Daikin Inverter Ducted Series

Great Air-Conditioning Hardware, Awful Control System – ​Last April, after suffering through a hideously hot summer in Perth, we finally changed our evaporative air-conditioning for a reverse cycle system. Having now had the chance to use it in both cold and hot weather, it's time to give our opinion. We had a Daikin 15.5kW Inverter Ducted system installed by Ford & Doonan (see previous review). The system has ten outlets with nine zones, it was originally specified (by F&D) as eight zones with the outlets for the living, dining and kitchen all together but I choose to have the kitchen on a separate zone, a decision we are glad I made.

Despite needing to pay for another zone valve, it also required an additional control board as they can only up to eight zones each. That said, being able to isolate the kitchen ​from the living area was a good choice I believe.

I feel I ​must divide this​ review​ into three parts - the air-conditioning hardware itself and, separately, the control system, plus phone app, for reasons I hope will become obvious.

The Daikin 15.5kW Inverter Ducted System.

The outside unit is a large two fan model with one fan above the other - it stands about 1.​7​5m high by 1m wide. It would have been more convenient for us in a side by side orientation but such is life. Installed down the "narrow" side of the house, the unit is barely audible from inside when running.

Facing a wall just about a metre in front of it, we were advised ​by the installers ​to get deflector fans to redirect the air so it didn't bounce off the wall and cycle directly back into the unit. It would have been nice if Daiken made such items themselves, I had some difficulty fitting the third party deflectors without screwing into the metal cabinet, preferring to fix them to the plastic fan bodies.

The system has five modes of operation: * Cool - the system will attempt to get the ambient temperature down to the set temperature, when it will simply circulate the air * Heat - the system will attempt to get the ambient temperature up to the set temperature, at which it will simply circulate the air * Fan - the system will simply circulate the air through the selected zones * Dehumidify - the system will circulate the air through the selected zones but dehumidify the air as it flows through * Auto - the system will attempt to maintain the ambient temperature at the selected temperature. Note: this is not a range, just a single temperature specified, as opposed to Programs (see below). We were cautioned that this mode is the most expensive as a one degree variation could have it cycling back and forth between heating and cooling - we've rarely used it.

The system itself works very well in both cooling and heating modes, pumping out plenty of hot or cold air as required. During the cold months of winter we found the system more than capable of heating the entire house (220m²) if required. We were pleasantly surprised to find it only cost us about $200 more in electricity over the two winter periods, but with the addition of a lower gas bill too.

When running at low speed (almost all the time) the internal unit in the roof is only just audible, we have yet to need it on medium or high speed. In winter ​on warm days ​we also found that it was possible to use the fan only mode to circulate warm air from the north facing rooms to the rest of the house by prudent use of the zones.

During the spring and autumn months we will sometimes have the system just on fan mode, with various windows open to allow the fresh air to be circulated round the house.

Our main reason for the system is the cooling though. So far this year we have managed to keep the use down to a point where it is only using the power from our solar during the day. By not cooling all rooms in the house (ignoring those not in active use) it has been possible to keep the cooling at a pleasant level and rarely using more than about 4.5kW. We can monitor our power usage on our solar ​​app.

Obviously in the evenings​,​ without a battery of some sort, it has been necessary to use power from the grid but even still, it has been pleasantly cool in the house during the night with the system just ticking over. That said, we have not got the really hot months yet. We have yet need to use either the dehumidify or auto modes, except to check they appear to work.

One omission I do feel that Daiken made with this unit is a very low fan speed. At night, when you just want a gentle circulation of air through the bedrooms, it is only achievable by reducing the bedroom zones to 50% or less and leaving one or two other zones open elsewhere in the house to cope with the excess airflow. This means a waste of heating or cooling in the unoccupied parts of the house.

The AirTouch 2+ control system.

Until now, we've been used to the simple controls needed for evaporative air-conditioning - fan speed and water on/off. When I saw that this system had a touch screen panel on the wall (it was clear to me it is a custom tablet running Android) I had high hopes. Oh dear... what a disappointment!

The tablet screen provides the on/off, mode, fan speed, zone on/off/flow and temperature control. There are also a variety of miscellaneous controls, including a menu at the top right (details later). On the right of the unit are three standard Android hardware buttons which allow for the unit to be turned on/off/reset, plus the volume control(!) - many of the basic button features do not really apply to an air-conditioner and really should have been concealed/removed.

As a professional software developer, I believe that a user interface for something like an air-conditioner should be completely intuitive and should not require a manual, so having hidden or obscure features is a sign of a poor interface design. Case in point: press and hold the power button on the screen to bring up the start/stop timer, as opposed to all the other timer/program features which are buried in the menu. It took me six months to discover that gem and then only by accident. Also, why are Zones referred to sometimes as Zones and sometimes as Groups - a little consistency would be nice.

All these on screen controls are adequate except the temperature control which is a stupid slider on the right of the screen. The control shows a lower limit of 16 (centigrade) and upper of 32, but is divided up into 30 (?) segments. Sliding the highlight up and down the slider changes the temperature but by what amount?

The current temperature is shown as a "Set Point" value in whole values of centigrade but moving the slider does not always change the temperature since each degree is represented by multiple lines!! So it is possible to move the slider up and down across three lines while the value stays at 24C, but is this actually changing the set point by parts of a degree? Who knows? It is completely unclear if the system can be set to, say, 23.5C or not. It would also be nice to be shown the temperature that the system believes it to be but I cannot find that anywhere.

Fan Speed can be low, medium or high. Low is generally adequate so far, with sufficient airflow and very little noise, unless only one of the smaller zones is open.

To the left of the screen is a list of the zones (or is that groups, the interface can't make up its mind). Each named zone has an on/off and a percentage so that the flow can be adjusted by 5% increments from 100 down to 5. With nine zones, this list is scrollable.

The menu system is accessed from the top right of the screen and has four entries: * Favourites - This enables up to four groups of zones to be configured by the user for quick on/off access but, since it is not possible to also set the percentage, it really does seem rather pointless.

* Programs - Provides access to the timer (program screen). While functional, it does have a number of serious limitations...

First up, you can only have eight timers. What?!? It's not as if the tablet cannot store all the timer information itself, it doesn't have to rely on storing the timers in the air-con since operating a timer is no different to a person simply tapping the screen.

Next, the program names can only be eight characters long - really? I had limitations like that when I was programming in the 70's!! Again the tablet can store all the program data so it should not be limited by the air-con hardware and should allow longer names.

Now comes the weird part. A program specifies a temp range - the Set Point is given a Heat and a Cool temperature, with the assumption that it will heat up if the temp is below the lower temp. and cool down if it is above the upper temp. If it can do this for a program, why can it not do this for the normal Auto mode? It's the same feature, just that one is controlled by a timer and one is not.

The programs can be set to come on and/or off at a specific time and repeat across days of the week, with Zones (or "Groups") set for each. At the bottom of the screen is an obscure "Assign to AC" checkbox. We found out the hard way that this links the program to the AC unit, it doesn't work without. Why, on a one-AC system is this even an option?!? It is pointless to set a program if you're not going to link it to the connected AC, so why even display the option?

At the very bottom of the screen are four buttons - Disable/Enable, Paste, Copy & Delete - which function much as expected.

* WiFi settings - Displays the standard Android WiFi connectivity screen, enabling the system to connect to the internet for remote control.

* System settings - Enables access to additional features as date/time, the cryptically named Turbo group, the Group (not Zone) name edit screen, Preferences and the Installers section (password protected).

On the whole, the tablet functions adequately for the basic control of the system. However, it is a clumsy mechanism with poor interface design, significant limitations and not particularly well thought out in my opinion.

The AirTouch 2+ phone app.

If I thought the tablet app was not great, the phone app is ​even ​worse!

The app for the phone is a slightly cut down version of the tablet app (on Android ​phones ​at least) and also suffers from the same poor interface design issues of the app with a couple of bonus bad features thrown in for good measure.

The main screen is broken up into five 'tabs' - Home, Zones, Program, Favourites and Help. There is also a menu button for access to additional features.

The Zones screen shows a list of the zones (named by the installer), with an on/off button and a percentage open control for each. There is also a 'P' next to those which have a programme set against them - utterly pointless with multiple programs set, it adds nothing.

The is also a mysterious 'S' symbol which would occasionally appear next to one zone. We eventually worked out that this meant "spill" - if not enough zones are open wide enough across all the open percentages, the system opens one pre-programmed zone to "spill" the excess volume, to avoid overworking the fan. A clever feature like this would be more useful if it was actually explained clearly in the manual, FAQ or help system.

The Program tab is another which promises much but doesn't deliver. It shows three drop-down sections (which annoyingly auto-close after almost every operation) - AC Timer, Programs and Options.

* AC Timer - provides the ability to set an On time and an Off time for the entire system. While this is useful to a point, a one-off count-down timer would also be useful in my opinion as you can simple say 120 minutes, rather than trying to calculate the time you want it to turn on or off.

* Programs - enables a series of timers to be set, allowing the system to be turned on and off automatically by day of week and time of day, with individual zone control and temperature limits. Tap on an existing timer in the list to edit or delete it or tap the "Add a New Program..." to add a new one.

Sorry, but this screen is a total mess!

Same functionality as the tablet but poorly handled with additional problems. Trying to add a ninth timer displays a generic "Add new program fail" message - not very user friendly.

The Program edit screens have clearly not been tested on many different screen sizes. On both my previous Huawei Mate 10 and my current Pixel 6 Pro (and my wife's Pixel 6) the layout is very poor with the temperature and time controls overlapping each other making it very difficult to use.

* Options - this has one obscurely named on/off option "Link AC top Groups". What this does I have yet to fully understand - it has been disabled all the time and the system appear to work. Given that "Groups" appears to mean Zones in the Naming part of the menu I'm really at a loss to understand its purpose.

The Favourites screen functions much the same as the tablet.

Finally, the lame Help screen provides access to the 1300 helpline, the Website and the User Manual. To be honest, I haven't tried the helpline, the website was mainly advertising and the Manual link took me to the download page of the website. The manual itself was pretty mediocre, skimming over a number of features very lightly.

There are a number of other minor features buried away in obscure places which do not really add much to the system and which can only be found by digging through the manual - they should all be apparent via the interface.

The absolute gem of a feature for me is the internet password. This cannot be set on the tablet mounted on the wall in the home, it can only be set in the phone app... think about that for a minute! If you lose your phone or delete that app and can't remember your password, how the hell are you going to reset it, because you can't connect! It is stupid beyond belief!!

In conclusion, I feel the Daiken system itself is very good, it works well and seems to be very efficient. It is a shame they don't make their own deflector fans which could have been fitted better and more easily. It is also a shame they don't make their own control systems.

The AirTouch 2+ control system, on the other hand, is truly awful. As a software developer myself (including mobile) I would have been ashamed to publish this app. The interface is poorly designed, quirky and inconsistent with some really stupid features, the feature set could have been so much richer and the testing extended to ensure the phone app works well.

The Daiken unit gets five stars but the AirTouch 2+ control system scrapes through with three for the tablet and two for the phone app, resulting in a final rating of 10/15 which I shall have to convert to a three overall - great hardware let down by awful software.