Helty Flow Cloud

The Helty Flow Cloud integrationIntegrations connect and integrate Home Assistant with your devices, services, and more. [Learn more] lets you control Helty Flow decentralized heat-recovery ventilation units (also known as MVHR units) that are fitted with the recent control panel, the one managed through the Helty Home app.

That panel does not accept connections on your local network. It opens a connection of its own to the manufacturer’s cloud and reports to it, which makes the cloud the only way to reach the unit. The integration therefore signs in to your Helty Home account and works through it, and needs a working internet connection.

If your unit has the older panel, which does answer on your local network, use the Helty Flow integration instead. It talks to the unit directly and keeps working without internet access.

Supported devices

Any unit in the Helty Flow line that is paired with the recent control panel and appears in the Helty Home app is expected to work, including:

• FlowPLUS
• FlowULTRA
• Flow40
• Flow120
• FlowMANHATTAN

The integration was developed and verified against a FlowPLUS. The other models are controlled by the same panel and are expected to be compatible.

If your account holds more than one unit, each one is added as a separate device.

Unsupported devices

Units with the older panel are not supported here, because that panel does not report to the cloud. Use the Helty Flow integration for those.

Units without any smart interface, such as models that only offer an RS-485 connection, are not supported by either integration, as they expose no network protocol.

Prerequisites

You need a Helty Home account, the one you use with the Helty Home app, with your unit already set up in it.

1. Open the app store and install the Helty Home app.
2. Create an account.
3. Add your ventilation unit to the app.
4. Check that the app can control the unit.

Configuration

To add the Helty Flow Cloud hub to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

Supported functionality

The integration creates one device per ventilation unit on the account, each exposing a fan entity and a set of sensors.

Fans

• Ventilation
  • Description: Turns the ventilation on and off, sets one of four speeds, and selects a preset mode (Boost, Night, or Free cooling). The fan entity has the same name as its device, so it appears under your unit’s name. The four speeds correspond to 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. If you turn the fan on without choosing a speed or preset, it always starts at speed 1, not at the last speed you used.

Binary sensors

• Filter
  • Description: Turns on when the unit raises its filter alarm, meaning the filter is due for replacement. Helty Flow units raise this alarm on the volume of air the filter has treated, not on hours of use. The sensor turns off again once the filter has been replaced and reset on the unit.

Sensors

• Indoor temperature
  • Description: The indoor temperature measured by the unit, in °C.
• Outdoor temperature
  • Description: The outdoor temperature measured by the unit, in °C.
• Indoor humidity
  • Description: The indoor relative humidity measured by the unit.
• Air treated by filter
  • Description: The volume of air, in cubic meters, the unit has moved since its filter was last changed. Helty Flow units do not count filter hours: they measure the age of the filter by the air it has treated, and raise the filter alarm when this value reaches 90,000 m³ with current firmware. The value drops back to zero when the filter is reset.
• Total air treated
  • Description: The volume of air, in cubic meters, the unit has moved over its whole life.
  • Remarks: This diagnostic entity is disabled by default.

Examples

Get a reminder before the filter is due

The unit raises its filter alarm when the filter has treated 90,000 m³ of air. This automation sends you a reminder a little earlier, at 85,000 m³, so you have time to get a replacement filter before the alarm goes off.

• Trigger: Numeric state
  • Entity: the Air treated by filter sensor of your unit
  • Above: 85000
• Action: Notifications: Send a notification
  • Message: The ventilation filter is close to its replacement point.

alias: "Ventilation filter reminder"
triggers:
  - trigger: numeric_state
    entity_id: sensor.living_room_air_treated_by_filter
    above: 85000
actions:
  - action: notify.notify
    data:
      message: "The ventilation filter is close to its replacement point."

Data updates

The unit’s panel reports to the cloud on its own: whenever something changes noticeably, and on a timer besides. Home Assistant pollsData polling is the process of querying a device or service at regular intervals to check for updates or retrieve data. By defining a custom polling interval, you can control how frequently your system checks for new data, which can help optimize performance and reduce unnecessary network traffic. [Learn more] the cloud every 5 minutes and reads the most recent of those reports, so a change you make at the panel itself, or through the app, appears within a few minutes rather than instantly.

When you send a command from Home Assistant, the integration asks the panel to report straight after, so the new speed or preset shows up in a few seconds rather than at the next poll.

Known limitations

Cloud dependency

The integration depends on the manufacturer’s cloud. If your internet connection or the Helty cloud is unavailable, the unit cannot be controlled from Home Assistant, even though it is on the same network as your Home Assistant instance. The unit keeps ventilating on its own and can still be controlled from its panel.

Auto and panel state

Units with the recent panel cannot report whether their Auto function is switched on, nor the state of the panel itself. This is a limitation of this generation of machines, confirmed by the manufacturer, and not something the integration can work around. If you run the unit in Auto, Home Assistant shows the speed the unit has settled on, but gives no way to tell Auto apart from that speed having been set by hand.

CO₂ and VOC

The units can be fitted with optional CO₂ and VOC probes. Their readings are not exposed yet.

Undocumented cloud API

The cloud API is not documented by the manufacturer and has been reverse-engineered. It may change without notice.

Troubleshooting

Removing the integration

This integration follows standard integration removal. No extra steps are required.

To remove an integration instance from Home Assistant

1. Go to Settings > Devices & services and select the integration card.
2. Next to the entry you want to remove, select the three dots menu. Then, select Delete.
   • Depending on the integration, the entries are listed under one of the following headings:
     • Devices
     • Hubs
     • Services
     • Integration entries
3. To confirm, select Delete.
   • Home Assistant also deletes the devices and entities of the entry.
4. If Home Assistant asks you to restart, restart Home Assistant.
5. If Home Assistant asks whether to also delete the application credentials, select Remove or Keep.
   • If you keep them, Home Assistant uses them automatically when you add the integration again.
   • To delete them later, refer to Deleting application credentials.