Installation & Security

No. Alva Link uses the standard, manufacturer-intended communication interfaces — the same ports designed for external controllers, thermostats, and building management systems. No firmware changes, no opening the casing, no altered hardware. Connecting via Modbus or SG-Ready is equivalent to attaching a third-party thermostat. Always check your specific warranty terms if unsure.

Yes. If your water boiler is connected to your heat pump — common in many European homes — Alva Link optimises hot water production alongside space heating. It heats during cheap hours and avoids running through expensive peaks. Standalone electric boilers with SG-Ready or OpenTherm can be managed the same way.

Alva Link supports the vast majority of European heat pumps through multiple paths — OpenTherm, SG-Ready (500+ certified models), and outdoor sensor spoofing — all included in Essential (free). Native integrations expand continuously through firmware updates with no hardware change required. If your brand isn't listed today, it likely will be soon.

No — not unless you explicitly turn it on. Alva is provider-agnostic and doesn't report to any retailer by default. Your energy company sees your meter, as it always has, but gets no window into your home through Alva. Any data sharing is opt-in on your side.

Yes. Bridge mode is free forever in Alva Essential and exposes the hardware Alva Link controls to your existing Home Assistant or Homey setup. Devices that were previously unreachable become accessible for your own automations. Alva handles the energy optimisation; your smart home platform handles everything else. No walled garden.

Security is built in at every layer — encrypted cloud traffic, no open inbound ports, cryptographically signed firmware, and critical safety functions running locally on the device. Alva Link is a purpose-built controller, not a general-purpose computer, so the attack surface stays small. Even if the cloud were breached, fuse protection and load balancing keep working.

Firmware updates are free for every user — Essential and Autopilot — and delivered over the air. Updates improve performance, add protocols (including planned Matter support), fix bugs, and patch security. Current firmware is strongly recommended, especially for security. Updates will never be used to force a subscription, but critical security patches may be applied automatically to protect everyone.

No. Everything on Essential — manual scheduling, bridge mode, local monitoring — is free forever and runs on the device you own. Autopilot only covers features with ongoing costs: electricity price feeds, weather data, EV manufacturer API calls, cloud compute, and ML model development. If it runs locally, it's free. If it requires our cloud, it's Autopilot. That line is written here in advance.

Alva Essential runs almost entirely on the device — manual scheduling, fuse protection, load balancing, and bridge mode all work locally. An account is needed for initial setup and firmware updates, but the ongoing data exchange is minimal. Autopilot requires cloud connectivity by design, since it pulls live prices and weather. You can delete your account and data anytime.

On European servers, fully GDPR-compliant. Alva is a Norwegian company subject to European data protection law. Time-sensitive decisions run locally on the device, while optimisation data (consumption patterns, thermal models, savings) syncs to the Alva cloud to power Autopilot's weather-predictive heating, price optimisation, and multi-asset coordination.

Only what's needed to optimise your energy — device states, temperatures, consumption patterns, and comfort preferences. No surveillance, no unrelated tracking. Alva is a European-owned company subject to European data protection law. Your energy data belongs to you and can be deleted at any time.

Partially. Alva Link needs Wi-Fi or Ethernet for Autopilot features — price optimisation, weather-predictive heating, EV APIs. Without internet, it falls back to local operation: fuse protection, load balancing, and any Essential (free) manual schedules. Data volumes are tiny, so even a slow connection is enough.

Very reliable — connection stability was a primary engineering goal. Alva Link talks to your heat pump directly over local protocols (Modbus, OpenTherm, SG-Ready), not through a manufacturer's cloud. No expired API tokens, no third-party server outages, no breakage when a vendor updates their app. Your heat pump and Alva Link stay in sync on your own network.

Alva Link comes with you. Unmount it, pack it, and set it up in the new home. Your account, subscription, and optimisation history carry over. The thermal model needs a few days to learn the new house, but optimisation starts from day one using your preferences and local electricity prices.

One Alva Link per energy asset — heat pump, solar inverter, EV charger, battery. Each device needs its own dedicated protocol connection to stay fast and reliable. All Links in your home share a single Autopilot subscription, so expanding your system costs nothing extra.

Unbox, mount, plug in USB-C, open the app. The app finds Alva Link over Bluetooth and walks you through home details, device selection, cable connection, and preferences like minimum temperature and EV departure time. Connections are verified in real time. Total: 10–15 minutes. When the light glows turquoise, you're done.

No — Alva Link isn't a general-purpose hub. It does one thing: energy optimisation. Critical decisions like load balancing and fuse protection run locally on the device in milliseconds, not over a cloud round-trip. Cloud handles only non-time-critical work — price forecasts, weather, thermal model updates. Even if your internet drops for hours, Alva Link keeps running on its last schedule.

Through six asset-control protocols, all included in Essential (free): Modbus TCP/IP, Modbus RTU, OpenTherm, OCPP 1.6 JSON, SG-Ready, and outdoor temperature sensor spoofing. Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz handles cloud traffic, Bluetooth handles setup. Alva Link joins your home network like any device — no proprietary hub, no extra bridge, no hidden boxes.

Alva Link acts as the outdoor temperature sensor. By adjusting the temperature reading sent to the heat pump, it steers the unit's own built-in logic toward more efficient behaviour — pre-heating during cheap hours, coasting through expensive ones. No wiring into the control board, no brand-specific adapter. If your heat pump has an outdoor sensor input, Alva Link can work with it.

Yes — most people install Alva Link themselves in under 15 minutes. Mount the bracket, plug in USB-C, and follow the app through device selection and cable connection. No fuse box work, no cut wires. An installer only makes sense if you're uncomfortable running a simple data cable to your heat pump.