iAquaLink still down for anyone?

Jump to latest Follow Reply
?? I have the PDA in addition to the iAqualink control. So Phone/Computer and also PDA. I thought all these systems had a backup? Are you saying for some of you all you have is the Phone/Computer interface and if that is down you can't do anything? I assume if your Internet connection is down you can't control anything as well. Don't you have the wall controller?
 
PoolGate said:
?? I have the PDA in addition to the iAqualink control. So Phone/Computer and also PDA. I thought all these systems had a backup? Are you saying for some of you all you have is the Phone/Computer interface and if that is down you can't do anything? I assume if your Internet connection is down you can't control anything as well. Don't you have the wall controller?
Click to expand...

Im wondering the same thing. I’m waiting on PB to come setup and program my iAquaLink system. Should I add a hard remote or panel in case the internet is down or something like this current situation pops up again?
 
PoolGate said:
?? I have the PDA in addition to the iAqualink control. So Phone/Computer and also PDA. I thought all these systems had a backup? Are you saying for some of you all you have is the Phone/Computer interface and if that is down you can't do anything? I assume if your Internet connection is down you can't control anything as well. Don't you have the wall controller?
Click to expand...
Yes - the way my pool was installed, if my internet connection is down, then the only way I have to control the pool is with the main panel in service mode. The installer never mentioned the possibility of adding additional controls, and I didn't know to ask about it.

Once I realized that, it always bugged me. But in practice, the internet was only down when the power was out, so it didn't make much difference. Until now -- power is on, internet is up, iaqualink cloud system is (still...) down - kind of maddening, to tell the truth.

My understanding is that the iaqualink unit is running the scheduler to turn the pump on and off, etc., so I was a little worried that the scheduled events would stop happening. But this morning, the pump appears to have turned on as usual, so at least there's that. It's true that I have absolutely no way to modify the schedules without the cloud connection, though (but I don't need to).



I once again tried logging out and back in on the app on my phone and at least I got a new message: "iAqualink Outage -- As a result of the server maintenance operation, we are experiencing intermittent connectivity issues with devices. We are working to fix the issue and will update this message as soon as the problem is resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience."


On my network, the iaqualink device is a complete black box - there's no user interface of any kind - it just gets an IP address through DHCP and then mysteriously contacts their server, I guess. When that breaks, it's a bad situation.

It's funny - I have adamantly avoided this vendor-controlled device model in all my other home automation endeavors where I could, but I was learning to live with this one. Now I know better.
 
Thing is I can't program through the PDA but I can control everything from it. Since I upgraded my own system to the iAqualink (it was only PDA) I know how to convert it back should I ever need to. The PDA was the primary programming point but once you convert to iAqualink (replace the chip) the PDA becomes on/off device control only and the phone/web interface become primary. Not sure why they can't make both have full control and programming. Computer intelligence in this industry still is pretty lame. They need true developers and programmers to get in there so it doesn't appear like it is an after-thought.
 
In my own and somewhat unrelated experiments with hack code to control a pool controller I will say that while I appreciate the desire to have dual control scenarios that its not viable with the way most home automation hubs currently work. Once my hub was controlling scheduling, the handheld by attrition had to be secondary.

Aqualink is not alone in this phenom at all. Overall, home automation is just not mature enough to be stable. There was a guy on smartthings who was locked out of his gated house for hours during the last hub outage ;) Which goes to show...always have a hard wired backup scheme ;)
 
My (home grown) home automation system has its own scheduler function that works very well. If I manage to replace iaqualink with something that I can actually control, I'll just use that for the schedules.


Swampwoman said:
Aqualink is not alone in this phenom at all. Overall, home automation is just not mature enough to be stable. There was a guy on smartthings who was locked out f hs gated house for hours during the last hub outage ;) which goes to she...always have a hard wired backup scheme ;)
Click to expand...
true enough. well, iAqualink may not be alone, but it's definitely toward the back of the group since it offers absolutely zero fail-over to local control.


I wonder if the pool installer crowd will take this as a lesson and start recommending a parallel hardwired backup.


edit: just went and cycled by iAqualink unit again hoping that would get it to reconnect - still nothing. And by 'nothing', I mean a red dot in the phone app, and a "504 Gateway Time-out" on the website version
 
antichef said:
I also saw something called Autelis which is cheaper and looks like it has a higher level interface, so that might be the way to go. I'll check back in. I hope iaqualink comes back up
before these things get shipped here and I have them up and running.
Click to expand...

I ran across that in my research last night as well. It looks like the options are an Autelis, Jandy Serial adapter, spa side remote, or one touch keypad. I definitely need something and need to do some comparison of the features. Down here in the hurricane zone, week long internet outages can happen. I think the most important feature that is lost when iAqualink goes out is that I can't change the speed of my pump from anywhere...and that means I can't run my pool cleaner.

The Autelis I think can be connected to Alexa...but that needs the cloud for that.
 
foursix said:
I ran across that in my research last night as well. It looks like the options are an Autelis, Jandy Serial adapter, spa side remote, or one touch keypad. I definitely need something and need to do some comparison of the features. Down here in the hurricane zone, week long internet outages can happen. I think the most important feature that is lost when iAqualink goes out is that I can't change the speed of my pump from anywhere...and that means I can't run my pool cleaner.

The Autelis I think can be connected to Alexa...but that needs the cloud for that.
Click to expand...

I think the hardwired one-touch is your best bet for backup. You could also install the PDA but it is a little more. You'll be able to change pump speeds and salt cell percent with either as well as turn anything/everything on/off I believe. You just won't be able to change the programs.

I think their entire system if described as above needs to be scrapped. There should be "the program" embedded on the device with API capability so that any device is able to make calls to the main program. This would include the PDA, Phones, Internet, One-Touch, etc. It is so Mickey Mouse at the moment!
 
PoolGate said:
I think their entire system if described as above needs to be scrapped. There should be "the program" embedded on the device with API capability so that any device is able to make calls to the main program. This would include the PDA, Phones, Internet, One-Touch, etc. It is so Mickey Mouse at the moment!
Click to expand...

Exactly. Also Mickey Mouse how the app has the "Web" button which opens an embedded browser so you can access more functions. Why not just build those into the app? I get irritated every time I see that blue "waiting for connection" screen and the 1992 animated scroller. So amateurish.

I'm pretty sure you can do everything from the one-touch, including programming, because that's what I believe the service techs bring out and plug into the panel to work on the system.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Still down here.

While we're on the subject of this technological marvel, does anyone else regularly get the "Connection Lost" message in the app? My pool is only a couple months old and I get it quite frequently, maybe 5 or 6 times per week. My system was originally installed over wifi and I thought that might be the cause so I switched over to the hardwired ethernet option (already had a cat 6 run to my pool pad) and it's still happening.
 
Owner/Builder said:
My system hasn't worked at all for 3 days and I have sent them numerous messages. I hope the reason t he system is down is that the are setting it up to operate with Siri and Google Home
Click to expand...

The reason they're still down is because they don't experience any immediate loss in revenue/income as a result of an outage (as opposed to an ecommerce company). If they experienced lost revenue for every minute of downtime, I'm sure the end result would have been different.

I've been experiencing similar end results with Smarthings. They don't lose money when they have an outage, therefore there's less importance placed on smooth deployments. Very symptomatic of an understaffed/inexperienced IT operations group where upgrades are rushed, minimally tested, un-rehearsed, with no fail-back or contingency plans.

All this so we can turn on the spa while we're away from home?
 
Mine works fine... I had to do the angry march out to the control panel to turn on my cleaner yesterday after a swim because I had a bout of poor reading comprehension. I glazed over the three emails and pop ups thinking it was supposed to be 8am to 11am not PM. Whoops

Just your average satisfied customer here :) now if my scheduled events didn't happen that would have been another story.

If I really needed to adjust my schedule I guess I could have plugged in the old chip and used my PDA that I've been too lazy to sell.
 
Thanks Captain. You are absolutely right and I also did not see the PM versus AM. Doh!!

I am jealous that you get emails on this topic. I get zero. I called and asked Zodiac for help to ensure I'm on the list. Still nada. Is anyone else NOT getting the email notifications about this?

And oh, by the way, my access is back up through my laptop. Still down on the app, though I've logged in and out many times, killed the app, etc.


2pm pst: Main App screens are up! But in exchange, web access through the app and/or laptop, is down. Argh!
 
Last edited:
still down here
but the error has changed when accessing from website
The app error is same as yesterday

Ironic that they announced the ne3xt version last month. Its supposed to support Alexa and other Ifttt systems. But based on the video on their FBpage it doesn't look like an upgrade. Its more of a rip and replace.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply