This may be the year we finally get a hot tub!
But obviously I’d love to be able to see and ideally control water temp and maybe some other aspects via HA.
Any recommendations, especially for anything that doesn’t require any sort of cloud account to work?
My suggestion is …
Yes, get a hot tub!!!
I had a hot tub long before I had HA, so no built-in remote monitoring or control. I agree it would be nice to have those things. I suspect there are more options today than when I bought mine over 10 years ago. If it’s like anything else associated with hot tubs though, I imagine they charge much, much more than what it would cost to build your own.
First and foremost, monitoring. I’ve always wanted to know how much that thing really costs me to run. I can read my meter before and after starting it up, and guess at how much more electricity I use each month. But my next project (parts are starting to come together on the bench already) will be monitoring the hot tub’s energy use. With three pumps and a heater, that’s a lot of CT clamps.
But monitoring temperatures is easy. I monitor four places: a probe in the water itself, one pressed against the output of the heater, and one monitoring each side of the mechanical space where the pumps and controls are. Obviously you want to know the water temp. The one on the heater shows me when it’s heating. And I want to be sure the mechanical spaces don’t get below freezing.
I also monitor humidity in the mechanical space. This would let me know if any pumps or fittings start leaking. The humidity sensor also reports temperature, which is how I ended up with two temperature sensors there.
All this monitoring is very reassuring. Over the years various parts of the hot tub have failed. I’ve already replaced the built-in temperature sensor twice. From what I’ve read, this is a common problem. Having my own sensor lets me know when the built-in one is starting to go. One common failure mode on the pumps is leaking around the shaft from the motor. I’ve seen that twice already. The humidity sensor would let me know about that before it gets too bad. And of course the heating element in the heater failed once, and again it’s good to know whether that’s working or not.
I have no idea what’s available on new hot tubs, but if it included these things, plus the ability to remotely control things, I’d consider paying extra for that. On the other hand, I would gladly go the DIY route if the manufacturer’s solution had a cloud dependency or cost a lot more.
I have a Vita Spa Grand. It has a Balboa control unit inside. You can either get the separate Wi-Fi module (that’s not the greatest in terms of reliability) or you can use a small serial to Wi-Fi adapter and use the 3rd party software called Balboa Worldwide App. This allows you to control temperature and pump speed as well as a few other settings dependent on the control unit. I’m sure there are a few other hot tubs that include Wi-Fi connectivity, but I’m not sure what brands as I’ve only ever had a Vita Spa.
I have SpaNet. Own app and no easy route to incorporate into HA. But I have energy clamp and heat sensors which allow me some incorporation some information into HA