ONLY WARM WATER COMING OUT OF MY SMARTAPP SHOWERS ISSUE.
Also had another idea…
There is a circuit board inside the SENSOR MODULE as you may have seen on BIG CLIVE’S video. There are 3 rectangular nodes, each with 2 white wires coming out them.
I presume, one is for the hot, one is for the cold and the one in the MIDDLE is for the temperature of both the cold and hot mixed. If I cut the 2 white wires on the MIDDLE one, would I be able to freely adjust my temperature with out the system / circuit board restricting me?
THURDAY 5th DECEMBER 17:13pm - CAN ONLY EDIT MY POST TO REPLY TO BRIAN.
Hey Brian,
Thanks for you feedback.
Yes, you are definitely on to something here because it’s all 3 showers that have the smae problem of only provide warm water.
Surely there must be a reason as the inlet pipes to these showers are roasting hot.
I remember when I first had the showers installed and tried to turn the temperature up very high and although it said something like 40 - 50 degrees on the app, the water coming out of the shower was never hot. I tried turning down the flow but it never seemed to make a difference.
It didn’t bother me at the time as the whole place was under construction.
Can only hope that one of the genius engineers can advise a solution.
I’m out of my depth when it comes to electronics so can’t give you any useful advice there. The thing that has been bugging me is why you have this issue on all 3 units. If I recall there was a feature to limit the max temperature of the shower units via the app, and I’m guessing that your showers had a lower limit set than you need now. I don’t know that this helps, but it would at least explain the behaviours you’re seeing.
Hoping one of the electonics geniuses can help further.
In writing up this summary, I’ve realised that the sensible approach is likely to use this information to inform research into the upstream comms with the valve controller.
I believe it uses SPI to communicate with the valve unit. So I’m experimenting with that.
I have the smartap system too and went through all the pain listed above. I’m also a software developer and I had integrated running the bath for a set amount of time like auto fill and also a bath recirculation heating system (japanese-style keep it warm bath)… then the servers were intermittently switched on and off but the ifttt continued for a while. I was refused API access despite API access being on the marketing for the system when I bought it.
Long story short, I have a functioning shower, with something like 38 degree max temperature, as I set it to that for protection for my kids but obviously unable to change that now.
At some point after the servers were down they possibly sent some update that nearly bricked the system, because things changed for me, the bath button only works now if you turn the shower on first and then set the temperature on shower dial and then press the bath button, then turn shower off - and the same in reverse to stop the bath running. It is all a workaround.
If they could just open source their server component, we’d all be sorted and ideally could run it locally on an esp or pi zero. I suspect it is all over ssl. It was a short sighted architecture (but fully functional) where the phone apps talked to their servers and the box in our houses presumably polled their servers. I suspect (but don’t know for certain) that they sent a firmware update to the boxes to stop polling the servers and just work in standalone mode like a kill switch… when they sold it to hansgrohe (Masco Corporation).
With my bath heating system (not smartap) I was able to hot wire an ESP into it because the switches are digital and just supplying a voltage pulse to turn it on and another one to turn it off. This would probably work with the smartap switches too but doesn’t solve the other issues like the temperature or running 2 things at the same time, eg I used to be able to run 2 shower heads at the same time, one rain, one handheld.
Anyway, probably a dead end but I thought I’d share my experience. I don’t mind coding something as that bit is easy - but I won’t be able to solve any of the hardware / electronics stuff.
Perhaps someone here knows - I have a leak, havent had plumber look at it yet but think it might be in the control box.
Current setup is 3 outlet, with one on the bath
If i replace the control box is there any way to even set it up, and change the setup to match my physical layout? (i think the default is NOT what I currently have)
Also any way to change the default temps etc?
I don’t want to double down on a dead system but equally would be looking for a quick fix
Thanks
Hi guys coming at this super late and have tried to read a bit. But I’m not the most technical. I’ve just bought a house with my partner and went to have a shower in what I thought was a cool looking shower but unfortunately it’s a smartap shower where only the small head works. Temperature and pressure I can change but no matter how many times I press the button it never goes to the big main head.
From what I’ve read in this thread am I screwed ?! Do I need to get a new shower or is there a fix. It’s all installed into a wet room so would be so costly to replace. Any help or tips would be epic
You might have some luck looking at some of the older posts - people did manage to do initial setup on the device. But honestly this threads been a bit dead with a lot of people interested in solving but (like myself) lacking the full expertise or equipment to reach a point where they can do anything about it
In terms of repair, once you’ve found the control box you could try replacing the 9V PP9 battery which has helped some people. On the assumption that it worked properly at some point in the past then my guess is that the button press itself might not be working. if you keep an eye on ebay you see them going spares or repair sometimes. If it’s not the button then it’s probably one of the diverter valves which would be a much trickier repair.
I’ve managed to patch the CC3200 ! Unlocked it. And have it connected to my own, self hosted server.
I’m posting, because I’m trying to gauge interest. Whether or not anyone is still interested in following in my footsteps and re-smarting their shower.
In a nutshell, the process involves:
Opening up the main housing of the smartap (the big black box)
Taking out the CC3200 (it’s a single threaded connector)
Opening up the protective housing around the CC3200 unit
Hooking it up to a Pi
Running a script (more on this in a moment)
That’s it. Fin.
Put it back together and your unit is unlocked.
I’m rapidly working through the websocket protocol to get a functioning server up and running.
My question to everyone here is: is anyone interested in this, or have you all moved on from your smartap smart showers ?
If there’s interest, I’ll update the writeup and share everything in detail. But if interest has waned (or you’ve all moved back to the tried and tested manual valves), it’ll save me the time to write this all up!
Interested? Hell yes!
I have many questions (how are you controlling, how easy is setup etc), but yes, definitely definitely interested!
I actually bought a second unit off eBay for spares so plausibly could even test this without breaking my current setup (not totally certain what’s in working condition or not on that so will have to see!)
I’m interested. I just need to be able to swap the outlet as currently on shower hose and would like to use my rain shower head.
How technical/handy would you need to be to follow these instructions?
