Wanted everyone to know about this new-ish device, the "Pool Control" by Autelis. I have a Jandy RS-8 OneTouch and had been trying forever to figure out how to get control from the house and also my home automation system. The pool is located 150 ft away from the house, and to run a 4 conductor wire would probably be 250ft when all was said and done. On top of that, we had a lightening strike last year which knocked out a bunch of equipment that had buried wires, so I did not want to add another vulnerable component. Trying to work around these issues, I spent several frustrating months trying various RS485 wireless bridges, but it turns out that Jandy uses a proprietary protocol that does not play well with standard RS485.

Nlagaros on the Perceptive Automation boards found the Pool Control by Autelis and pointed it out. The Pool Control wires directly to the 4-conductor RS OneTouch output and is seen as just another keypad. It has an ethernet socket that can plug directly into your network. There is a built-in web interface that allows full equipment control from a computer or smartphone on the network, and it has an RS-OneTouch emulation that allows full programming of the system from the networked device - you can pull up the RS OneTouch controller and program the system from your smartphone! So, with the ethernet output, I was able to simply hook the system into a spare Apple Airport Express N set up as a wireless extender, and now my pool can be controlled inside my house from any computer or handheld on the network via a simple 10.0.1.XX address. I have WiFi out at the pool now, too. I should add that I *think* if one sets up port forwarding that one could log in when away from the network, but I haven't done that. It is very simple, however, to use a VPN such as Team Viewer or, for the Mac, RemoteTap to log on to a home computer from afar, pull up a browser window and navigate to the Pool Control web interface. So, it can really be controlled from anywhere pretty easily without a full-blown home automation setup.

On top of that, Perceptive Automation makes the Indigo home automation control software for Mac computers, and because Autelis has a telnet interface in the firmware, the user who bought the Autelis initially was able to make a plugin for the Indigo system so that it could be used in HA with full status feedback. I've been able to integrate the Jandy into my home control iPhone pages, and now can monitor and control the pool's basic functions from anywhere. The pics are screen grabs from the Indigo touch control pages, which are user-created. The last pic is a shot of the RS OneTouch emulation, which works every bit as well as the physical keypad. It is only available over the network, however.

Overall the Pool Control is a great device, and I highly recommend it. The Autelis folks have been extremely supportive and are interested in extending the control to the different Jandy controllers. Don't know their other plans but I'd imagine they will also support other manufacturers in the future.

Hope you all find this helpful. Please note that I am just an end user and have no other affiliation with Autelis or Perceptive Automation aside from using their products.

Nice but Zodiac/Jandy has an u/g kit with wireless capabilities, iOS app, and soon, an Android app to control the RS automation system.

Scott

What is u/g? Also, does the Zodiac/Jandy work over standard WiFi? Does it have a serial protocol to interface with a home automation system? What's the price? The Autelis unit is $295.00.

U/G is upgrade.

It's a new PCB and an antennae. In the antennae is an 10/100 Ethernet connection. Hook it to your router and you're good to go.

IIRC, it's about $500, including firmware! Even older controllers can be upgraded now for a lot less that they used to be.


Scott

I guess the home automation interface is still extra?

This good to hear. I have been waiting for this for over a year. It appears that the RS kit includes a new board with type R firmware.

What I don't understand is how this new board knows what the original chip was and how many relays needs to be controlled.

I'm working on a similar Indigo plugin for my Pentair Intellitouch system (through it's RS232 serial interface). Again, it will be nice to control the pool and auxilliary circuits from my iPhone.

Like you note here for Jandy, my pool builder tried to sell me on a similar pre-canned setup from Pentair that would let me turn on the spa etc... from my iPhone.

Ultimately though, the main reason to have this kind of setup isn't just remote/iPhone control, it's that it hooks it in fully to my Home Automation system. My 'All Off' command will be able to shut the pool lights down with it. You can store a 'scene' for the whole backyard that not only turns on certain yard lights, etc... but sets the pool lights and firepit up too. Plus, you'll be able to monitor temps (which is something I'm really excited about) so I'll be able to set up a rule to make an announcement on my whole-house audio system when the spa has reached its set-temp.

So if you want to 'control your pool from your iPhone', by all means, save yourself some trouble and get the setup that Jandy or Pentair sell. If you want to do a lot more than that, you'll need something like hamw and nlagaros have.

Swancoat has nicely described the difference between remote control and automation. My Pool Control is working very well, and was quite reasonably priced. I have already incorporated the pool light into my backyard scenes so it goes on with my moon lights. Can't wait to get the whole house audio announce the temp!