The original prototype communications were done via USB cable. With the planning for future expansion and additional options, it was decided to move the communications to wifi and use the MQTT protocol. This eliminates the USB cable but more importantly, it opens the door to future expansion.
Since the majority of system installations will be done in 20 year old motor homes with no built in internet connectivity, it was decided to make this as easy as possible with as little setup as possible. Therefore in these early versions, the wifi setup processes are hard coded, so no operator intervention is required. just apply power and the controller and operator panel start talking to each other on their dedicated wifi link.
After the initial release, we’ll add the ability to have the controller and operator panel interface with a users existing wifi network, but for now, we decided to make the Waiter ECC completely stand alone.