The Tado° SmartAC is a great thing to transform your Air Conditioner into a smart one and control it from anywhere directly from your iPhone. But there’s one thing that is missing even if it was promised by Tado° it’s the HomeKit compatibility. Sadly, due to some technical specifications, the SmartAC won’t be HomeKit Compatible, officially… But thanks to Homebridge you can add the feature yourself to the Tado° SmartAC. Here is how to do it!
What You Need?
- A Tado° SmartAC
- A Raspberry Pi 3
- A Computer with an SD card reader
- A USB Keyboard/mouse and a screen (if you want to work directly on the Raspberry Pi 3)
Installing Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi 3
This step can be skipped if on your SD card Raspbian is already pre-installed.
- Download the image of the OS Raspbian Stretch Lite
- Download and install Etcher, an image writing tool to install the OS image.
- Connect an SD card reader with the SD card inside.
- Open Etcher and select from your hard drive the Raspberry Pi .img or .zip file you wish to write to the SD card.
- Select the SD card you wish to write your image to.
- Review your selections and click ‘Flash!’ to begin writing data to the SD card.
Enable SSH
Directly from the SD Card
The boot partition on a Pi should be accessible from any machine with an SD card reader, on Windows, Mac, or Linux. If you want to enable SSH, all you need to do is to put a file called ssh in the /boot/ directory.
The contents of the file don’t matter: it can contain any text you like, or even nothing at all. When the Pi boots, it looks for this file; if it finds it, it enables SSH and then deletes the file.
With a Keyboard plugged to your RPi
- Enter
sudo raspi-configin a terminal window - Select
Interfacing Options - Navigate to and select
SSH - Choose
Yes - Select
Ok - Choose
Finish
Finding Your Raspberry Pi
After you install the operating system and connect your Pi to your network you’ll need ssh into it and run some commands.
The default “Raspbian” OS will automatically broadcast its presence on your network under the mDNS name “raspberrypi”. You can reach your Pi easily with the following command:
ssh pi@raspberrypi.local
or
ssh pi@IPofYourRaspberryPi
The default username for Raspbian is pi and the password is raspberry.
Basic Setup Preparations
Once you’re logged into your Pi, you should begin by updating the default system packages.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install git make
Install Node
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | sudo -E bash –
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
Install Avahi and Other Dependencies
sudo apt-get install libavahi-compat-libdnssd-dev
Installation of Homebridge
Install Homebridge using:
sudo npm install -g –unsafe-perm homebridge
Installation of homebridge-tado-ac
- Install the plugin using:
sudo npm install -g homebridge-tado-ac
- Update your configuration file in /home/pi/.homebridge/config.json
To configure it type:sudo nano /home/pi/.homebridge/config.json
- Copy paste the following code and adapt it for you
{
“bridge”: {
“name”: “Homebridge”,
“username”: “CD:22:3D:E3:CE:30”,
“port”: 51826,
“pin”: “031-45-154”
},
“description”: “This is an example configuration for the tado-ac homebridge plugin”,
“platforms”: [
{
“platform”: “TadoAC”,
“name”: “Tado AC”,
“username”: “xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.com”,
“password”: “xxxxxxxxxxx”,
“weatherSensorsEnabled”: false,
“weatherPollingInterval”: 10,
“occupancySensorsEnabled”: false,
“occupancyPollingInterval”: 10,
“anyoneSensor”: false,
“tadoMode”: “MANUAL”,
“durationInMinutes”: 100,
“autoOnly”: false,
“manualControl”: true
}
],
“accessories”: [
]
}
Here is the description of each parameter:
- When done save the file: Press Control-x then Press Y and Press [enter]
-
Now you should be able to run Homebridge:
homebridge
Running Homebridge on Boot
Now you just need to set Homebridge to start every time you reboot your Raspberry Pi to do it you need to install Screen:
sudo apt-get install screen
Then edit the file named rc.local
sudo nano /etc/rc.local
Add this line before the “exit 0” line:
su -c “screen -dmS homebridge homebridge” -s /bin/sh pi
Hit Ctrl+X, then Y to save and exit.
Now reboot your Raspberry Pi:
sudo reboot
If you’re using this method to autostart Homebridge be careful Screen does NOT restart Homebridge when it crashes. So if you’ll need to reboot your Raspberry Pi.
Adding Homebridge to iOS
Using the Home app, you should be able to add the single accessory “Homebridge”, assuming that you’re still running Homebridge and you’re on the same WiFi network. Adding this accessory will automatically add all accessories and platforms defined in config.json.
When you attempt to add Homebridge, it will ask for a “PIN code”. The default code is 031-45-154
And voila now your Tado° SmartAC is HomeKit compatible.
Important Things to Know
The plugin will detect the zones and capabilities of your ACs (according to the Tado app setup) and will give you those capabilities on Home app, so no one should expect any more capabilities (nor any less).
If you have enabled The Thermostatic mode on your Tado SmartAC it’s recommended to disable it if you want to have access to others features such as fan speeds, fan mode, swing, those modes depend on your AC capabilities.
To update homebridge-tado-ac type:
sudo npm install -g homebridge-tado-ac
Acknowledgements
I would like thank @NitayBZ, the developer of the homebridge-tado-ac plugin who helped me set up the plug-in and checked this tutorial. This developer is doing a great job maintaining the plugin and helping users on his GitHub. Thanks again @NitayBZ!
(All the above code and files are provided as is, without any implicit guarantees of any kind. If something is not working you can still ask for help in the comments or on the GitHub but you need to know we are volunteers so don’t expect to answer your question at 3AM if we are sleeping 😉 )
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Source: homebridge GitHub,
NPM,
homebridge-tado-ac GitHub,
raspberrypi.org
Great article, planning to do the same. Have you been able to run any automations from other devices with the Tado? i.e. When a door sensor is open stop the AC from starting?
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Yes you can set automation, for that I recommend using the Eve app. With this app you have access to better and more in depth settings in the automations.
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Thanks for the advice.
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