Trace, optimise and evidence energy use in your HMOs
Warm tenants. Smaller bills.
SwiftTrace connects to your tado° smart heating, cuts wasted energy, and lets tenants ask for extra heat when they need it. You also get temperature records to support your HMO licence.
Projected £1,314 a year across three of our own HMOs: £864 from what we found, plus an assumed £450 from heating caps.
Started at 22:10 on Tuesday. Check the room before the next inspection.
What you get
Lower bills, fewer surprises, proof when you need it.
Stop paying for heat nobody needs
Tenants ask for warmth when they want it, up to the temperature and time you set. They stay comfortable and you stop paying to heat empty rooms.
Catch unauthorised heaters and air conditioning
A plug-in heater or portable AC pushes up your electricity bill and is a safety risk. We flag the room, with no cameras and no entering rooms, and you decide what to do.
Find out if you're on the wrong tariff
We compare your real half-hourly usage with the tariffs we check, show you when another tariff looks cheaper, and walk you through the switch if you choose to.
Be ready when the council asks
A temperature log for every room, so you can answer a licensing complaint or a claim with data instead of memory.
Heating caps
Reasonable warmth, without the runaway bill.
Balancing reasonable temperatures against cost has always been difficult for landlords. A heating cap solves that. You choose the temperature and how long it applies, then the room settles back to your normal maximum.
For example, 23°C for 2 hours, or any other combination that suits the property. tado° lets a tenant turn a room up to 25°C. We can hold the limit wherever you want it, per property, per room or by time of day.
- Any temperature, for any length of time you choose, then back to your standard cap
- Keep a minimum so rooms stay inside licence conditions
- Change it for a whole portfolio in one place
Unauthorised heating and cooling
The plug-in heater or AC you didn't know about.
Tenants who feel cold, or hot, buy their own fan heaters and portable air conditioners. You pay for the electricity, and an old circuit, a bedroom and a cheap heater are a poor mix.
- Extra cost. A 2 kW heater on for five evening hours uses 10 kWh. On Octopus Flexible in Cambridge, at 26.6p per kWh (from October 2026), that is about £2.66 a night, or £80 a month, on your bill.
- Safety risk. Extra load on old wiring, extension leads and heaters left running are a fire risk in a licensed HMO.
- Hard to see. You only find out at the next inspection, or when the bill arrives.
- We spot the pattern. A room that warms while its radiator valve is closed, or electricity use that jumps at night, is a sign of a plug-in heater or portable AC.
- You get a flag. A possible detection for that room and time, never an accusation. No cameras and no entering rooms.
- You decide. Check the room before the next inspection, talk to the tenant, or fix the underlying cold room.
Room 3 warmed 3.7°C with its radiator off. Started at 22:10 on Tuesday. Example data
Tariff selection
Make sure every house is on the right tariff.
The best tariff depends on how a house really uses energy, not on the average home. Most landlords never check, so they stay on whatever the last tenant or supplier set up.
- We read real half-hourly usage from your energy supplier
- We compare it against the tariffs we check and show you when another looks cheaper
- We guide you through the switch, house by house
We do not compare the whole market. We may get a commission if you switch, and we will always tell you when we do.
| Current tariff | Economy 7 |
| Usage pattern | Mostly daytime |
| Better fit | Flexible tariff |
| Possible saving | £186 a year |
Based on one of our own HMOs. A projected saving, not a guarantee.
HMO licensing
HMO licence heating evidence, room by room.
Councils expect adequate heating in every habitable room. When a tenant says it was cold, or an inspector asks, you can show a record instead of arguing.
- Per-room temperature history
- A PDF report for inspections and licence renewals
- Cold-room alerts before a tenant complains
Heating compliance report
| Property | 25 Example Road |
| Period | 1 Oct to 31 Oct |
| Rooms meeting your 18°C minimum all month | 5 of 6 |
| Longest cold spell | 2 h 10 min · Room 4 |
| Heater use | Possible · 1 room |
| Heating cost | £312 |
You set the thresholds to match your own council's licence conditions. The report is supporting evidence for your records, not legal advice or a guarantee of licence compliance.
How it works
Go live in about 15 minutes per house.
Connect
Sign in with your tado° account and connect your Octopus Energy account (other suppliers coming). No hardware to fit and no visit needed. tado° V3 today, with other systems being tested.
We watch
Room temperatures, heating demand and boiler behaviour are logged every few minutes and checked against rules built from real HMOs.
You act
A plain weekly email says what changed, what to fix and what it saved. Alerts arrive the same day when something looks wrong.
Savings
What we have found in our own HMOs.
These are projected annual savings from real findings in our own Cambridge properties, based on their actual usage. They are not a promise for yours, and the heating saving range below is an assumption we have not yet measured.
| Property | Finding | £ a year |
|---|---|---|
| HMO 1 | Better tariff found: Economy 7 to a flexible tariff | 186 |
| HMO 2 | Better tariff found: Octopus Agile (half-hourly prices) | 103 |
| HMO 3 | Plug-in fan heater found (assumed 2 kW, 12 hours a day) | 575 |
| All properties | Heating cap and time limit (assumed, not yet measured) | 450 |
| Total | Three properties | 1,314 |
The heating row is an assumption: £150 a year for each property (mid case), so £450 across three. The fan heater figure assumes a typical 2 kW heater for 12 hours a day over 90 winter days (December to February) at 26.6p per kWh (Octopus Flexible, Cambridge), and will change with real hours. Low and high cases for heating would give totals of about £1,089 and £1,539 a year.
Per property, assuming a £1,500 yearly heating bill, so 5% to 15% saved, with £150 the mid case. This is an assumption, not a measurement: the low, mid and high cases are roughly 0.5°C, 1°C and 1.5°C lower average room temperature, at about 10% of heating energy per degree. We will replace it with measured before-and-after figures from December 2026.
Pricing
Simple pricing, per connected device.
A device is a thermostat or radiator valve we monitor. Prices are per device per month and exclude tado° Auto-Assist (£29.99 per year per home), which you pay to tado° directly.
Monitor
- Room temperature tracking
- Weekly report
- Cold-room alerts
Compliance
- Everything in Monitor
- Licence evidence reports
- Heater and AC detection
Optimise
- Everything in Compliance
- Tariff comparison and switching help (we may earn a commission)
- Portfolio view for many properties
Questions
Landlords ask us
Which heating systems work?
tado° V3 today. We are testing other systems with open APIs. If yours is not listed, tell us and we will check.
Do you need to enter tenants' rooms?
No. Everything is read from your existing tado° controls. No cameras or microphones, and we do not monitor people. We flag temperature patterns, such as a possible heater, for you to check.
What about tenants' privacy?
Room temperatures can show when a room is in use, so they count as personal data. You, as the landlord, decide how the data is used and should tell tenants in your tenancy paperwork. We can give you suggested wording. Data is stored in the EU on Cloudflare and only your team can see your properties.
Who is behind SwiftTrace?
SwiftTrace is built by a Cambridge HMO landlord of 16 years, first for our own houses. It is a trading name of Growcyber Ltd (company number 17492746). We are independent of tado° and Octopus Energy and not endorsed by them.
Do I pay tado° anything?
Yes. Auto-Assist is paid to tado° directly, currently £29.99 per year per home. It is separate from our fee and stays on your own tado° account.
Can I cancel?
Yes. SwiftTrace is billed monthly and you can cancel at any time, with no minimum term.
How do you detect plug-in heaters?
A room that warms quickly while its radiator is off, or faster than the radiator alone can deliver, is flagged as a possible heater for you to check. It is a signal, not proof.
Get started
See your own property on the dashboard.
Send your details and we will arrange a short demo. Early landlords get 40% off their first year.