Hardware & Connectivity

Three states cover everything. Turquoise pulse means normal operation — connected and optimising. Amber means something needs attention but nothing is broken (Wi-Fi reconnect, pending update, temporary cloud loss) — check the app. Red is reserved for genuine urgency like lost asset communication or a fuse protection event. The LED can be disabled in the app if you'd rather see nothing.

Yes. Alva Link's bridge mode exposes your heat pump, inverter, battery, and EV charger to Home Assistant, Homey, or any MQTT-capable platform over a local API. Entities appear automatically — no YAML, no Modbus register hunting. Bridge mode runs alongside Autopilot, or standalone if you prefer to handle optimisation yourself.

Always on, drawing 2–3 watts — roughly €5–8 per year to run, recovered within the first two weeks of savings. The 24/7 operation is required: optimisation decisions happen at 03:00 just as much as at noon. No fans, no moving parts, no noise. After a power outage, Alva Link reboots and resumes in 30–60 seconds with no manual intervention.

Over-the-air via Wi-Fi, automatically. Updates download in the background, verify a cryptographic signature, install during a safe window, and roll back automatically if anything fails. A dual-partition (A/B) setup means the device never gets bricked. Updates deliver new protocols, improved algorithms, security patches, and bug fixes throughout the product's lifespan.

No. Alva Link is designed for self-installation — no panel wiring, no opening the heat pump enclosure, no CT clamps on live conductors. Mount the unit, run a single data cable to the asset's communication port, plug in USB-C, and follow the app. Total time: 5–15 minutes. The app validates every connection before completing setup.

No. Autopilot builds optimisation schedules in the cloud and sends them to Alva Link, which executes locally over Modbus, Ethernet, and RS-485. If internet drops, Alva Link keeps running the last received 24-hour plan. Fuse protection, load balancing, setpoint control, SG-Ready, and bridge mode stay fully local. Reconnection re-syncs automatically with no manual steps.

Matter support is planned via a future firmware update — the Wi-Fi and Thread radios are already in the hardware. At launch, energy assets are controlled via industrial protocols (Modbus, OpenTherm, OCPP, SG-Ready, sensor spoofing) because Matter doesn't yet cover real-time energy management. Matter will add room-level temperature sensors and radiator valves. Zigbee is not supported.

Mount Alva Link near the energy asset it controls — utility room, technical closet, garage — not next to your router. The Modbus cable is short; Wi-Fi covers the distance to the router. 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi handles 2–3 interior walls or one concrete floor reliably. If the spot is beyond range, a mesh node or powerline adapter fixes it. The app shows live signal strength during setup.

Each port has one job. USB-C delivers power (any standard USB-C cable works). RJ45 carries Modbus TCP/IP to your energy asset over Ethernet — local, sub-millisecond latency, no router in the middle. RS-485 handles Modbus RTU for older hardware. SG-Ready dry contacts cover the simplest heat pumps. Wi-Fi reaches the cloud, Bluetooth handles setup.

Because Alva Link sits near heat pumps and fuse boxes — utility rooms, not living rooms. 2.4 GHz penetrates concrete and brick roughly twice as well as 5 GHz. Cloud traffic is tiny JSON payloads, so throughput doesn't matter — reliability does. Decisions run locally, so cloud latency is irrelevant. The hardware supports 5 GHz and may get it via a future OTA update.