Tado, the smart climate control company, has come along way in a short space of time. In this review, we are going to be looking at the latest model of their Smart Radiator thermostat and starter kit – v3+.

What does the Tado’s Smart Radiator Thermostat do?

Tado’s Smart radiator thermostats are different to most smart home
thermostats, they do not work on a house level but individual rooms. This means you can control each room as you wish, for example if you want the nursery to be warm but your bedroom room cool this can easily be achieved. Assuming you have Tado installed in those rooms.

It is also a lot smarter than competitors, offering simple yet effective features – for example open window detection. As who wants to heat a room when the window is open?!

At the heart of Tado is the principle of energy and money saving. This is because Tado offers such detailed control of heating your home they claim you save energy and money. In the app there is a dashboard to track approximately how much energy you have saved and how each feature has helped towards the saving.

Other features include:

Weather Detection – Tado checks local weather reports to adapt to how it heats your home.

Geofencing – Both when you are leaving and returning home, interestingly this is not only done via your phone location. It also detects when your phone connects to your home Wifi to signal you are home – smart!

Comfort Control – Each thermostat detects humidity as well as temperature. Creating a simple visualisation of humidity and temperature to show air comfort.

Smart Schedule – Allowing scheduling temperatures for when you are home and away.

Stats & Analytics – Giving insight into what’s been going on in each room, plotted on a graph. Sadly there is no way to export the data though.

Repair Service – Through a national partnership with Help-link, as well aa thousands of local installers you can even find a local plumber.

How easy is Tado to set up?

We know what you are thinking, surely this requires professional installation as its plumbing?! Wrong, install is DIY and easy.

First, you install the app and create a home, once created you add the thermostat and bridge.

To add the bridge you plug it into your router or network switch with an ethernet cable. You then scan the QR code on the thermostat and pair it with the bridge.

Next comes the fun part – you need to remove your existing radiator head. This is much easier than we expected, on our radiator, we basically twisted the metal ring on the existing thermostat. If unsure they have a helpful how to guide on their website.

Top tip – if water starts coming out you are twisting the wrong part. Removing the head does not make any water leak and just exposes the pin on the radiator valve.

Once the head is removed, you can use the supplied adapters to fit the Tado thermostat. We didn’t need any and it fitted directly to the radiator.

The install guide has obviously been written for horizontal installs. If like us you install vertically the label saying top should face the front.

Once installed the thermostat calibrates and it’s done!

What is the connectivity?

Where this smart home tech is different is it does not connect to your home WiFi, as it does not need to. The hub or bridge as they call it connects to your house via ethernet to the bridge. The smart radiator thermostats connect to the bridge using radio (868 Mhz to be precise).

This means you do not have any of the issues surrounding WiFi bands – for example if you only have 5GHz and it only works on 2.4GHz. It also means there is no issue with connectivity or poor signal. We tested in a large house with the bridge downstairs and the radiator upstairs and had a full strength connection.

In terms of third-party connectivity Tado packs a punch offering the most popular voice assistants:

• Siri / Apple HomeKit
• Amazon Alexa
• Google Assistant

As well as IFTTT, allowing you to connect it to any other supported tech on IFTTT. For example, if the bedroom temperature is too hot turn on the Wemo plug connected to a fan. If the bedroom is x temperature turn my Philips Hue lights red, and many more possibilities.

The Tado app is available on iOS 10 or above and Android 5 or above.

Tado Smart Radiator Thermostat

How much do Tado Smart Radiator Thermostats cost?

To get started with Tado you need the starter kit as this contains the bridge. This cost: £119.99 and comes with all you need as well as one radiator valve.

However, once you have the bridge you can buy additional smart valves at £69.99.

This is slightly expensive but if bought directly from Tado they offer a ‘12 month, Save money or your money back’ guarantee!

In addition, there is an optional subscription feature called ‘Auto-Assist’ for £2.99 a month or £24.99 a year. Auto-assist ‘joins up’ the features and automatically controls them, so for example rather than alerting you the window is open and the heating is on, it turns it off for you.

What is it like living with it?

Impressive! However, there are a lot of features and notifications but this is where the optional subscription can take the strain.

We did find we needed to adjust the temperature reported by the thermostat. As it was giving a very high temperature when compared with two other thermometers in the room. This will be due to the design, as with our install the thermostat was very near the radiator, where as if fitted horizontally it will be less near so picking up a lower temperature. Not an issue as this was easily changed in the app, by adding an offset value.

It is brilliant being able to control the exact temperature of a room. Comfort plotting is a great feature and clearly allows you to see how ‘comfortable’ each room is.

Alexa integration is seamless once you have set up the skill allowing you to ask;

“Alexa what’s the temperature in the bedroom”

What are our final thoughts?

This is a very well thought out bit of kit!

The only thing stopping us giving this 5 stars is the price is on the high side. We have over 10 radiators in our Smart test home if each had a smart thermostat it would quickly add up. However, this is offset by the 12-month energy saving guarantee, although you would need to save a lot of energy to fully offset the full cost.

That said the same could be said about any smart home tech, it’s not the cheapest solution you often want but the smartest. In terms of smart thermostats, we think we have found the smartest – meet Tado!

TomTom Go Premium is a SatNav that supports IFTTT, allowing it to connect to your smart home!

This allows some great life hacks, for example opening the garage door when you come home or turning off all the lights as you leave.

TomTom Go Premium automatically updates via inbuilt WiFi, as well as working with the TomTom MyDrive app.

One handy feature of the app is recording where you parked your car. Great for preventing embarrassing lost car syndrome!

TomTom Go Premium is available in 5′ and 6′ and is currently only available in Europe.

We are interested in taking TomTom Go Premium for a spin to see how effective the IFTTT integration is. We will update you if we manage to get our hands on one!

The post TomTom releases SatNav with IFTTT integration! appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

Introducing Lightwave’s latest Lighting Starter Kit. Their smart kit comes with everything required to mimic occupancy and control lights via their app.

Thanks to an integration with IFTTT the system can also be connected to a vast range of smart home tech with automation rules.

The post Home Alone…in the tech era! appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

If you are now aware of IFTTT it connects any integrated tech together in appletts, using the principle of If This Then Do That. This becomes very useful the more Smart Tech you have, for example If someone presses your Ring doorbell, mute your Sonos music.

How to connect Sonos to IFTTT

(Required: IFTTT account, Sonos Speaker)

Step 1. Make sure you Sonos system is up to date, to do this open the app and select:

More > Settings > Online Updates

Step 2.  Check your Sonos system is signed into your account, open the app and check:

More > Settings > Account Settings

If you are signed in it will show as Logged in and your username. Make a note of the username and password as it is required later.

Step 3. Visit the IFTTT dedicated Sonos page:  https://ifttt.com/sonos once there click connect.

Step 4. Sign into Sonos – don’t worry you are not giving IFTTT your Sonos credentials, just giving it limited access to the functionality.  If you look at the URL you will see the login is done with “API.Sonos.com” not IFTTT.

Step 5.  Confirm you give permission, this is so it can send commands to your speakers and system.Step 6. IFTTT is now connected to Sonos. You can now choose one of the 28 pre-made appletts or make your own.

Here is selection of our favourite pre-made appletts:

• Reduce the volume when someone rings my Ring doorbell 
• Stop all music if a Nest Protect smoke alarm emergency
• Stop my music when my Uber arrives

Step 7. To make your own applett, click ‘New Applett’. You will now see an empty applett. Click plus to add any trigger, currently Sonos cannot be a trigger only an action.

Here are some ideas we had:

How to connect Ring to Sonos

In this example we are going to make an applett that plays a doorbell sound over Sonos if someone presses our Ring doorbell.Now click + and select Sonos and choose the action:
For this example click Play Favourite.

Step 8. Open the Sonos app and search songs for ‘Doorbell sound effect‘. We found a good selection on Spotify.
Choose the song you select and select ‘Add Song to My Songs’.

Step 9. Refresh the IFTTT page and in the drop down you will now see the Doorbell sound. Select the speaker to play on and press Create action.
Now when anyone presses your Ring doorbell a doorbell sound will sound over your Sonos speaker!

Other ideas we had:

Connect Next Protect to Sonos

In this example we connect Sonos to Nest Protect, in the event of an emergency an alarm is played over Sonos.  To do this simply select Nest Protect as the trigger, selecting Emergency.

Then as above but this time choose an alarm sound and add it to your My Sonos.

Good luck creating your own appletts, let us know what you created in the comments!

For more helpful hints tips and Smart Home news don’t forget to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

The post How to connect Sonos to IFTTT appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

Many of us today are seeking a solution to home security, here I’ll be reviewing a camera from EzViz, parent-owned by Hikvision who are a major player within the global security market and have been since 2001.

The China based company manufacture a number of security devices such as cameras, alarms and sensors and my review is based on one of their cameras, the C2C Mini O.

What does the C2C Mini O do?

The Mini O is a very small, very nice looking Wi-Fi enabled camera with the ability to record footage that can be both cloud-based (subscription required) and/or via SD Card storage (purchased separately and installed within each individual camera).

Like most of the cameras available in today’s market it boasts the following features:

• wide-angle 720p lens
• infrared for night-vision recording
• auto-switching between day and night-vision
• live streaming and alerts
• two-way audio

EZVIZ Mini O C2C Indoor Camera with WiFi

I feel EzViz have built the Mini O around simplicity, the camera is very small in size and very unobtrusive but packs a powerful punch when compared to the bigger players within the market such as Nest. While the body of this camera is plastic, the build feels very good.

Packaged within the box is the Camera, Mains Adapter with accompanied Micro USB Cable and Metal Plates for magnetic use should you wish to install it onto a metal area.

Within the smartphone app there is the ability to create a ‘Motion Detection Area’ and pick exactly where in the cameras view you wish to be alerted of an intruder. This particular setting is ok, I feel it requires some tweaking as I was still sent alerts in areas I had not selected but I like the feature and with improvement can be a very useful tool.

You can also change the sensitivity of the motion detection to the level you are happy with, as well as change the notification sound from Intensive to Soft or Mute.

How easy are they to setup?

Very easy!

After downloading the app (I am using an iPhone, EzViz have their own designated iOS app) I was prompted to create a login, after which I was then prompted to install my first device.

First you scan the QR code, the app detects your device and then you are prompted to connect it to your Wi-Fi network. Within a matter of minutes your camera shows within the app with a live view.

What’s the connectivity?

EzViz have IFTTT capability and I tested this using the designated IFTTT app, I was able to trigger a Philips Hue light to turn on if motion was detected.

Connectivity like this provides the user with many more features to be enabled such as

‘Turn on Sleep Mode when I arrive home’ and ‘Turn your camera off when you leave home’.

These applets were presented when I logged into IFTTT as it recognised I had the EzViz app installed.

The Mini O is also Alexa enabled.

How much does it cost?

The Mini O retails on Amazon for £39.55.

When you consider this price it’s extremely affordable and on the lower end in comparison to it’s competitors.

What’s it like living with it?

It’s a very good camera, it does exactly what it’s expected to do. The app is good, has the required settings and more.

However I feel the UI could do with updating and simplifying as people who may not be tech savvy may struggle with the settings. That said you do get a very solid package for the price.

Footage can be downloaded to your phones picture folder and takes just a couple of minutes to process and you can also view footage via their desktop application for anyone who prefers a laptop or PC view.

For cloud storage, there are four options; two for 7-days and two for 30-days, billed monthly or annually. The costs are:

• 7-days, monthly: £4.99
• 7-days, annually: £49.99
• 30-days, monthly: £9.99
• 30-days, annually: £99.99

One thing I like about the camera setting is the date and time are visible on screen so when footage is stored it’s automatically written into the image. Some market competitors do not have this feature and EzViz have included this which, in my opinion, is a very good decision on their part.

What are our final thoughts?

This is a great camera, especially for the low price!

Anyone looking for security that is simple to set up, has many features available to tailor the experience and does not want to break their wallet I would recommend the Mini O. If you require a camera that has the ability to connect to other third-party apps, this could be the one for you.

As you can expect from Smart Home Geeks this article will be updated when more features become available.

For more information visit: https://www.ezvizlife.com/uk

Review by David Camilleri for Smart Home Geeks.

This allows approved services to directly integrate into the smart speaker network. The first to integrate with the program is automation service IFTTT.

IFTTT is a automation platform that connects smart home tech. Using a rule base system If This Then That.

The service is currently live in beta with limited functionality. Currently supporting:

• Basic playback
• Volume – up / down / mute / unmute
• Play a set song / album / playlist

However there are a selection of default applets to give ideas on what the integration can do.

We have put together a guide on how to connect Sonos to IFFF.

You see the integration here: https://ifttt.com/sonos

The post Sonos goes live on IFTTT appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

Sometimes we are even surprised what can be voice controlled. Today we are looking at an Voice controlled and internet connected…Oil diffuser! Yes you read that correctly you can now talk to your oil diffuser, thanks to Oitmm.

What does the Oitmm oil diffuser do?

It is a 200ml oil diffuser, with two misting modes – continuous mist and intermittent mist. It uses ultra sonic technology to diffuse the oil into the air. This is much safer than traditional candles or heat sources. To use it you add 200ml water and a few drops of your chosen essential oil into the reservoir.
If the diffuser runs out of water it turns off and no heat or flame remains.  It also has seven different colour modes to add a relaxing glow, these can be controlled in the app or on the diffuser itself.
Where this diffuser is different is it connects to Alexa, Google Home and your smart home via IFTTT.

How easy is it to setup?

Easy, the unit itself comes pre-assembled, you just need to add water, oil and plug it in. Adding it to the app was easy, just install the app, give the app your WiFi password and discover the device.
To connect to Alexa you need to install the Smart Life skill in the Alexa app.

You then ask Alexa to discover devices and the diffuser is found.

The discovered name is a bit of a mouthful ‘essential oil diffuser’. We renamed it ‘diffuser’ in the Alexa app as its easier to remember and quicker to say. Once setup and renamed the command is ‘Alexa turn on diffuser’.

What’s the connectivity?

Oitmm has a lot of Smart home tech, it all connects to their Oitmm Smart App. The app is intuitive to use and has added benefit of scenes for controlling multiple devices or if an event occurs.

The diffuser only supports 2.4 GHz WiFi but that’s pretty standard. It supports Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. However where the diffuser gets very smart is it connects to IFTTT allowing you to connect it to your smart home and automate. For example after a few clicks we created a schedule to make it come on and off automatically daily. We also created a an Applet that turns on the diffuser if Footbot (our smart air quality monitor – read the review here)  detects the bedroom humidity level is below optimal. Although as this is not a humidifier the impact is not huge but it helps.

How much does the smart diffuser Cost?

£34.99 on Amazon.co.uk – a very good price considering everything it connects too!

Oittm Smart Oil Diffuser

What’s it like living with it?

Great! The diffuser is very effective yet quiet enough to sleep through. We used lavender oil, great for bedroom relaxation.  The Alexa integration is seamless and works perfectly, as does the IFTTT integration.

What are our final thoughts?

This is the future of oil diffuser – safe simple yet smart, also very effective at spreading amazing smells.

For more information have a look at there website: oittm.com

Sorry international readers currently Monzo is only available on the UK.

Monzo is taking the industry by storm due to its unique and innovative features.  One new feature is the ability to connect Monzo to IFTTT.  If you don’t know what IFTTT is it allows you to connect all your smart tech and devices together in applets. The possibilities are endless!

As Monzo connects to IFTTT you can connect it to Alexa!

In this example we use Alexa to move money into savings at your command. Perhaps one day your feeling rich, or don’t buy that morning coffee? Use this tip to move the money into savings.

How to connect Monzo to Alexa?

(Required: IFTTT account, Monzo Card, Amazon Alexa)

Step 1. Login to IFTTT, and select new applet
Step 2. Click + and select Amazon Alexa, click ‘Say a specific phrase’

Step 3. Choose your trigger, we chose ‘Save money’
Step 4. That is the IF setup now its the THAT – click the + on THAT

Step 5.  Now click on Monzo and enable the connectivity.

(NOTE: You are giving IFTTT limited access to your Monzo account but it cannot withdraw funds only move into pots and perform basic read functionality)

Step 6. Select Move ‘Money into a pot’, If you don’t know how to create a Monzo pot here is more information. Basically they are saving pots within your account.
Step 7.  You now select the pot and the amount, we created a special pot for this and chose £2. If you want to create a special pot you need to do so on the app.

Step 8. You can now review your applet and save it.
Step 9. Test it! Say the trigger as shown above, for example ‘Alexa trigger save money’. Enjoy saving money!
For more helpful hints tips and smart home news don’t forget to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

The post How to connect Alexa to Monzo in 9 simple steps! appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.