Tado’s new thermostat is designed as a Nest killer - The Verge

When Google ignominiously exited the European thermostat market last year, it pointed its customers to Tado. This week, the German-based smart home company is launching its Smart Thermostat X (2nd gen), and aiming to attract European Nest users who haven’t already jumped ship.

Google shutting down the servers for its 1st- and 2nd-gen thermostats drove “significant sales” for Tado, Christian Deilmann, cofounder and managing director of Tado, told The Verge in an interview. The third-generation Nest has at least 10 times the penetration in Europe, he says. And while Google still supports it, Deilmann sees the writing on the wall. “At some point, I think they will continue their strategy,” he says. “There’s nothing we know for sure … but it doesn’t make too much sense to pull out of some generations and not others.”

Tado’s newest thermostat costs £159.99/€179.99 for a wired starter kit and £169.99/€199.99 for a wireless kit. It has a completely new look, with a white square design and a circular interface that appears only when you touch it.

At 17.8mm thick, it’s significantly slimmer than the first-gen Tado, and the third-gen Nest (Google never launched the fourth-gen in Europe). Deilmann says it’s designed to blend better into your home rather than stand out, as the previous all-black model did. There’s a customizable action button on the top, and the battery version lasts a year on its rechargeable battery.

The Smart Thermostat X is designed to work with boilers, heat pumps, and underfloor heating (not air conditioning), and thanks to Matter-over-Thread connectivity, it can communicate more easily with a receiver sitting in a basement next to your boiler, as well as most smart home platforms. Tado moved to Thread from a proprietary 6LoWPAN with the first-gen Tado X.

With the launch of the second-gen model, Tado is also rolling out new features across its line, including the ability to manage multiple thermostats in different homes under one account. Additionally, its hydronic balancing system, which works with its Smart Radiator Thermostat X to digitally balance radiators so the last one in the chain gets heat, is now TÜV certified, making it eligible for government heat-pump subsidies in certain markets.

This feature requires Tado’s AI Assist, which costs £3.99 a month (£29.99 a year) and automatically optimizes heating based on weather conditions and your home’s characteristics. It includes options such as automatic geofencing, open-window detection, adaptive heating, and preheating before arrival.

Tado is also launching a new energy savings promise. “We’re so confident about the benefit of our products and the value which we’re delivering in terms of energy cost savings — a few hundred euros every year for all of our customers,” says Deilmann. “If in the first 12 months you believe you haven’t saved enough energy or energy costs, then you can return all your products and get your money back, no questions asked.”

The Smart Thermostat X (2nd gen) is available starting today from tado.com and at select European retailers.