Hayward AquaConnect‪®‬ 4+

LOOK AT THE SCREEN SHOTS. You see where it says “(lost link)Home Pool-Inside? That is what you will live with, a lost link constantly! They can’t even hide it in the screen shots, that’s how bad their tech team is! Imagine, the folks that put this screen shot on the App Store showing “lost link” are the folks that designed and built this so called program.
This app works through the web, not on your local network. Extremely slow on your phone and on the web as your phone is connected (about half the time) to their server which must be a small personal computer the way it runs, then their server sends the signal through the web back to your control panel via your WiFi . Very cumbersome to operate. It looses connection constantly. I’ve tried moving the WiFi port closer to the control panel but no help. It takes 20 to 30 seconds to make the change and about half the time it doesn’t connect. The colored light system is so antiquated as there is no control, you have to keep turning the lights on and off to get to the next color or scheme. If you haven’t purchased the control panel yet, look at other options besides Hayward. They obviously don’t care to update the antiquated software but I’m sure the higher end stuff is better right? Maybe, again it doesn’t seem like they care to update the software technology.
Worst program I have ever had to deal with.

We used to have the hand held remote. It was ok but not great. Then it died and there’s no way to replace the battery. We were basically given a choice between the phone app and a very expensive handheld again. Given how iffy the hand unit was we opted for the phone app. It turned out to be drastically worse than the hand held. I can confirm all the negative comments here such as excruciating lag, unlinking, etc. it’s to the point when I want to use it I first go and reset the unit that’s plugged into my router because I know it won’t work. Then you click something like lights. You’ve got about a 20% chance they will come on. But you have to wait several minutes. If you click again they might MIGHT come in a few minutes then react to the second tap and go off again. And now all the labels say “null” so aside from the filter button that I know from memory is first, I can’t use it at all. This wireless part of the system is nearly useless and not at all worth paying for. I’d give zero stars if I could.

We paid extra money to get this pool controller so that we could control the pool remotely when not home. It has been a complete rip off. The app is terrible and so is the extra equipment that we had to buy in order to use the terrible app. The system says it has lost its link regularly and requires a reset to connect , the controller and wireless station are no more than 20 feet apart. I called Hayward support to see if we could just run a data cable directly from the pool controller to the base station to avoid lost connection. I was told no. How crazy is that? The app itself is extremely bad, not intuitive and has the worst lag in communication with the system. There is no way to know if you have turned your spa on or off, if the heater is in or off. Setting the temperature is a complete nightmare. If you are thinking about buying a new pool controller, do not buy a Hayward system.