I have read through everyone’s posts and has learned a great deal on how airtouch works and various tweaks to make it run better.
I have airtouch 5 installed in my house controlling a daikin ducted air con.
I also have home assistant installed and I am using the custom integration to control airtouch 5 which is working great.
I tend to block all smart devices on my network from internet access unless its absolutely necessary for it to work. With this in mind, I blocked the airtouch 5 device from the internet and noticed after a week the airtouch 5 app closed on it’s own and no longer opens until I allow the internet access.
Why is this the case? why does it need internet access for a device that is local control only? I don’t use the online remote access feature for airtouch 5.
what will happen if one day the airtouch servers no longer around will the app be useless and you can no longer control your aircon?
looking at my firewall logs, the device also seems to be constantly calling home which is the url resource.airtouch.com.au, roughly hundreds of times a day. Why is there a need for it to constantly call home? is it sending data back?
The device needs internet access for the app control to work and to provide updates. I know data can be gathered and recorded from Airtouch themselves incase of support issues, they can see graphs and tables etc, no personal information.
In a while, the systems will be able to be controlled via a web based application, like a building management system. I would recommend just leaving it connected and I can’t see why someone wouldn’t really.
I wouldn’t be worried about servers going down, this is done the same way the Airtouch 4 is and that won’t stop being supported for sometime if it ever does.
We can still connected to the old Airtouch 2 & 3’s which are over 10yrs old.
Also https://resource.airtouch.com.au does not have a valid ssl cert. the cert polyaire configured for this service is issued to airtouch.com.au domain not resource.airtouch.com.au.
I presume they have told their app to trust the connection anyway otherwise the app would not be working.
this alone does not give me confidence to allow the app to be always online.
Why would I want to block it from the internet? because i don’t trust anyone on my network. It is one of the reasons why home assistant is so popular. It doesn’t need a internet connection to work. It is why everyone has made custom integrations to bypass the vendors cloud only solutions which is generally insecure and leave your network exposed.
To me it is pretty important that the system should continue to work even if the company goes bust and they shut down the servers. There is no reason the local functionality should stop if that was the case.
I know it is unlikely that this will happen, but that’s what they all say, and inevitably it does happen to some companies.
I’d love to see them commit to changing it so it works without an active internet connection.
the funny thing is it does work for x amount of time without internet and it must have some timeout configured that if it does not check in for x days close the app and not allow it to re-open.
and I am not sure if it’s the recent update changes that has introduced this behavior as I remember when I had it first installed a year ago I didn’t have wifi setup as I was doing renovations and it worked for a few weeks without any issues.
or possibly it works if you turn wifi off and if it detects wifi is connected it expects to call home.
i remember the installer telling me the wifi is only needed if you want to use the app to control it.
I think around a year ago in a update they changed something that if someone connected to the Airtouch via wifi in your home, if that person left the home and tried to connected remotely the password would need to be entered again once off. Previously if you connected via wifi in the home it would save the password details automatically.
Pretty sure this was done for security reasons, it may also be possible that after a number of day/time this needs to be entered again.
Installer is correct, wifi is only needed for the app control or to download new updates etc.
the app was working without internet for about a week or maybe just less than a week. I noticed it closed on the weekend with a message saying it couldn’t connect to some server and there was a retry button. When i pressed it, it didn’t do anything until i unblocked the internet access which then the app re-opened and started working.
wifi on and internet access blocked on the firewall, airtouch 5 app will not open and will keep showing message that it cannot download data and for you to retry or re-download app.
wifi off app launches without any issues and works.
there is absolutely no reason for it to not work if wifi is on but internet access is not accessible. The developers of this app for whatever bizarre reason deliberately coded the app behaviour to be like this.
@smitcoracing I had Airtouch 5 installed at my property last week and the installer has done a basic job of installing and explaining how the system works.
What is the best way for me as a use to ensure the system has been installed and configured the best possible way for my property. There are also some specific questions about the system which I have and my installer is not able to respond to them, wondering if I could speak about them with you.
The programs are not included in the official API, although they do sync to the app (unlike favourites) so there must be a hidden API for them.
I’ve set up programs in Home Assistant using the Scheduler custom integration and custom automations. I found that more flexible to do things like adjusting the target temperature based on the current electricity tariffs. I no longer use the console programs at all.
If programs were available in Home Assistant how would you expect them to work? Just as on off toggles, or are you looking for more advanced controls?
Would just be after replication of the on/off timer. Nothing special - all other features are avaiilable from the HA integration , but I have to get up to the panel to set an off timer before bed.
Will look into the scheduler integration you posted, but my method in programming everything i have in HA is to lose not any capability in original method (e.g. light switches still work).
In an ideal way, i would set up a on/off timer that is visable and editable on the console itself
EDIT: Just read your username - here i am digging into your Github API in the background for some more insight haha
I’ve done some digging tonight. I think I can make some updates to the extension to expose the quick timer as a service/action in Home Assistant. I’ll let you know once I have something to test.
Thanks mate, interested to see how this goes and how you did it. Ive found a copy of Comms protocol 1.2 and it very much does not make any comments on the function (just a status message of on or off)
@Dsx2 I’ve published v1.2.0-rc1 which includes time entities for the on and off quick timers. There are also a couple of custom services to set the timer to trigger after a specified delay (similar to pressing and holding on the AirTouch console power button) and clear an active timer.
You can find more info about the new features in the README
You may need to enable the HACS pre-releases switch for the airtouch integration to see the update. It is called switch.polyaire_airtouch_pre_release for me.
Let me know whether this lines up with what you wanted.
v1.2.0 of the integration is now officially released.
The new feature is support for seeing the current On/Off Quick Timers set from the AirTouch console and also setting the timers. This feature is available for both AirTouch 4 and AirTouch 5 systems.
Hi everyone, I’m new to AirTouch 5, had a few teething problems after install, was set up incorrectly by installer and I’ve sorted most issues out now.
The spill zone has been a continuous issue for me, spill zone was originally set up in master lol.
My system (18kw Mitsubishi Electric / 9 zone with ITS’s) goes into spill very quickly after reaching set temp, the spill room is so so cold < 3 from set point.
My questions are:
If I were to create 2 spill zones, does this then split (50/50) of the airflow 50% ?
When setting the spill zone room temp higher to compensate for the cold will the spill air / room then reach the set temp ?
The aircon fan is set to High via Mitsubishi controller, by setting it back to standard will this reduce the spill airflow / temp. I find my system is spilling within 2 hours running with 5+ zones open until they close?
Or is the answer to install a bypass, or suck it up?
