Pentair IntelliFlo VSF Home Assistant integration

[dantoraason]

I have the exact same question as this post from over a year ago:

Pentair Intelliflo 3 VSF Wifi pump WITHOUT Intellitouch or Screenlogic - Homeassistant integration?

In a nutshell, I have a Pentair IntelliFlo VSF pump (actually 2 of them) that I can control with the Pentair Home App via a WiFi connection to the internet. And I want to be able to control it from Home Assistant. Surely with the popularity of this pump and the fact that Pentair uses some sort of API (even if not publicly documented) someone has to have figured out a way to do this without additional hardware.

Any tips or suggestions are appreciated.

 

[mas985]

Here is a good place to start:

Pentair ScreenLogic

Instructions on how to integrate a ScreenLogic gateway within Home Assistant.

www.home-assistant.io

 

[dantoraason]

Here is a good place to start:

Pentair ScreenLogic

Instructions on how to integrate a ScreenLogic gateway within Home Assistant.

www.home-assistant.io

Thank you for the suggestion! I looked at that and even tried it but it requires a Pentair ScreenLogic Gateway and I am trying to avoid buying extra hardware for what seems like can be a solution using the existing Pentair API. Even so, I may take a look at the ScreenLogic gateway to see if it is reasonably priced.

 

[dantoraason]

Thank you for the suggestion! I looked at that and even tried it but it requires a Pentair ScreenLogic Gateway and I am trying to avoid buying extra hardware for what seems like can be a solution using the existing Pentair API. Even so, I may take a look at the ScreenLogic gateway to see if it is reasonably priced.

I looked at the Gateway and the best price I can find is $350 US. And the functionality it provides is advertised as WiFi access through an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch through their mobile. But this is a capability I already have through the Pentair Home mobile app. Hence the original question.

 

[mas985]

There are other solutions on Home Assistant. You just have to search for them and read through them:

Pentair Pump Controller

I figured someone might find this useful so I am putting it here. I have a Pentair PID30 pump controller and wanted to get it into HA. I initially was just going to use it’s programmable IO to get some state info and maybe be able to remotely disable it. I saw it had what looked like an RS485...

community.home-assistant.io

Home Assistant Pentair controller site:https://www.home-assistant.io/ - Google Search

 

[Katodude]

I dont know anyone that has done a software only interface to the Pentair pumps. My guess is that is something they are not readily willing to publish. Currently the standard for control is through an RS-485 interface. There are lots of ways you can integrate HA with a controller that will talk 485 to your pump.

This is the one most of us (including me) around here use:

GitHub - tagyoureit/nodejs-poolController: An application to control pool equipment from various manufacturers.

An application to control pool equipment from various manufacturers. - tagyoureit/nodejs-poolController

github.com

 

[dantoraason]

I dont know anyone that has done a software only interface to the Pentair pumps. My guess is that is something they are not readily willing to publish. Currently the standard for control is through an RS-485 interface. There are lots of ways you can integrate HA with a controller that will talk 485 to your pump.

This is the one most of us (including me) around here use:

GitHub - tagyoureit/nodejs-poolController: An application to control pool equipment from various manufacturers.

An application to control pool equipment from various manufacturers. - tagyoureit/nodejs-poolController

github.com

Thanks - this is very helpful! I was looking at the

Elfin EW11 RS485‐WiFi adapter​

and the setup instructions. This might work for but I was wondering if it can be done without the Intellitouch controller- in other words, connected directly to the pumps. I don’t have or need any of the Intellitouch features as long as I can connect through Home Assistant. And I guess I will need 2 (at $27 US each on Amazon) - one for each of my pumps - unless they can be chained somehow. (I’m not at all familiar with RS-485 and what it can and a cannot do.) I’ll poke around some more and see what I can figure out. Just wondered if someone has this working directly before I spend money to try it out. Thanks again!

 

[dantoraason]

There are other solutions on Home Assistant. You just have to search for them and read through them:

Pentair Pump Controller

I figured someone might find this useful so I am putting it here. I have a Pentair PID30 pump controller and wanted to get it into HA. I initially was just going to use it’s programmable IO to get some state info and maybe be able to remotely disable it. I saw it had what looked like an RS485...

community.home-assistant.io

Home Assistant Pentair controller site:https://www.home-assistant.io/ - Google Search

Thanks - this may lead me in the right direction! I’m getting pretty decent at using ESPHome and probably connecting a ESP8266 D1 Mini to a RS-485 to TTL board may do the trick. As I’m learning about RS-485 I’m thinking I can use a single RS-485 board to connect to both of my pumps and see them on the ESP8266 - but even if not, they are really inexpensive, I would just need to have 2 D1 Minis - one for each pump. Thanks!