Smart thermostat company Tado° has introduced a new feature for its heating control application, AI Assist. The company states the new feature leverages artificial intelligence to help households reduce their heating bills and carbon emissions.
The company’s new AI Assist feature is a paid subscription service, available for Tado° X customers at €29.99 per year or €3.99 per month. This new service builds on the existing Auto Assist subscription, which automated geofencing and open window detection. Existing Tado° X customers with an Auto Assist subscription will be upgraded to AI Assist at no extra cost. Auto Assist remains an optional subscription for the older V3+ customers.
According to Tado°, heating and hot water constitute approximately 80% of the average household’s energy costs. The company claims that with AI Assist, customers can achieve savings of up to 55% compared to using Tado° without the new AI feature.
Christian Deilmann, Co-Founder of Tado°, stated that AI Assist was developed in-house. It has been trained on over 120 billion hours of anonymised heating data, collected over 15 years from more than 1 million connected homes. This data-driven approach is intended to move beyond simple automation, where devices follow pre-set rules, to a system that predicts and optimises heating in real-time.
The company’s recent customer survey reportedly indicated a strong interest in AI-powered features, with over half of respondents rating them as important.
AI Assist includes several features the company says are designed to enhance heating efficiency and comfort:
- Adaptive Heating: This function learns the specific heat-up and cool-down characteristics of each room. It fine-tunes the control of Smart Radiator Thermostats to optimise both comfort and energy consumption.
- Preheat Before Arrival: Using machine learning, AI Assist aims to predict the user’s return time and preheat the home accordingly.
- Energy IQ: This feature provides insights into energy usage, intended to help users make informed decisions about their heating.
- Holiday Mode: This allows users to set heating to a reduced level for the duration of a holiday, with the aim of ensuring the home is comfortable upon their return while avoiding unnecessary energy use.
The Tado° X range, introduced in 2024, is the latest generation of the company’s smart heating products and is designed to integrate with the new AI Assist feature. The range includes:
- Smart Thermostat X: A device that replaces existing room thermostats, enabling control via the Tado° app or a smart speaker.
- Smart Radiator Thermostat X: A product for controlling individual radiators from the app.
- Wireless Temperature Sensor X: An accessory for enhancing the precision of temperature control with the Smart Radiator Thermostats.
- Heat Pump Optimizer X: A device for controlling heat pump temperatures and schedules, compatible with various types of heat pumps.
- Bridge X: The central hub that connects all Tado° X products to the internet.
AI Assist is available to Tado° X customers via subscription through the app.
