There are many different brands of touchpads and controllers in the New Zealand spa pool market. For the sake of simplicity, this post will discuss our two favourite brands – SpaNet™ (found in our Alpine Spas range) and Balboa® (Exclusive to our Master Spas® range).

After reading this article you will have the knowledge and know-how to perform simple but important tasks on your control panel such as setting your desired temperature, turning on your pumps, and using your lights.

TouchPad Top Tips

If you get lost while clicking through various menus on your touchpad, simply wait 15 seconds and the touchpad will timeout and return to the home screen so you can try again.

Your owner’s manual has sequential instructions on how to perform certain tasks, for ease of understanding. We’ve provided links below.

If you ever turn on your spa and the control panel remains blank, simply turn the power off and straight back on again to bring it back to life.

How to Set Your Temperature

Your soaking session is unlikely to be much fun without the crucial element of hot water, the temperature of which will be set via your touchpad. By default, most touchpads are pre-set to 38°C.

The up and down arrows will adjust your spa’s water temperature in the respective direction.

If you hold these buttons down rather than clicking them, you will move through your options faster.

Simply leave the touchpad when you have chosen your desired temperature and your spa will start heating or cooling the water to your chosen specification.

Using Your Lights

Spa Pool lights are an excellent and easy way to select your preferred ambiance during a session of soaking.

On your touchpad’s main menu, or on the touchpad itself you will find a big light symbol – pressing this will turn the lights on or off.

On the majority of touchpads, continuing to click that symbol in sequence will change the light colour through the various options.

You don’t need to worry about turning your lights off, as they will automatically time out. But if you want to, you can simply press the button again to switch them off.

Using Your Pumps

There can be some confusion around jets and pumps when it comes to spa pools. In order to keep it simple, the easiest way to think about the topic is that your pump/s draws water in from the spa intakes and forces it out of your jets which provide the hydro massage.

On your touchpad’s main menu, or on the touchpad itself you will find the pump symbol – pressing this will turn the pumps on or off.

Some spa pool models have two-speed pumps, which means if you press the button again you will change the pumps from a low speed to a high one. Low speed is automatically used by the spa for circulation and high speed provides the pressure required for hydrotherapy.

Pumps will time out after 15 minutes so you will need to press the button again if you wish to re-engage.

How to Adjust Filtration

Default filtration is sufficient for most circumstances. However, you may want to dial it up if you plan on using the spa more than three times per week or you regularly have a large bather load (4 or more persons each time).

We recommend referring to your spa pool model’s user guide for more comprehensive information relevant to your particular model’s filtration options.

Setting a Sleep Timer

A common query from customers relates to whether or not the spa pool filtration can be shut off at night to eliminate noise. With most touchpads this is possible to set up.

Balboa® models usually have a circulation pump so spa pool operation at night should be minimal. 

SpaNet™ models allow you to program a sleep timer to hush the spa pool during your desired window.