WANTED - Used PE653 pool controller…(with or without 953/enclosure/expansion)
Yes, I already have one, but I’d like to have a second for running tests and diagnostics without impacting my real pool. If you have decommissioned your PE653 or know of one out of use somewhere please let me know. I’ll pay a reasonable used price. As many of you know, I am trying to support two different platforms with this DTH, this would help.
@magicshot, I wanted to reach out and see if you are still monitoring these boards. I have gotten active again with the DTH, both for ST and HE and even made a post on the Vera board but I haven’t seen any activity there recently.
I expect to have a new version out soon that is more “version aware”. I’ve been working with one user stuck on 3.1 and expect to be able to give him full support, even though the messaging is different for that firmware. Did you have a Vera at one time? One of your posts made me think so. I’m looking for anyone still running 3.3 and I know the Vera community got stuck there for some reason I don’t understand. Any insight?
In an effort to ensure I have good samples from a wide variety of scenarios I’ve been asking for clarification on the physical configurations folks are running. You are the only user I know of on firmware 3.9, but luckily I have not seen any differences from 3.4. I pulled some old messages you posted some time back, so all I need from you is clarification on whether you have an expansion module or not. The messages suggest you do not have a P5043, but it is unclear on whether you have a P4xxx expansion or no expansion at all.
While reading some of your past posts I recall that you wanted the ability to configure everything through the API, and I have added many new APIs since then (2018). You can set the schedules and also the VSP RPMs now. There were also issues with controlling the heater and poll/spa mode for users with the older P4xxx expansion which the newest version will address.
I’m trying to setup the DTH from scratch and I keep getting a “404 Not Found” when trying to copy over your pool control system groovy shown on Post #810 by “wildman”. I have also gone directly to your Github and used that link, same issue occurring. Can you please point me in the right direction for the code.
Hi KeithR: first of all thank you and the other developers for the great work on this project.
I’m very excited to be leveraging the SmartThings hub to control my pool (Pentair pump, filter and heater).
Everything seems to work flawlessly with one exception:
when I update the pool temperature using the intermatic remote control, that new temperature set point is not reflected in the app. All other actions on the remote (circuits on/off) are correctly reflected in the app.
@Patgarbizu, Thank-you for the feedback. Interestingly I just noticed this exact same issue myself just this past week. Many users rely exclusively on the ST App to control their equipment, but others, myself included, continue to use both the App and the Intermatic remote. I have made changes to make the two play nicer together. I expect to have a new release ready soon and you can look forward to a fix to this issue.
@Barrett_Richardson, I was wondering if you still had the Suphammer sniffer tool? If so, I would be interested in buying it from you, unless you are still using it. I have some more sniffing to do and this would be easier than the tricky LINUX based route I went way back when. Let me know.
After 2 years of focusing on the other platform I have updated the DTH with many enhancements and fixes based on my own usage and suggested by many of you in the community. As a result I have now released Version 4.0.2 of the DTH for Smartthings platform. The changes include:
Added P5043 expansion detection. Improved P4043/P4243 expansion handling of Pool/Spa switch and Heater state.
Add deeper refresh() to poll() every 10 minutes
Added more specific log options and reduced base logging (recommend “Low” setting always)
Improve shared control by the DTH AND the PE953 remote.
Implemented Thermostat child device on ST (optional)
Fixed command sending when settings are updated()
Add support for Intermatic firmware v3.1 (old - most users on v3.4)
Numerous other minor bug fixes.
It is NOT necessary to patch this version if you have the 4043/4243 expansion to fix the pool/spa mode or heater display. This new version automatically detects the expansion type. If you had issues with either of these displays then look to this new version for relief.
Note: The DTH name now includes the platform name (“Smartthings”) at the end so you will need to change the DTH selection on your Pool Control device. This also allows you to easily revert to your prior version if desired. As with any significant software update, save your old configuration before updating to the new version.
Sorry if this is an obvious question, but I am not clear on how to use the new Thermostat Child Device. I already have the Switch Child Device DTH installed. Do I need to assign this new handler to one of those child devices?
Keith, been testing for some time and happy to report that it’s working fantastically well. The temperature setting in the app now updates after changes are made to the handheld remote control. Haven’t tried the child device but will do so with a bit more time.
Once again thank you for this great app!
@Patgarbizu, so glad to hear the latest update resolved the “multi-device” issue. Your observation lead me to fix something that had annoyed me but I hadn’t gotten around to addressing it.
I am always gathering log samples from users to better understand varying configurations, versions, etc. Would you mind capturing a log and posting it here? start up a separate browser tab on the SmartThings log and get it started, then set the log level to “low” and save the preferences. This should trigger a whole cascade of messages in the log. Give it a minute or two to settle and then copy and paste it here. Also please note if you have an expansion card (eg: P4243, P5043), valve actuators, or anything else (you previously mentioned a heater, how is that attached to your controller - ie: channel 5 or expansion).
@jeffchristoffer, yes, edit the “Pool Control - Spa Thermostat” and/or “Pool Control - Pool Thermostat” child device and change the “Type” to “Thermostat Child Device”. This applies only to the thermostat child devices, not to the others, leave them as “Switch Child Device”. If you don’t see the thermostat, you may need to remove all of the child devices so that the DTH will recreate all of them, or alternatively, if you are comfortable with CoRE you can directly call the recreateChildren() method on the DTH, which will force any missing child devices to be created.
Let me know if you need any more details on any of this. I would also appreciate a set of logs similar to what I requested in post #835
In case anyone else has to go down this path I was able to update my Intermatic PE653 and PE953 using the Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5. I used my Macbook to do this, but I’d imagine the steps are the same for a windows or linux box. I also upgraded all the way from firmware 2.8 to 3.4 and everything seems to work fine so far. It was a pain in the rear and took a while (wish I’d kept notes) but generally the steps were:
Installed virtual box
Installed windows XP virtual machine from Microsoft
Ran the Intermatic Updater software and selected manually add, and selected COM3 where the z-stick had created a com port (the updater will fail with a warning if you select the wrong com port). The updater software will not automatically detect anything, you’ll need to manually add the PE653 and PE953 to get them to appear in the list of devices (next steps).
On the PE953 selected ‘reset controller’
On the PE953 (this is the part where I wish I’d kept better notes and I may have these a little confused). Select ‘Recv Network Information’ and then select ‘Add device’ on the intermatic updater software.
the PE953 will then appear. Select it, select the firmware file from intermatic and do the update. Took about 20 minutes for me.
For the PE653 same thing, except you need to press the button on the PE653 to initiate the connection. The update again took around 20 minutes.
Congratulations @chcha, and welcome to the PE653 ST community! Were you previously running the ST 653 DTH on your Intermatic firmware v2.8? If so, how much success, or lack thereof, did you experience? The oldest firmware I had previously seen was v3.1 and that definitely had issues with the DTH we’ve been running for years, although a recent patch provided a level of backward compatibility.
Anyway, that’s water under the bridge for you now, welcome to v3.4. I look forward to hearing more about your journey (see post #825). Best of luck!
Hi @KeithR thanks for your excellent work on the smart things app. I did get it working with 3.4 (after I realized there are two smart things apps and I need the ‘classic’ one) and it is amazing to see it all working. Unfortunately I did not try the 2.8 firmware with the app before the upgrade - I had been looking for the feature that controlled the pump speed when switching to spa mode which 2.8 didn’t have, so I had already made the upgrade before trying it.
I am trying to get caught up. I updated to your latest cost 3.06. It seems to be working o.k. so far. I want to do further testing. I noticed they are moving everyone to the new app version and discontinuing the classic version in October. I have noticed the GUI of the pool controller app doesn’t seem to function in the new version. I am not sure if I am doing something wrong or if that is expected. I know my wife likes using the GUI version of the pool controller. I will do some testing of the RPM and other settings and see If I have any issues, and report back on those.