Ridder HortiMaX Pro

The Ridder HortiMaX Pro integrationIntegrations connect and integrate Home Assistant with your devices, services, and more. [Learn more] reads measurements from Ridder greenhouse process controllers through the HortOS Automation API.

A HortiMaX Pro controller runs the climate, irrigation, screening, and lighting of a greenhouse. This integration makes everything the controller measures — air and pipe temperatures, humidity, vent and screen positions, irrigation volumes, weather station readings, gas and electricity use — available in Home Assistant as sensors.

The integration is read-only: it never writes setpoints or otherwise changes how the controller runs the greenhouse. Growing decisions stay in HortiMaX Pro.

Prerequisites

You need an API key for the HortOS Automation API. Request one from your Ridder account manager; it is not something you can generate yourself in the HortiMaX Pro interface. The API key and the API are Ridder’s; obtaining and using them is separate from installing this integration.

Configuration

To add the Ridder HortiMaX Pro hub to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

One config entry covers a whole organization, so all controllers your API key can reach are added at once.

Devices and entities

The integration mirrors the two levels of the HortOS data model:

• Each controller becomes a device.
• Each source inside a controller — a weather station, a ventilation group, a valve group, a screen, a meter — becomes its own device, linked to its controller.
• Each readout of a source becomes a sensor.

A controller reports a few dozen distinct readouts per source, which multiplies into several hundred sensors once every source is counted. Readouts whose meaning is understood get a device class, a unit and a sensible display precision. Readouts that are internal status or override codes are created disabled, so a controller does not flood your instance with entities that mean nothing outside HortiMaX Pro. You can enable any of them from the device page if you know what a particular code means.

Sensors whose identifier ends in ActualSetting report a configured setpoint rather than a measurement, and are shown in the diagnostic section of their device.

Data updates

The integration polls the HortOS API once a minute per controller, which matches how often a controller publishes changed readouts. A readout whose value does not change keeps its previous timestamp for up to five minutes.

Known limitations

• The HortOS Automation API is still evolving, and Ridder does not guarantee backward compatibility for community integrations. An API change can therefore rename, alter, or remove sensors between releases.
• The integration is read-only. There is no way to change a setpoint from Home Assistant, by design.
• Some readouts are encoded as numbers that index a lookup table the API does not expose, for example a weather status code. Wind direction is decoded into a bearing; the remaining coded readouts are shown as the raw number.
• Sensor names are derived from the readout identifiers the controller reports, and are in English regardless of the language of your Home Assistant instance.
• The integration talks to the HortOS cloud API. An on-premises HortOS server cannot be addressed directly yet, which only matters if your organization has no cloud endpoint.
• If your API key reaches several controllers and one of them becomes unreachable, the entities of all of them go unavailable until the next successful update, not just those of the failing controller.

Troubleshooting

The integration cannot connect

Check that the API key is still valid and that the HortOS API is reachable from your Home Assistant instance. The API allows 100 requests per 15 seconds per key; if you use the same key elsewhere, the two can interfere.

A sensor is missing

Readouts that could not be classified are disabled by default. Open the device page, select the line that shows how many entities are hidden (for example, + 12 entities not shown), and then enable the sensor you need.

If a readout is missing entirely, the controller is not reporting it through the API. Check in HortiMaX Pro whether the source is enabled.

Where to ask for help

Ridder supports the HortOS Automation API, not this integration. Take questions about the API — including how to obtain an API key or why a controller reports a particular value — to your Ridder account manager.

For the integration itself, use the Home Assistant community forum or the issue tracker linked in the sidebar of this page.

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. From the list of devices, select the integration instance you want to remove.
3. Next to the entry, select the three dots menu. Then, select Delete.