Rinnai Heating/Cooling Wifi Module

[FrontBottom (Chris)]

Hey Shane - you need to start out with installing Homebridge. Can’t guarantee these are the instructions I followed, but I did use portainer.

Tutorial: add Homebridge to Hass.io using Portainer

UPDATE: Skip ahead to @thecem ‘s post (#13) for a more straightforward way to setup homebridge on your Hass.io system. Thought I would share how to add homebridge to hassio, as it took me a while to figure out. This is adapted from: https://github.com/oznu/docker-homebridge/wiki/Homebridge-on-Raspberry-Pi This assumes you have Portainer hassio addon installed. Homebridge serves a purpose for me, getting camera feeds into apple homekit. Here’s a few screenshots to hopefully help others: St…

You then find the new plugin and install and ensure it works “natively” in Home. Then configured MQTT to get the sensors/thermostat to show up in HA

[FrontBottom (Chris)]

Replying to myself … @David_M has some instruction up above

Rinnai Heating/Cooling Wifi Module

Reading up and down this forum, it doesn’t look like we’ve pushed to have this officially integrated yet? Would like to list the steps to ensure that I am doing it correctly (and allowing others to follow along easier that stumble upon this). Hey @Hass10… I don’t think there will be an official integration in to HA any time soon as someone would have to take all the great work @Mantorok has done done developing a HomeBridge Node.js plugin and convert it in to a HA integration. Also, there’s t…

[shane3340 (Shane)]

Thanks Chris, I’ll check it out

[David_M (David)]

@Mantorok… Just some more feedback re v3.0.2. Woke up cold to see this error repeating throughout the night

[7/25/2020, 6:38:56 AM] [RinnaiTouchPlatform] MQTT: Publish Event: Scheduled Interval
[7/25/2020, 6:39:01 AM] [RinnaiTouchPlatform] Error: Failed to get new status
    at QueueService.process (/homebridge/node_modules/homebridge-rinnai-touch-platform/src/services/QueueService.ts:135:15)

And this error when the set temperature was called

[7/25/2020, 7:30:06 AM] [RinnaiTouchPlatform] Sending Command: N000033{"HGOM":{"GSO":{"SP":"20"}}}
[7/25/2020, 7:30:06 AM] [RinnaiTouchPlatform] Error: Cannot write data as socket is undefined
    at /homebridge/node_modules/homebridge-rinnai-touch-platform/src/services/TcpService.ts:101:17
    at new Promise (<anonymous>)
    at TcpService.write (/homebridge/node_modules/homebridge-rinnai-touch-platform/src/services/TcpService.ts:98:12)
    at QueueService.process (/homebridge/node_modules/homebridge-rinnai-touch-platform/src/services/QueueService.ts:141:24)
    at drainItem (/homebridge/node_modules/homebridge-rinnai-touch-platform/node_modules/concurrent-queue/index.js:96:21)
    at Immediate.drain (/homebridge/node_modules/homebridge-rinnai-touch-platform/node_modules/concurrent-queue/index.js:77:84)
    at processImmediate (internal/timers.js:456:21)

Restarting Homebridge went back to normal.

[Mantorok]

@David_M, do you know if the plugin encountered a TCP connection error during the night? I suspect that is what happened but the plugin wasn’t able to recover. I’ll try make the plugin handle this better.

[Mantorok]

Version 3.0.3 of the plugin has been released. It combines the MQTT connection states of open and closed to ok. It also changes the way the failed TCP connections are handled. A connection will attempt to be opened 3 times. If not successful the plugin will wait for 1 minute and try again. It will do this indefinitely until a connection can be opened.

[David_M (David)]

Thanks again for the speedy response, @Mantorok. I don’t know when the errored occur, as the logs don’t tail for very long (I’ve been looking in to a way to send the logs to a syslog server without luck). However I’ve now got a sensor on the connection status, so I’ll be able to better detect when a timeout occurs.

[aggiepilot04 (Dustin Clark)]

I don’t suppose anyone got this working with the Rinnai Control-R Wifi Module? I know this was mentioned earlier in the thread, but wasn’t sure if anyone got any traction.

I’ve researched the mess out of this and would be willing to write a homekit plugin if anyone has information. I’ve sniffed the app traffic, but it looks like control directives are sent through Rinnai’s cloud.

Right now, there’s no good way to create automations (i.e. motion in kitchen starts recirculation). The 2 ways to control are app or Alexa skill, and the Alexa skill is tedious and rarely works (i.e. “Alexa, ask Rinnai to start recirculation” = “Welcome to Rinnai. Ok, stopping recirculation on hot water heater”).

I even bought a SmartThings hub because integration is advertised, but I quickly found out it stops working after a few hours (as mentioned here).

Can anyone point me to information on local communication with the Control-R? I’d greatly appreciate it.

[Mantorok]

Hi @aggiepilot04, someone earlier in this topic managed to obtain a copy of the Rinnai Touch API document from Rinnai. Perhaps you could try contacting Rinnai to see if they have the same thing for the Control-R

[aggiepilot04 (Dustin Clark)]

Good idea @Mantorok . I’ve reached out, and hopefully I’ll hear something soon. Fingers crossed!

[infocus13 (Dimitry Katchalov)]

Hi folks

I just had my Rinnai WiFi module installed. I’ve read through most of this thread and still can’t find an answer to my question:

Will installing @Mantorok Homebridge plugin for the Rinnai module enable me to control my HVAC system via Home Assistant?

If yes, what’s the process of actually getting this plugin into HA? Do I need to install the Homebridge HA plugin first, and then the Rinnai component that @Mantorok developed?

Thanks in advance.

[FrontBottom (Chris)]

Hi Dimitry

There is a link a few posts up on how to get the plugin going. First confirm it works with the Home app, and then use MQTT to integrate into HA.

[David_M (David)]

Hey Dimitry… Try the guide in this post to get Homebridge up and running with the plugin if you are using Hass.io.

[infocus13 (Dimitry Katchalov)]

Thank you, that helped a lot. Put me on the right track.

Initially I followed the guide to get Portainer/Homebridge working on HASS.IO to the letter. Couldn’t get Portainer to deploy the container though - it threw an obscure error about “object not found”.

After an hour of unsuccessfully trying to get that approach to work, I rethought my strategy. I run HASS as a generic Linux install in Proxmox… Homebridge runs on Linux… Hmmmm

Within 10 minutes I had Homebridge running in a Proxmox container and in another 10 minutes I had my Rinnai in HASS thanks to @Mantorok. Success!

So for those who can get Portainer to work:

1. Install Portainer
2. Install Homebridge container via Portainer
3. Install @Mantorok’s plugin (the “platform”) one into Homebridge
4. Confirm plugin works in HB and you can in fact control your Rinnai from HB
5. Add Homekit Controller Integration into HA.
6. HA should then find your HB instance automatically and new entities will be created for your Rinnai.

For those using Proxmox:

1. Spin up a generic Ubuntu LXC (I used 18.04)
2. Install Homebridge in your new LXC exactly following their GitHub install instructions
3. Follow steps 3 onwards as per above. Once you’ve got Homebridge running, the rest is the same.

[infocus13 (Dimitry Katchalov)]

Hey David, are you still getting these timeouts during the night with v3.0.3?

I’m having the same issue - plugin works fine during the day. At some point during the night it times out and I need to restart Homebridge. Happens pretty much every night.

[David_M (David)]

@infocus13 - The plugin has been stable for me ever since I removed the HA integration, and just used MQTT subscriptions and publishing (using the HA MQTT integration) . However, I think the timeout for me was caused by an MQTT publish command being sent at the same time the HA integration was doing a regular poll. If you’re just running the integration, try changing the config values. Start with increasing the closeConnectionDelay. Mine is currently set to 1200.

Hope that helps.

[rgoodworth.home]

Hi Mantorok, first let me give you a HUGE THANKYOU for all the work you have done, I simply love this integration.
Not sure if this is at all possible but here goes a request.
My System: I have a Brivis 630 starPro, NC-7 Touch master and 3 NC-1 thermostats (ZonePlus), of course a touch WiFi module.
I suspect i have an issue with one of the zones relay motors (duct cut off), temp control is erratic in one zone, as if the motor is not shutting off the duct.
My request, is it possible to get “relay” (motor) state (as in open/closed) data for the zones?

Regards
Rob

[Mantorok]

Hi @rgoodworth.home, glad to hear you’re enjoying the plugin.

WRT the “relay” (motor) state, do you know if it’s included in the JSON status that is emitted by the WiFi module? If so can you provide a sample of the JSON.

Also, assuming the relay state is in the JSON status, did you have anything in mind on how it would be shown in the HomeKit app? A switch perhaps?

One option could be to add a new MQTT topic that can publish the relay state but not sure if that’s what you wanted.

[David_M (David)]

Hey @rgoodworth.home - If you’re just after the open/closed state of the zone, that would be the zone ‘switch’, as this triggers the relay. If it is something else displayed on the touch screen, hopefully it is part of the JSON status data that can be extracted. I checked the API manual but couldn’t see anything related though.

[rgoodworth.home]

Hi Guy’s

Thanks for the quick reply’s. I suspect the relays aren’t that intelligent, as in provide status feedback, looks like their just a simple motor that receives an open and close signal. Thought i’d ask the experts (you guys).
Even though the switch for zone c says closed, I feel some air, not the full amount like when it’s open coming through. Brivis support call in order I guess.

THANKS again.
Rob