I’m having a pool installed and they are trying to talk me into a $2800 Automation Controller. I’m thinking this is ridiculous overkill as my pool is just one body of water with a variable speed pump and two color led lights. So essentially, all this controller would do is allow me to use my phone to turn on/off the pump, change speeds, create a pump schedule and control the color/schedule the two LED lights. If I added a chemical sense & dispense, a spa, more lights, etc. I could start to see the expense, but since I’m in the early stages of SmartThings automation control for the house, I’m wondering if there are options to control/schedule the pump and lights with SmartThings.
In the manual, I see information about using up to 3 relays to control the speed (page 16). And I’m thinking I can just use a heavy duty appliance controller to power the pump all the way on/off or use another relay on the remote on off terminals as a remote stop switch (page 18). Does anyone have any experience with what might work to use Z-wave modules/relays to Power the Pump On/Off and then control the speeds?
The Hayward Colorlogic 320 lights ( Link to manual https://tinyurl.com/hdc6mvz for smaller versions of what I will have) might be more of a challenge maybe for SmartThings, which is really crappy considering a Z-wave controller should be an option… but anyhow the manual (page 9 & 10) mentions that the light colors/modes are selected by a series of on/off cycles, although they do not go into great detail about how many cycles for what modes, how quick the cycle has to be, etc.
Does anyone have any thoughts or advice about making this work with SmartThings? I’m thinking if I can find the right Z-wave compatible low voltage relays that the pool pump speeds should not be too difficult, it’s just I’m new at this and although I understand relays from my days of car audio, I just want to ask the community before jumping in blind headfirst so to speak.
There are a lot of different ways to approach this. You might start by taking a look at the project reports on the pools list in the quick browse lists in the community – created wiki. Then you can see how other people have approached similar projects.
One thing to note which is really important is that you can’t just use a device intended for indoor use in the “splash zone” of a pool because of galvanic corrosion. You really need devices designed for that environment or they can literally catch fire.
As far as the pump, one of the least expensive options for that environment will be the zigbee Relay devices from smartenIT. They work well with SmartThings and are specifically designed for a pool/pond environment. They are more expensive than “comparable” HVAC devices, but again, that’s because they are designed for the challenges of a pool environment. Shop around because prices vary a lot, I’m just putting this one here is an example.
Of course if you were planning to run wires to control switches inside the house, then you don’t have to worry about the environmental issues, and you have a lot more device choices.
As far as the pattern input, when you look at the project reports on the pools list there are a couple there that had different patterns for changing color lights, etc., and you could see how people handle that. Anything that was done with “rule machine,” which is no longer available, would now be done with core.