The world of smart home technology is undergoing a major overhaul. The well-known provider tado° has recently made far-reaching changes to its API guidelines, which will have a significant impact on the use of smart home integrations. In particular, users who control their heating system via external platforms such as Home Assistant or Homey will have to adapt to new circumstances. These adjustments limit the number of API calls, which is causing heated discussions in the community. We shed light on what these limits mean for users and how they could change the smart home landscape.
- API limitation: tado° limits the number of queries that third-party apps can send to its servers.
- Impact on automations: Regular status queries, which are essential for smooth home automation, are made more difficult by the limit.
- Focus on the app: The changes seem to underline tado°’s ambition to bring users back into their own ecosystem.
- Challenge for the community: The smart home community is looking for solutions to maintain the effectiveness of their automations despite the new restrictions.
The dilemma of data queries
The API limit recently introduced by tado° has far-reaching consequences for the smart home community. Until now, automation systems such as Home Assistant were able to query the status of tado° thermostats at short intervals, for example to check the room temperature or automatically adjust the heating based on presence or absence. With the new regulation, the number of permitted queries has been drastically reduced: from up to 30 queries per minute to just 100 per day. This “rate limiting” forces third-party integrations into a considerably slower operating mode.
The problem lies in the nature of home automation: reactive control requires near real-time communication. If a script waits for the temperature in a room to fall below a certain level and the next data update is 15 minutes away, the intended automation is no longer reliable. The typical scenario: a sensor measures a drop in temperature and triggers an increase in heating. With the new limits, the data delay can mean that the home has already cooled down noticeably before the automation reacts.
The community is concerned because many sophisticated scenarios, from geostatic presence detection to dynamic control based on weather data, can no longer be implemented efficiently. The developers of the Home Assistant integration have already reacted and increased the polling frequency to 300 seconds (5 minutes). Although this is a temporary workaround, it is at the expense of response speed. An alternative solution that would rely on webhooks or push notifications does not exist, as this function is not offered by the tado° API.
What does this mean for users and the future of automation?
The introduction of API limits at tado° is not only a technical adjustment, but also a wake-up call for the smart home community. Many users who have gone to great lengths to transform their home into a seamless, automated system are now faced with unexpected restrictions. This approach shows how vulnerable external automation is to corporate decisions, especially when the critical infrastructure is not directly on the user’s premises but in a provider’s cloud. It underlines the importance of open standards and local control options. Many enthusiasts are now turning to platforms and devices that work without a permanent internet connection or vendor dependency, such as those that support the Matter protocol.
The situation with tado° could set a precedent. It is conceivable that other smart home providers will follow suit in order to promote the use of their own apps or to conserve cloud resources. This would limit the diversity and flexibility of home automation in the long term. The community is therefore actively discussing alternative solutions, whether by switching to other, more open systems or developing creative workarounds. It remains to be seen how tado°’s strategy will develop and whether it will respond to the pressure from the user community. Open and transparent communication on the part of the company could help to restore trust and find a joint solution that meets the interests of both sides.
Tado° has commented on the API restrictions and confirmed that it is a strategic decision. Prices for tado° devices, such as starter kits, remain at around €200 and are available from well-known online retailers and electrical retailers. Availability remains unchanged.
