iCOMM™ is the latest advancement in water heater technologies offering remote monitoring and early alert notifications sent directly to a cell phone or email address notifying recipients there is a problem with the water heater. It’s designed to alert—via text message or e-mail—about any potential problems related to your home or facility’s hot water operation, helping avoid lengthy and costly interruptions in service. These alert notifications, which can be sent to one person or as many as needed, are often sent out before the home owner or facility knows there is an issue. Upgrade to our ICOMM Elite system to get total coverage including 24/7/365 coverage and extended warranties.

iCOMM Elite service is an industry first offering by A. O. Smith with the service coverage of a lease and the long term advantages of ownership. The iCOMM Elite service packages high quality water heaters and professionally managed 24/7/365 monitoring with the new iCOMM remote water heater monitoring system. This gives water heater owners piece of mind knowing that behind every A. O. Smith heater there is a team of specialist ready to jump into action.

You are completely covered when you signup for the NEW A. O. Smith iCOMM Elite service plan. Owners of A. O. Smith water heaters receive a professional site inspection to evaluate the heater installation, assuring your water heater is running at peak performance. The heater is then monitored by a team of specialist to verify and evaluate heater operation and dispatch an authorized service agent to fix any problems that may arise. Free service calls and extended parts warranties cover any service call for the life of the contract, giving you the piece of mind to concentrate on you business.

Many of A. O. Smith’s best models are part of the Elite program. From our 96% efficient gas products like the Cyclone water heaters to our highly advanced electric models, including the DVE and DSE; there’s a system for almost any facility. All models employ the new XI control system featuring state of the art electronics and plain English diagnostics.

You must have a compatible water heater installed along with the iCOMM Remote Monitoring System. If you have yet to install these products, give us a call and we will be happy to help you get started. To check the compatibility of existing water heaters, click the compatible Products tab at the top of the page and input the first four digits of the serial number.

Ordering iCOMM Elite is the easiest call you’ll ever make. Simply dial our toll free line at 1-888-WATER02 to start your coverage with the iCOMM Elite service.

Heaters installed less that 90 days are eligible for the iCOMM Elite service coverage.

Purchase and installation of the heater and iCOMM components, a yearly iCOMM subscription and a one time nominal Elite service charge and you are ready. From that point on, A. O. Smith will cover all of the water heater related expenses.

Restaurants and hotels are great application targets; after all, hot water is critical to keeping their businesses in operation. Other applications such as hospital networks and colleges/universities are excellent candidates for iCOMM service, as they typically have facility managers who are responsible for multiple buildings and would benefit from being able to manage their fleet of water heaters from their office.

The response to our field test program has been very positive. Several key customers have test iCOMM systems installed, and they are all excited about the technology and see the tremendous value this system provides.

There are four easy steps you need to follow in order to begin taking advantage of the benefits iCOMM offers:

Step 1 – Verify the facility or location has Internet access (either wired or wireless).

Step 2 – Confirm you have an iCOMM compatible product.

Step 3 – Go to www.aosmithconnect.com and purchase the communications module.

Step 4 – Once the hardware is installed, call to register and create a user name.

The iCOMM system is truly unique in our industry. While there are aftermarket energy management systems that exist, they are very complex and cost thousands of dollars. iCOMM, on the other hand, is simple to use and the hardware sells for only $399. In addition to the hardware, there is an annual subscription required to access the service; annual fees will range from $299 down to $200 depending on the quantity of iCOMM systems an individual customer has.

Yes, the only means of communication for the CM to the website is with the CM acting like a browser client. All outbound traffic to the iCOMM host site uses HTTP protocols and there is no traffic sourcing from the iCOMM host site to the CM.

No, web pages are not sent back to the CM, only data with very specific proprietary format. Anything not corresponding to this format will be ignored.

No, the data has a very specific proprietary format. Anything not corresponding to this format will be ignored including VB scripts or javascripts. The CM does not even have the ability to interpret scripts.

All communications use port 80 HTTP type requests (GET & POST) with HTTP reply.

No, this address is for the A. O. Smith Proprietary protocol network (CM to Heater), which is an RS485 type Master-Slave arrangement. The CM only uses DHCP to acquire an IP address for itself.

The fallback IP address is 0.0.0.0, which is not valid. This is to avoid some problems we had with a previous fallback IP address (192.168.1.10), which may be a legitimate IP address already assigned on a network. Therefore, in order for the CM to communicate it must be assigned an IP address by the DHCP server. A typical router purchased from an electronics store contains a DHCP server.

The next release for iCOMM will have an option to assign static IP addresses; the software update is due Q2 of 2011. Existing iCOMM hardware will update automatically once the new version is released. Please consult the iCOMM owner’s manual for instructions to assign IP address.