenging at best.. 

Current latency and jitter are dire. A digital phone really cant be much worse to be honest, she also has a ton of static on her deck handsets occasionally, this could be line noise or the phones, we’re just trying not to change to much lest we introduce further issues.

Making sure she dials the full telephone code could one interesting though.

Interesting Tado system sprung to life this morning after all devices were showing offline (I think this was just her broadband playing silly buggers as her security cameras were showing as offline too. 

There appears to be a multitude of issues, being remote means fixing them all one at a time is a challenge.   

I needn’t have worried then😀

I now know who to contact If I have problems in later life!

Hi I’ve just had the V3+ thermostat installed to replace a nest thermostat. Plumber hardwired it to the boiler but I had to replace my router to enable the internet bridge to so I’m having to set up to connect to the internet.
 

The heating is constantly on but at a very low level so the radiators aren’t cold metal but they could not even be described as warm let alone hot. I’ve tried increasing the temperature manually on the thermostat and also on the tado app but the radiators remain this very low temperature, won’t increase won’t go off. 
 

has anyone else had this? Thanks

First of all modern boilers are very good at maintaining temperatures by running almost constantly at a very low level with the radiators barely warm but it does sound like the boiler isn't responding to the thermostat

A reason for this is that it may still be set up to run with weather compensation which means it's adjusting the heating to the outsude temperature not the internal thermostat. I suggest you have this discussion with the plumber because he will need to be the one to diagnose the issue if it's not working as you would expect with the thermostat.

Let us know how you get on.

Peter

Thanks Peter! 

Hey ​@Deano72 

Welcome to the Forum, I’m glad to see PeterE has already left some advice here, I do hope you’ve found that helpful.

If you’ve got any other questions, feel free to ask any time.😊