Tado is a thermostat with a difference, it’s smart and saves you money by only heating the house when you are at home.

We have had it installed now for almost 2 years, and more importantly for a winter. Coming into the winter I thought it would be worth looking at how we have got on with it. Well it shows me how much the heating is on (which is quite a lot), it shows how quickly the temperature in the house drops overnight (which is too quickly for my liking) and it turns the heating off as soon as we leave the house and back on again when we are on the way home (which I really like).

They have updated their app this year which has introduced scheduling, allowing you to set different temperatures for when you are at home at different times of the day and for different days, the same as you would with a dumb timer thermostat. But why would you want to if it turns off when you are at home? Well for us, with Zoe at home during the day the heating would be on all the time in cold weather and that could get expensive. Instead she is quite happy to put a thicker jumper on if needed, so we lower the temperature during the week day. At the weekend with the kids around we find it hard enough to get them to put a jumper on when we go out let alone in the house so we want it a bit warmer, plus the temperature often plummets in the evening.

Tado have also brought out a new model with the temperature shown on the wall unit and you can change the temperature on it as well as from the app or website. It looks good but I still have the original

I am looking forward to them adding a few other features which I think will really make this product fantastic, a heating boost feature and an advance to next temperature feature, they have talked about some new features before the next heating season but I won’t hold my breath.

Would I recommend Tado, certainly, its one of those gadget’s that just work, you don’t need to do anything but get on with your life and it saves energy when you are not at home.

If you are thinking about getting a smart thermostat do it, if you’re not, why not? Buy it here.

This was a guest post from Mr ETL.

Tado is made up of 2 main parts – the Tado Box which connects to the boiler and replaces your existing room thermostat and the Tado App, which runs on your smart phone and is the way you control the heating.

The guys designing Tado have made it really simple to use asking 4 key questions:

1. What temperature do you want the house to be at when you’re home? 
2. What temperature do you want it to be at when you’re sleeping?
3. What time do you wake up in the morning?
4. What time do you go to sleep?

Tado then pretty much works everything else out. It knows what temperature the house is at and claims that it learns how long it takes to heat your house up. So the idea is that it works out how to heat the house up just in time for you to get out of bed. This should mean that the more insulation is in the house the less time the heating will need to be on. It also gets the weather forecast for the local area so sunny days and very cold nights affect how it heats. 

Now for the clever bit, it knows when you and the other members of your family are home by the app on the smartphone. When the last person leaves the house it turns the heating off. I have tested this and it’s really good, it recognises when we have left the house within a few minutes and knows we are home just as fast. It says it works out if you’re heading home and turns on the heating in time but as it’s only been installed over the summer so far so we will have to wait and see about that.

I don’t know when it’s going to be available in the UK, probably next year after they get the results of the winter and I don’t know what the price will be but so far so good, I can now see what the temperature in the house is, how long the heating has actually been on and slightly big brotherly when the wife is at home or not I am looking forward to seeing how it actually performs over winter and will report back then.

To find out more look at the Tado website.

In case you are wondering this is not a sponsored post.

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks!

We have some LED lights in our home which my husband purchased from LEDHut. They stock a whole range of lightbulbs in a variety of shapes and sizes, so you don’t need to go out and buy a new light fitting you can just change the lightbulb!

LEDHut also has a handy online calculator where you can work out how much you will save based on your typical light usage. The idea is that although you might spend more on them in the first place, you will quickly save yourself money.

When buying LED lights you get the choice of two colour options – warm white and cool white. Warm white lights are typically suited to living areas and bedrooms.  Cool white lights are generally used to light areas such as kitchens and bathrooms.

Have you made the switch to LED lights?  How much energy and money have you saved?

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter. Also if you have a Kindle it would really make my day if you subscribe to this blog on it! – Thanks!

Disclaimer:  This is a sponsored post.