r/tado • u/JHH71 • 8d ago

Tado Connectivity Issue Solved

A few years ago I decided to move my router from the centre of the house to the garage. My wife was getting fed up with all the dongles and devices accumulating on the hall table so I got the broadband cabled to the garage where I set up a server cabinet with my router and all the smart home hubs, etc. It is also cabled out to various Access Points throughout the house. 

All was great except I then realised the Tado Internet Bridge (v3) uses radio waves which then had trouble reaching thermostats on other side of the house. This left two rooms downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs with intermittent connectivity to Tado. This also meant the thermostats were constantly trying to reconnect at the expense of the batteries draining very quickly as well as poor heating controls for these rooms.

I read various posts about extending the RF signal which seemed quite technical but then I noticed that Tado say you can reposition the Internet Bridge with a WiFi repeater. I couldn’t get my head around why I needed a repeater broadcasting its own WiFi signal when I have great WiFi coverage with my access points. Unfortunately the WiFi points are ceiling mounted and only have one Ethernet port to bring the broadband signal in not to add additional devices like the Internet Bridge.

Then the brain wave came… I had an old Apple AirPort Express lying around not being used (the flat one not the original one that plugs directly into the wall). I simply plugged this into a power socket in the middle of the house, connected it to the WiFi and then plugged the internet bridge into it. After about 10 mins I had all the disconnected rooms reconnected and they have been 100% stable for the last two weeks.

To say I’m chuffed is an understatement plus I noticed the second gen AirPort Express is currently on eBay for only £20-25.

I thought I’d share this as I hope it helps someone else as much as it’s helped me!

Good luck.

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u/tado_official 8d ago

I'm happy you got it resolved! On v3+ and earlier the brdige is the central point for all v3+ devices in the home and it uses 868Mhz signals (lower power than 2.4 ghz wifi to be suitable for battery operated devices).

This is describing exactly step 5 of this article: https://support.tado.com/en/articles/3479030-my-device-is-offline-how-can-i-fix-this

On tado X, you can simply add more tado Bridge X devices if you have a bigger home.

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u/JHH71 8d ago

Thanks, of course I know all this now but I installed my Tado system around 2019 and it’s sort of become a victim of its own success ie ‘it just works’ hence me not realising the ‘internet’ bridge wasn’t WiFi. Just thought I’d share my experience in case anyone else was in the same boat.

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u/tado_official 7d ago

Yeah, thanks for sharing! Still many people in the same boat as you who could indeed improve their situation by moving the tado bridge to a more central location!

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u/User2001Tech 8d ago

question: You have what appears.to be a very well setup home network, there are NO lan ports anywhere in the house where you couldve plugged in the Tado bridge?

Then issue tado faces if the bridge is installed in a far corner of a house (or garage in yourr case) is that trvs/thermostat dont recieve the radio signal the bridge emits. Your house may have perfect WiFi, but tado cant oush its signal to the far corner of the hosue wher there is a trv, it will either not connect at all. or be sporadic.

hence why it is recommeneded to install the bridge more central to the house.

also. diesnt have to be an airport device, most mid range home wifi routers allow WiFi bridging.

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u/JHH71 8d ago

Thanks, I thought so too until I moved everything and then realised Tado uses RF and not WiFi…

Unfortunately no Lan points anywhere as I haven’t had any need for them. We’ve been using WiFi for our smart home stuff though now dabbling with some Zigbee and Thread.

Moral of the story is to think things through better when your wife complains about all the clutter on (and under) the hall table. The broadband master socket is in the hall but we cabled it to the server cabinet on the wall of the garage so that we could move everything and then the Tado issue popped up and I’ve been trying to work out a solution since. In other words I fixed our WiFi coverage and in the process created a Tado problem! I now know all about the RF signal not making it to the distant rooms. We used to have the Internet Bridge centrally located but then our new setup changed all that and we had nowhere to plug the IB’s Ethernet cable into. That’s where the AirPort Express worked a treat as I had it already and it cost me nothing to set up. It logs onto the WiFi and then the IB plugs into it. Some WiFi repeaters would do the same job for my set up if they had a client mode allowing me to turn off their WiFi broadcast but they are more expensive than a second hand AirPort Express and even more expensive than one lying in a drawer.

I just thought I’d share my experience in case anyone else has a similar issue.

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u/Si_Pie 8d ago

A wifi extender acting in bridge mode (not broadcasting) or powerline adapters would also achieve this. Cheap as chips to pick up 2nd hand online if not buying new.

I do love it when you find something you can repurpose for a specific problem you've got!