I’ve been considering the idea of dropping my pool level below the minimum, boring a hole in the wall and mounting the PVC piping externally. It would contain the temp sensor and float switches - possibly enough room for an impeller to circulate the water to make sure the water temp is the same as the main pool mass.
I would then fit the outlet with the same covers they use on solar heater intakes, just to tidy it up.
Just not sure how feasible/advisable it is to go and modify the pool wall in a pebblecrete/concrete like that.
The floating idea is where I started - but figured you could only get temp reliably. I have an ALDI floating RF pool thermometer - it would do the job if I just built an RF reader to transmit the result to HA via MQTT. But I’ve noticed that it chews through batteries and it’s not that reliable signal wise…
Anyway - love what you’re doing. The web site you have is great content. Keep going man!
jwelter which brand of zwave dry contact did you use and what brand is your pool heater? I too am going to buy the GE outdoor switch to control the pump but need a solution where i can turn the heat up/down.
And another article in the series has been published this week. Have a look if you are interested in how I measure the remaining liquid chlorine in a drum behind my pool:
I used a Fortress MIMOLite and just use the relay contact it provides set to latched mode and inserted it in line on the heater fireman’s loop. This loop when closed allows the heater to run; and when open stops the heater from running.
The pool control decides when the heater should run or not; but I can over-ride this from HA.
I then made some automations to turn it off at 8pm if it’s on; and if the forecast calls for significant rain/snow/wind.
What are you guys using to control the pump motors? I tried Solid State Relays but on my Cleaner pump they are not doing the job. Also my pumps are 240VAC.
Thank you @exxamalte.
I’ve just implemented your way of managing the pool pump.
I use a sonoff pow r2 (currently with the original firmware and the SonoffLAN custom component).
Are you still working on it ? Can we contribute to your Github repo ?
I haven’t made any major changes recently. If you think there are improvements that could be useful for others, feel free to contribute to my GitHub repo.
Computing daily duration using some parameter (temperature or pool/pump characterstics). I’ve already drafted a python module for that: https://github.com/oncleben31/pypool-pump
Having the possibility to choose between different templates of daily schedule
Support anti freezing scenario during off season.
What do you think ? Any other ideas by readers of this thread ?
I personally don’t use HACS, so I’d leave that to someone else.
The different templates are a great idea. Luckily I live in a place where it never freezes. However I do live in a place where the local councils restricts the hours I can run the pump, i.e. not overnight. And, I’ve never finished the idea to run the pump based on solar power production and weather forecast.
I’d also be very interested if anyone else has some ideas?
Cool.
What have you in mind when you write you want to take into account the weather forecast ? What type of weather parameter could influence the pool pump ?
I was always hoping to run the pool pump on solar electricity as much as possible. My idea was to define certain parameters like for example pump must run between 6-8 hours per day, and 50 hours per week in average, etc. and the controller then uses current solar electricity production, state of the sun, sunrise/sunset, season, current and forecasted cloudiness or rain and maybe historical data to make a decision at what time to best run the pump. For example, if it’s cloudy in the morning but clear sky forecast in the afternoon, the pump should run in the afternoon instead. But if there is even more clouds forecast for the afternoon, the pump should start earlier.
I’ve made a few attempts in the past, but this problem quickly becomes very complex.
I can manage to make a dedicated repo for HACS and facilitate collaboration.
But I’m not confortable to host this and bee seen as the main owner instead of you.
I see different options:
You don’t care and it is simple this way. Let’s fork it.
I can host and I give you some right to let you modify or manage PR
you start a new repo and you give me some rights to modify or manage PR
We create an organization like “ha-pool” and we add any motivated contributor to maintain and improve this custom component.
Sorry for the late reply. I saw that you have created a repository in the meantime, that’s perfectly fine with me. Please let me know if there are particular areas where you could use some help.
One thing I have neglected in my custom component are unit tests which would be very useful to have for example when more variations of pump control are implemented or more external parameters and sensors can influence the pump schedule.
So I’ve started a repository compatible with HACS and using the blueprint template which allows to have an autonomous development environment with VSC.
I’ve a dedicated release for HACS and a branch with your code integrated (with minor updates).
Warning for the ones who will use it. I don’t recommend to use my repo yet because as my expectations are quite different it will be difficult to maintain exxamalte algorithm working during fine tuning of my version of the algorithms.
A potential merge of the two approaches will be done in the future but no strong commitment on that.
So if you are interested by the exxamalte approach and using HACS, you can:
use my repository in HACS but only the dedicated release: exxamalte_v0.0.1
Or fork my repo to be protected of any breaking change I will probably push in a near future.
With my approach, I will implement an automatic computation of the daily filtering duration based on the water pool temperature. And I will implement a filtering schedule based on “solar noon” to filter during the hottest hours in the day.