IntelliCenter + single IntelliValve controlling multiple water features

It's surprising how far behind pool stuff is verses other home automation. Probably because it's such a "niche" market, but setting up communication with a valve that already has 3.75 degree stop points able to be programmed should really not be that hard at all. Really seems like something a developer could do pretty quickly... same thing goes for the microbrite/globrite set up - automation means turning the circuit on and off automatically? Fine, but pretty strange!

It's not a technology issue, but rather that Pentair is keeping the protocol proprietary. A little similar to Z-Wave with their proprietary specification, but they finally relented this year and made it an open standard. We can live in hope that Pentair/Hayward will follow their path, but I wouldn't hold your breath.
 
It's not a technology issue, but rather that Pentair is keeping the protocol proprietary.
Yea I guess what I mean is that they already went through the trouble to set up the functionality in the valve so it can't possibly be much more work to give full control to intellicenter. Go ahead and pay one of your developers for literally a week of work to write the software to communicate with the valve - I don't get why they wouldn't do that. The LED thing at least makes more sense because they want it to be designed to be plug and play for systems without intellicenter and it looks like it's fully functional, just slow. It also adds unnecessary processing power on the LED side - they could make a version of microbrites for like $50 (so $100 to us) if it was just a normal RGBW LED driven by the intellicenter itself.

With so many smart devices available and affordable, I'm just surprised at how little this seems to have developed over the past years. Kudos to you guys who have been pestering them to get this stuff done!! Looks like I'm getting a pool at the right time in terms of technology catching up...
 
So, here we are 4 years later, 2022... I received an updated firmware, 1.064, and was hopeful that this would contain the updates described here.... but, not seeing anything in the release notes, nor any additional functionality in the system. Anyone have a solution to this issue yet? Thanks!
@AZPoolUser28
Nope, still nothing.
Still no solution either. That is not to say that there wasn't some outstanding effort and time spent by some members here. There were a handful of folks that were collaborating on efforts to try and hack/jailbreak into the IntelliValve. Some even fried a couple of actuators in their efforts. There was some progress that appeared promising at times but nothing ever resulted in success.

Guess we're just at the mercy of Pentair if this ever does happens. But I'm not holding my breath.
Last I heard from the IntelliCenter Product Manager on this topic, timeline for release to allow the IntelliValve on the 485 bus was planned for Q3 2021. :laughblue:
r.
 
@AZPoolUser28
Nope, still nothing.
Still no solution either. That is not to say that there wasn't some outstanding effort and time spent by some members here. There were a handful of folks that were collaborating on efforts to try and hack/jailbreak into the IntelliValve. Some even fried a couple of actuators in their efforts. There was some progress that appeared promising at times but nothing ever resulted in success.

Guess we're just at the mercy of Pentair if this ever does happens. But I'm not holding my breath.
Last I heard from the IntelliCenter Product Manager on this topic, timeline for release to allow the IntelliValve on the 485 bus was planned for Q3 2021. :laughblue:
r.
I'm one of those who tried, I actually pulled the Firmware from the device and started decompiling back in October. I have about 1/2-2/3rds of the firmware annotated, I'm mostly convinced the current firmware doesn't support doing anything via rs485 for the valve.
The current FW does have a bootloader mode that will support firmware upgrades cover RS485. I have tested and gotten a flow to upload my own FW.
I do plan at some point to write my own FW, just busy with my family and job right now.
 
I'm one of those who tried, I actually pulled the Firmware from the device and started decompiling back in October. I have about 1/2-2/3rds of the firmware annotated, I'm mostly convinced the current firmware doesn't support doing anything via rs485 for the valve.
The current FW does have a bootloader mode that will support firmware upgrades cover RS485. I have tested and gotten a flow to upload my own FW.
I do plan at some point to write my own FW, just busy with my family and job right now.
Hey I want to contribute to this project how can I get access to your files? I see your GitHub page but what about your notes and annotated fw?
 
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