Greetings to you all

I'm interested to install CBI Astute Smart Power Indicator for my house.

Here is the link below of the product:

https://cbi-lowvoltage.co.za/aspi

My main goal is CBI app to notified me from my smart phone when the grid is off so that I don't have to keep checking manually on Solar-Assistant monitoring system.

I watched this video from youtube and to be honest I'm really confused. I'm confused on CBI Astute Smart Power Indicator unit as does it have ability to control a switch itself? I know CBI Astute Smart Controller unit have timer and controller itself but I not sure for CBI Astute Smart Power Indicator.

I would like to know if anyone on this powerforum have ever installed this CBI Astute Smart Power Indicator unit and how did it go and what's is the installation look like on distribution board?

Thanks

It seem like the answer is in the name of the device - the CBI Astute Smart Power Indicator, cannot control anything - it just indicates - you need the CBI Astute Smart Controller unit - to switch something on / off.

I am interested in this product, and there has been some discussion about it. CBI say that it can be used to automatically disconnect high load circuits. So that suggests it is some kind of relay (it has four terminals) or that it can send signals to other Astute devices.

The power indicator has terminals for power for the inverter and the other is for eskom power, has a setting that if mains switches off then it will, signal the smart controller to switch off. You need both units to do this.

The power indicator can talk to all the astute devices

14 hours ago, Shockin said:

The power indicator can talk to all the astute devices

Interesting.. It seems to do this using WiFi (cloud) and automations, as per the manual

Much more efficient would be to use home assistant.. And enable much more functionality with many more devices compatible.

Edited November 8, 2025Nov 8 by abd7

17 hours ago, Shockin said:

The power indicator has terminals for power for the inverter and the other is for eskom power, has a setting that if mains switches off then it will, signal the smart controller to switch off. You need both units to do this.

OK... So it is powered by the inverter and senses a grid failure? It doesn't itself switch anything, it just let's other devices know that the grid is up or not?

1 hour ago, Bobster. said:

OK... So it is powered by the inverter and senses a grid failure? It doesn't itself switch anything, it just let's other devices know that the grid is up or not?

I see it's selling for about R650.00 - R700.00. That's pretty expensive for something that does not actually do anything 😉

My bigger concern would be that it's totally dependent on Wi-Fi to communicate with all the other devices. My Wi-Fi is located in my study, and the CBI Astute Smart Controller in my DB board can barely communicate with it. I would love to install other CBI Astute products in my home (e.g. a smart switch to turn on the kettle in the kitchen, and a heater in my bedroom to break the ice on early winter mornings...), but without reliable Wi-Fi I don't see this working too great. Now, one could install Wi-Fi extenders, but that's even more costs... guess I will have to stay with the tried and tested procedure of kicking my wife out of bed to make the coffee 😁😆

2 hours ago, HennieL said:

My bigger concern would be that it's totally dependent on Wi-Fi to communicate with all the other devices. My Wi-Fi is located in my study, and the CBI Astute Smart Controller in my DB board can barely communicate with it. I would love to install other CBI Astute products in my home (e.g. a smart switch to turn on the kettle in the kitchen, and a heater in my bedroom to break the ice on early winter mornings...), but without reliable Wi-Fi I don't see this working too great.

This is true. My first, so far only, Astute device sits out in the driveway with brick walls and at least two rooms between it and the WiFi. So far it's been reliable. I've done brief tests down at the pool pump, but I need to find a way to monitor it for several hours. Checking momentary coverage is eezy peezy.

I have a spare phone in a box somewhere. I have a Raspberry Pi. Hmmm... What if I write code to ping the WiFi once a minute and log the results in a database? Should only take a couple of weeks to write, and then I have to solve the problem of getting power to it.

Really I can get information as to the presence or not of the grid from my inverter...

5 hours ago, HennieL said:

My bigger concern would be that it's totally dependent on Wi-Fi to communicate with all the other devices. My Wi-Fi is located in my study, and the CBI Astute Smart Controller in my DB board can barely communicate with it. I would love to install other CBI Astute products in my home (e.g. a smart switch to turn on the kettle in the kitchen, and a heater in my bedroom to break the ice on early winter mornings...), but without reliable Wi-Fi I don't see this working too great. Now, one could install Wi-Fi extenders, but that's even more costs... guess I will have to stay with the tried and tested procedure of kicking my wife out of bed to make the coffee 😁😆

This is what I have done when ADSL got to the end of their life. I used an identical router as per the video. They are sold new at a much lower price than pure range extenders. One just do a access point in the router configure and rather use a LAN cable than wireless. Range extenders not via cable tend to work at about 50% the speed of the original connection.

I have found this TP link to have a much greater coverage than 3 other WiFi routers I used over the years.

23 hours ago, Bobster. said:

OK... So it is powered by the inverter and senses a grid failure? It doesn't itself switch anything, it just let's other devices know that the grid is up or not?

So I did some R of the FM ("F" is for "fine"). What this device does is signal if grid or alternate power goes down. This signal can then be used in automations. Indeed would seem to be very important for the Astute automations. So you can have an automation that switches off the geyser when grid goes down. The same automation can also wait 30 seconds after grid is restored, then turn the geyser back on. I'm less sure what should be done if your alternate power goes down, but at least you will know because the CBI app will alert you.

On 2025/11/08 at 5:21 PM, HennieL said:

I see it's selling for about R650.00 - R700.00. That's pretty expensive for something that does not actually do anything

I'm starting to think it has it's uses. I'm working on an automation which is triggered by power consumption on another CBI device dropping to zero. But that's not the same as not having any power. The two are different. If I cut power to the triggering device then nothing happens, because the Tuya cloud doesn't hear from it, so can't react to it, so can't trigger the automation. (These devices are Tuya when all is done and dusted, and I have paired them with SmartLife). So if you're wanting to react to a loss of grid or to a loss of alternate power (or a return of either) then this is how you do it.

On 2025/11/08 at 7:34 PM, Bobster. said:

This is true. My first, so far only, Astute device sits out in the driveway with brick walls and at least two rooms between it and the WiFi. So far it's been reliable. I've done brief tests down at the pool pump, but I need to find a way to monitor it for several hours. Checking momentary coverage is eezy peezy.

The CBI devices (indeed most Tuya devices) work on 2.4 GHz WiFi, which has a better reach than 5 GHz. In practice my devices around the property have all worked reliably. I thought the controller for the pool pump (in a sub-db next to the pool, down the bottom of the garden) might be problematic, but it's just fine. For these devices anyway - Tuya devices typically send small packets of data. I should test something like a WhatsApp video call from down there.

I have three devices physically close to each other in my driveway. One of them complains about low signal strength (the other two do not), but it's still been reliable.

On 2025/11/08 at 7:34 PM, Bobster. said:

I have a spare phone in a box somewhere. I have a Raspberry Pi. Hmmm... What if I write code to ping the WiFi once a minute and log the results in a database? Should only take a couple of weeks to write, and then I have to solve the problem of getting power to it.

Really I can get information as to the presence or not of the grid from my inverter...

If I go the Home Assistant route. I can't integrate my Goodwe with SmartLife. Because other people, people with lives, have to use what I'm setting up I want one app, easy to use, useable on a phone. The users don't need to understand the automations, they just need a thingamajig that they can tap to make stuff happen.