How to add tado to Apple HomeKit

Smart Thermostats are one of the most common devices people add to their smart homes after lighting and voice assistants.

Tado systems offer affordable and easy to install solutions and over the years have had some very good deals, rapidly increasing their popularity and install base, making them one of the most popular options in the UK alongside Nest and Hive.

If you have a tado system and use Apple Home, you’ll likely want to get it setup, but first you need to ensure your system is compatible.

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Is Tado compatible with HomeKit?

The short answer is yes, however there is a caveat, you must have the latest version of the tado bridge, specifically the HomeKit-enabled internet bridge.

The HomeKit-enabled internet bridge comes bundled with the tado starter kit V3 and newer, meaning if you have an old starter kit (such as the Starter Kit V2) you won’t be able to use your tado system with HomeKit without either upgrading your bridge to the latest version (which is quite expensive), or implementing a workaround.

If your bridge looks like the one on the left, unfortunately it’s not HomeKit compatible (officially).

Image Source: https://support.tado.com/en/articles/3392818-how-do-i-perform-the-upgrade-from-my-current-bridge-to-the-homekit-enabled-internet-bridge

How to enable Tado in HomeKit if you have a V2 bridge (official way)

The official and easiest way to enable HomeKit and allow you to control your tado thermostat from the Apple Home application is by simply upgrading your legacy bridge to a HomeKit-enabled internet bridge.

You can purchase the bridge directly from tado here.

Image Source: https://uk.shop.tado.com/products/internet-bridge-1?variant=40138505093315

You can then follow these instructions to replace your bridge within the tado app.

How to enable Tado in HomeKit if you have a V2 bridge using Homebridge (unofficial way)

It’s unfortunate that the official route to use HomeKit with older tado systems requires a seemingly unnecessary hardware upgrade, however don’t despair as we’ll show you how to enable your system with the use of a clever piece of software called Homebridge.

If you are running a home server, or have a spare raspberry pi laying around then you can very quickly setup Homebridge and make your legacy tado system work (perfectly) with Apple HomeKit.

I have personally been using this setup and have experienced no issues!

Homebridge allows you to integrate smart home devices that don’t natively support HomeKit, there are currently over 2,000 plugins supporting thousands of smart devices, including tado!

We’ve created a tutorial on how to install homebridge on ESXI, but it supports many other options (including docker).

You can follow the installation instructions on the official homebridge github wiki here https://github.com/homebridge/homebridge/wiki

Once installed, getting it to work with tado is simple.

From the homebridge web interface go to;

Plugins > Type tado > Install Homebridge Tado Platform

Once installed all you need to do is login with your tado credentials

Finally, scan the QR code displayed on the Homebridge web interface

And that’s it. You’ll now have full control of your tado system within the Apple Home app, without the need to purchase a costly new HomeKit-enabled internet bridge.