Innovation

The company tado° believes in state-of-the-art intelligent technology that fully automatically ensures that no energy is wasted. That’s why they created cloud-powered smart thermostats for heating and air conditioning. Both products work with a geo-aware app. When the last person leaves the house, tado° automatically adjusts the temperature at home to save energy. As soon as the first person starts approaching, the system reacts to ensure the perfect home temperature is reached when the resident arrives. In addition, tado° integrates weather forecasts and building characteristics. With its fully automatic climate control, tado° makes the home more comfortable and helps save money and energy. The second generation tado° is the only one compatible with all manufacturers in Europe.

Inspiration

While Christian (founder and CEO of tado°) was studying at MIT, he and his flat mates always talked about how their air conditioner wasted energy due to the lack of an intelligent control system. Then when Christian got back to Germany he had the same problem with his heating system: turn it down to save money and energy, but come home to a cold house, or leave the heating on to keep the house warm, but face a large heating bill.

Being a mechanical engineer with a focus on energy technology, Christian knew there must be a better option. So he and his university friend Johannes, helped by Valentin, joined forces and started to work on an intelligent solution to this problem.

The initial prototypes were soldered in their living rooms with friends and family being the first to try out the new technology. After numerous modifications tado° was officially born in 2011 to drastically reduce our home energy consumption without sacrificing on comfort. Soon after, to help bring tado°’s vision to market, Christian’s childhood friend, Leopold von Bismarck, was brought in as a partner and the company has continued to grow ever since.

Overall impact

More than one third of global energy consumption is used for the heating and cooling of buildings. With heating and AC taking the largest share of a household’s energy bill, tado° is active in the most relevant field with a direct effect on the environment. To date, tado° customers have already saved as much energy equal to 662 average tanker trucks worth of gasoline. With the upcoming introduction of our multi-zone heating as well as the tado° Smart Radiator Valves, the current potential compatibility of 190 million households will be increased up to 250 million potential EU households.

Business benefit

tado° produces smart thermostats for heating and cooling in order to save energy and thus money.

Social and environmental benefit

Greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced by 20 % by 2020. With 15 % of the total CO2 emissions, private households constitute the third largest item. An OECD household uses 52 % of its energy on heating – the largest position in an energy bill. This consumption is currently controlled by non-smart technology that has been outdated for decades. tado°’s mission is to make all of these old systems actually smart and energy efficient – achieving higher comfort with less energy consumption. Using tado° has a significant, positive effect on the individual CO2 footprint of a household. tado° has proven energy savings up to 31 % and has already been endorsed by the Swiss government since February 2015. The Swiss FOEN certification officially confirms tado°’s greenhouse gas emission reduction.

Interview

Anna Harbauer, PR Department