Tado X review

Tado X: Introduction

Smart heating controls were some of the first smart products to be available, but Tado X is the first to be designed for the modern day. Using Matter-over-Thread, the multiroom system is built to be expandable, easily compatible with smart home systems and more responsive.

It’s exceptionally fast, easy to use, highly customisable and it gets regular updates.

Thermostats and controllers

As with the old Tado V3+ system, Tado X has a range of components available, depending on what you want to do and the type of heating system that you have. At its simplest, you can remove old TRVs and use the Tado Smart Radiator Thermostat X (£79.99) for individual room temperature control, leaving your old heating system in place to control the boiler.

That’s a sensible solution for renters who may want better temperature control without replacing core heating elements. With these devices you need a Thread Border Router; the Tado Bridge X (£59.99) is otherwise available.

If you want Tado X to control your boiler, you can replace a wired thermostat with the Wired Smart Thermostat X (£99.99). Again, you need a Bridge X if you don’t have a Thread Border Router. You can use the Smart Radiator Thermostat Xs in combination with the Wireless Thermostat X.

For full flexibility and control for gas boiler options, there’s the Wireless Smart Thermostat X Starter Kit (£159.99), which gets you a Wireless Receiver X (heating and hot water) that wires into your boiler (on/off or OpenTherm options), and a Wireless Temperature Sensor X (like the thermostat but it works wirelessly).

With this starter kit, you replace a single thermostat, but you can add the Radiator Thermostat X devices for individual room control, and each can call for heat when it needs warmth. And, the Wireless Receiver X is a Thread Border Router, so you don’t need additional hardware.

The Heat Pump Optimizer X (£229.99) is similar to the Wireless Receiver X, but designed specifically for controlling all types of Heat Pump.

Finally, if you have zone valves or single-zone underfloor heating, you’ll need either a Wired Smart Thermostat X or another Wireless Smart Thermostat X Starter Kit. There’s no heating manifold controller for more complex underfloor heating installations as you get with Honeywell Evohome.  

Installation

I replaced my Honeywell Evohome with Tado X. I’d been running Evohome since launch, but the system was sluggish and suffered from a lack of updates. 

Getting Tado X installed was easy. The system is built for DIY installation, with complete instructions on how to wire it all in, based on the kit you have and the kit you’re replacing. In my case, I wired in a Wireless Receiver X to replace the old Honeywell BDR91A relay.

Do be careful about following the instructions blindly. The instructions I had suggested switching the old relay for Tado X’s on/off controls; however, my boiler supports OpenTherm, which would be a better option to use. OpenTherm allows the smart heating system to adjust the boiler’s flow temperature based on the heating demand, saving money by reducing gas usage.

Once wired in, I connected the Wireless Receiver X to WI-Fi and I was ready to start installing the Smart Thermostat X devices. These are installed by scanning the Matter code on the back and then following the in-app instructions to get them onboard.

For final installation, Tado provides all the adaptors you’ll likely need in the box; I just had to unscrew the old Evohome ones and screw-in the Tado ones.

The Tado Smart Thermostat X is a compact and modern-looking TRV with a fixed screen at the front. When installing it, the screen asked me to select a language.

I could also change the screen orientation, with a choice of four positions (each a 90° change). That’s handy if your radiator sits at a different angle, such as for my bathroom radiator where the pipes come out of the wall, rather than the floor.

Once in place, the thermostats perform an automatic calibration, working out the maximum and minimum position of the flow control pin.

It’s good to see that these thermstats are powered by removable, rechargeable battery packs. Charged via USB-C, they should last for a year or two in my experience, and there’s a saving here compared to buying replaceable AA batteries, as with Evohome.

In the Tado X app, I had to assign each valve to a room; rooms can control multiple valves if you have multiple radiators.

Next, I had to sort out my underfloor heating in the kitchen, which was controlled via a second BDR91A connected to a zone valve. I used a second Wireless Receiver X and a Wireless Temperature Sensor X. Cleverly, in the Tado X app, I can set the Kitchen zone so that the Wireless Temperature Sensor X turns on the zone valve and also calls for heat from the main Wireless Receiver X.

Just be careful if you have multiple Wireless Receiver X devices, as they can’t be named in the app and just have a serial number. If you add a new device in the future, you have to select which Wireless Receiver X it should control, and that can be hard to work out.

Features and performance

The core way that Tado X works isn’t that dissimilar to the older version. That’s not a problem, as the Tado app is one of the best. It just needs some time to configure properly.

Each room you create has a default schedule, which you will want to override. Each day can have its own timeslots, with a target temperature set for each one. For example, you can have it hot in the morning (7am until 9am), cool in the day, and warm again in the evening for a bedroom. Once a day is done, you can copy that schedule to other days; entire schedules for rooms can be copied to other rooms, and tweaked from there.

As well as a Home schedule, you can set an Away temperature, which is the fallback to use when Tado is set to Away mode. I can set Away mode automatically, but the Geolocation skill can be used to automatically turn the heat off when everyone goes out, and back on when one household member returns.

This isn’t a free add-on: you have to pay as part of Auto-assist to have it. This costs £29.99 a year or £3.99 a month. For the latter, you can cancel at any time, so you can just pay during the cold months.

If you don’t subscribe, Geolocation just sends a message asking if you want to turn the heating off.

I do recommend paying for Auto-assist, as you also get Open Window Detection. By monitoring for fast temperature drops, because a door or window is open, Tado X can automatically shut off heating in a room to avoid wasting energy.

It does work well, but can be confused. In my bathroom, for example, opening the door after I have a shower can trigger the window detection; in cases of false alerts, I can override and have the heating turn back on.

Relatively new is Adaptive Heating, which uses AI to learn how your rooms heat up and cool down. This information is used to switch your heating on and off at the optimal point to prevent over-heating or under-heating. It takes a while for the system to learn and, aside from the odd blip (I had one room that was either too hot or 1°C too cold for a while) works very well.

To aid with this, Tado has launched an update that lets me set what type of heating a Wireless Receiver X is connected to, to better control the heat output. This is particularly important with underfloor heating, which is slow to respond to changes.

Tado has also added Hydronic Balancing. This tech can adjust water flow through all Tado devices to ensure that all radiators heat up evenly, a task that would normally have to be done manually by a professional. That’s a neat upgrade and one that you’ll appreciate if you have all of your radiators on at once, particularly if you found one slow to heat up.

Weather Adaptation is always active, using a forecasting service to adjust heating so your home stays comfortable in any weather. Tado notes this feature requires an OpenTherm connection.

While these features are all automated, Tado X provides plenty of manual override options. From the app, I can adjust the temperature of any room and select how long the override should last for: a set time, until the next scheduled change or permanently.

The app remembers the last setting you made, and changes are reflected almost instantly, showing the power of Thread. With Evohome, a change in the app could take minutes to be applied.

The app offers several settings that affect your entire home. For example, Boost Heating allows you to raise the temperature in every room to maximum for 30 minutes, which is useful if you need to warm up a cold house quickly. You can also set all rooms back to their schedules or turn them all off.

Additionally, adjustments can be made directly on the smart TRVs by turning the outer dial to change the target temperature.

The default setting is to have this change as permanent, but on a per-room basis, you can set what a manual override should do: a set period or until the next scheduled change. That’s neat, as it lets other people in your house, such as your kids, set a comfort level that will automatically time out so you won’t be hit with huge heating bills.

The Tado Smart Radiator Thermostat X TRVs are quieter than any others I’ve tested; unlike older Honeywell EvoHome models and previous Tado versions, they operate almost silently.

The wireless temperature sensor uses three AAA batteries and has simple controls. Its screen stays off until you tap the button to view the current and then target temperatures briefly. Hit the arrow keys to manually adjust the target temperature.

For the most part, the temperature sensors in the TRVs are good enough, but the position of the one in the bedroom caused some issues, so I also added a Wireless Temperature Sensor X to the bedroom for more accurate temperature monitoring.

As the system supports Matter compatibility, Tado X devices can be integrated into various smart home platforms, including Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Homey and Google Assistant. Each device must be added individually to every system you wish to use, which can be time-consuming; for instance, incorporating nine devices into Apple Home required nearly an hour.

The level of control also varies depending on the platform. Apple Home has very basic triggers available (temperature), but Homey offers far more triggers, including temperature and humidity.

Once integrated with Apple Home, or another platform, it is possible to turn devices on or off and adjust the target temperature. Any changes to the temperature are treated as manual overrides and remain effective for the duration specified in the app.

While Matter does not facilitate broad system control, such as switching off heating throughout an entire property or toggling between Home and Away modes, it remains valuable by enabling voice control and automation capabilities. For example, within HomeKit, it is possible to configure a Tado X device to increase the temperature to 18°C when motion is detected in a room, and to turn off after twenty minutes of no detected motion.

Having been running Tado X for more than a year, I’ve found it to be very reliable bar a couple of minor issues. A few times I’ve seen that every device is offline in the app. A quick reboot of the mesh system always fixes it and, even though devices may show as offline, they continue to work to the programmed schedule.

Final thoughts

Tado X is the smart home system built for the modern day: its Matter-over-Thread platform makes it faster to respond than rival systems and more widely compatible with third-party systems. Add in its support for all types of heating, from boilers to heat pumps and radiators to underfloor heating, and Tado X is the best multiroom heating system available. Its high cost does make it hard to justify if you’ve got an existing heating system that works.

How we test

When we publish our reviews, you can rest assured that they are the result of “living with” long term tests.

Smart heating systems usually live within an ecosystem, or a range of products that – supposedly – all work in harmony. And they are designed to offer a range of different cleaning options. Therefore, it’s impossible to use a smart thermostat for a week and deliver a verdict.

Because we’re testing smart home kit all day, everyday, we know what matters and how a particular smart cleaning machine compares to alternatives that you might also be considering.

Our reviews are comprehensive, objective and fair and, of course, we are never paid directly to review a device.

Read our guide on how we test robot vacuum cleaners to learn more.