Just got another email from Rheem, they’re blaming us on crashing their entire system and say they need a few more days to restore my account. Apparently they’re putting in additional monitoring in place to block any abnormal activities.
Quote from Rheem Support:
"When this system was designed, it was developed to work only with the advertised IQua management program. Some owners use a Home Management Program. Our system was not designed to work with these types of program, but a backdoor method was found to connect our softeners to these programs.
This unexpected connection resulted in extremely high API call volumes that crashed the system for all users. This is why the accounts for all users with excessive API calls were shut down. Your account was included in this group.
We are currently collaborating between the development and software teams to create a solution that is sustainable for all users. The current plan is to implement a monitoring measure that will lock accounts with excessive API calls caused by outside programs or irregular use.
We were just updated that the development team needs a few more days to test this solution before we can unlock the accounts that contributed to the system crash."
I have been begging the support people to turn my account back on. They will not. I disabled my HA integration and that’s not good enough. I don’t like not having the shutoff in the app. It was the reason I bought this thing in the first place.
I don’t think it is “a few more days” as they say. Implementing an API gateway that allows for proper rate limiting for this sort of thing will take months. Frankly, they may never do it. In the mean time, we are stuck. What happens if new people install the integration? Maybe with the 5 min polling time it will be fine now? I think it was like 5 seconds or something before?
another small glimmer of hope, i did suggest they offer an official home assistant integration and they said that is something they are considering and said they may contact me in the future about it.
They hosting their service on 2-core $20 hosting or something? That several HA instances generate a query once every 5 seconds cause system crash? Opened app generates query every second, if several people open the application at the same time, the system will also stop working? What is Rheem? This is separate company or something linked to EcoWater?
I think they are testing it, but the number is probably much lower than that to see who they snare. They basically have a zero tolerance for anything that isn’t the app right now (and I suspect forever if I read the tea leaves correctly.) They are looking for reasons to shut people off now. I was told they will not turn anyone back on until some mystical time down the road.
I suspect the problems are far more fundamental than what they are saying, and this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. As for Reem, they are a water heater company that is white labeling the EcoWater (or someone else’s) softener to get into the market and sell at HD.
For me integration works again. My account was never blocked like the people here. Maybe because I use a different brand (Viessmann, Poland)? Maybe softeners from different vendors are treated differently? Maybe company have (paid?) resources quota on EcoWater servers and this is problem?
I have been getting 429 (too many requests) errors even when set to 10 minutes with a Rheem. I am now at 1800 seconds (30 minutes) which I hope will not cause a problem and looking for another solution to give me flow rates (and add pressure monitoring) which is really what I need at a higher frequency.
Glad I looked into this thread - now I know why my integration stopped working This happened without any notification from them whatsoever which is outrageous.
Funny thing though Ecowater contacted me saying that my wifi module probably broke and they’re want to send a technician to replace it This looks like a total mess on their end
Perhaps we should start review-bombing them for anti-customer practices? Not sure where though considering they sell these under so many brand names… (Viessmann Poland here too)
Yes - that was very weird - got an email directly from [email protected]
They are coming over to do the replacement tomorrow, so perhaps I’ll learn more from them directly.
They also offered me a replacement of the wifi module, and when I agreed to it, I got a second email asking if I was using homeassistant. I wonder what to say to them
So the service guy came over and just replaced the module - when I asked him about account blocking he couldn’t really say anything - he was only aware of the official app and didn’t know it’s possible to connect externally.
To be on the safe side I created a new iqua account and paired with that. Now I’m a bit reluctant to connect to HA not to be locked out again until we hear some official answers.
@dafi it’s turbofunny situation They application query API every second, with limit 250 q/6 hr limit was exhausted after 4 min. Maybe you should file a complaint that the app stops working? For me integration setup with interval 1 q/5 min still working fine.
Opened app generates query every second, if several people open the application at the same time, the system will also stop working? What is Rheem? This is separate company or something linked to EcoWater?
This looks like a total mess on their end