Comfort Link

I purchased a new hybrid American Standard water heater that uses this app. The technicians who installed the water heater spent longer trying to get the app to work than they did installing the actual water heater. They eventually gave up and left. They just asked me to keep them updated. The app still doesn’t work, which limits the functionality of my expensive water heater. I’m stuck on the dreaded “try refreshing the page” screen. Customers beware until this app functionality is fixed. Installers, you’re going to be wasting a lot of hours of labor trying to get this thing to work.

Update: I’ve revised my review from one star to three because the app did eventually start working. So far the app seems decent and does what I want (allows me to schedule times for the heat pump to run so we don’t have to hear it when we want quiet). But the onboarding process was so frustrating that I can’t give it more than three stars. Specifically, the app telling me to “wait a few seconds” for the water heater data/controls to appear was super frustrating, because it actually took hours! Original review below: I’ve spent about an hour trying to get this app set up with my water heater. After a fairly complicated/glitchy operation to pair the water heater and phone, the app tells me to “wait a few seconds” and then refresh, but it’s been at least 30 minutes and nothing is happening yet. Being able to control this water heater remotely was a big selling point for me. I’m going to relay to my plumber that he shouldn’t sell these water heaters to customers who need app access.

I think the American Standard product manual is just wrong and the app’s instructions are way too vague. The following may only be relevant to American Standard HPWH: Before trying the app, the water heater needs to be in “AP” mode. The manual says “hold down” the + and - keys for five seconds, but really you need to press them together, repeatedly, a few times. Then, disconnect your phone from your home’s WiFi network and connect it to “Remote GW Thermo”. In iOS Settings, turn off Cellular Data permissions for Comfort Link. That way, Comfort Link will actually have to connect to the water heater, which it wouldn’t otherwise for me. After you put in your home’s WiFi info, you might have to turn Cellular Data permissions back on again so you can complete the registration process. Even after you have successfully registered the water heater, connected it to WiFi and to Comfort Link, it may still take an hour for Comfort Link to load any data from the water heater. In the end it works, but this process is ridiculously complicated and undocumented in the manual.