On 2020/05/06 at 10:19 AM, Jatho said:

@Tim where do you get these rates from? I checked on the Eskom site but can only seem to find old rates from 2011/12 14/15 etc... Could be that I'm looking in the wrong place.

 

thanks.

@Jatho Hi - athough I am on Eskom time of use, the Tarrifs are the ones from our NMBM metro - as per below - sorry probably doesnt help:

Edited May 7, 20206 yr by Tim

On 2020/05/06 at 10:02 AM, Luminous said:

If you spend some time you can also get your specific schedule for suburb.

Have a look at these few steps.

https://mybroadband.co.za/forum/threads/loadshedding-api.672196/

https://github.com/daffster/mypowerstats

https://www.npmjs.com/package/eskom-loadshedding-api

 

In my home I have sonoff wall switches on all my lights. What I then did with HA you can calculate the on time for each entity.

I use a sonoff pow to measure all my light's individual power usage. Then with a calculation I can dynamically calculate power usage of all the lights individually and add that to my dashboard.

Did the same with my TV. The blow save the stats for 30days and then in the template I use a average of 120w when the tv is on.

#bedroom tv
- platform: history_stats
name: 'btv'
entity_id: media_player.tv_ua43nu7100
state: 'playing'
type: time
end: '{{ now() }}'
duration:
days: 30
      
- platform: template
sensors:
btv_template:
friendly_name: 'Bedroom TV'
unit_of_measurement: W
value_template: '{{ states.sensor.btv.state | multiply(120)|round(1) }}'

Good idea thx for sharing - lights use a surprising amount of my total usage.

Reason I have gone Shelley vs Sonoff for most of lights is for the dimers - plus very easy ot convert 2-way switches as shelley can take 230V as a input toggle (sonoff woudl blow up)

I have tried to post to this topic twice on two different occasions. I can see the reply once posted, but when I return to the post, my reply is gone. If my replies somehow displays twice, I apologize. The last post I can see was from Tim Thursday 07/05/2020 @ 09:03.

I would like to know if anyone has tested the Voltronic Docker in a parallel setup?

So the wife's old S7's battery gave out and after 2 more attempts to replace it with batteries that last I gave up and made a small screen for the Kitchen. Got most of the basic info running on it and so far so good. It also doubles as a small picture frame. 

 

The Battery sensors I build myself and transmit the data via MQTT. The Geyser controller is also part of the automation system. It has a Geyser Wize Controller as the "Master" and then I control the power to the element with a SSR. Rules is done via Node Red and the temp sensor is a DB18B20 sensor placed in the thermostat of the geyser. 

On 2020/06/16 at 12:00 PM, PaulF007 said:

The Battery sensors I build myself and transmit the data via MQTT. The Geyser controller is also part of the automation system. It has a Geyser Wize Controller as the "Master" and then I control the power to the element with a SSR. Rules is done via Node Red and the temp sensor is a DB18B20 sensor placed in the thermostat of the geyser. 

Would you mind to show/ explain how you have added the DB18B20 to the thermostat?

 

3 hours ago, Bloubul7 said:

Would you mind to show/ explain how you have added the DB18B20 to the thermostat?

Sure it is quite simple. So i have a SonOff running Tasmota on it . You will need to flash the sonoff with the new firmware. This will add the benefit that you can add atleast 3 sensors to the SonOff , (TX , RX and GPOI14 , I think thats the last pin). In tasmota to you just select the correct sensor for the pin that you connected that DS18B20 sensor.  Here is a tutorial as to how to wireup the sensor.  The nice part of tasmota is that every thing is already done and you only need to add the broker details and it will publish to sensor data to the "tele/#/SENSOR" topic. 

Here is some pictures of the Tasmota setup. 

 

There a lot of info as to how to flash the sonoff switch with tasmota , alternatively you could also use a Wemos D1 with Tasmota loaded to do the same. 
Last thing is that I placed the sensor where the normal thermostat of the geyser would go. So that was quite easy 

Edited July 20, 20206 yr by PaulF007

Aaah great thank you.  Sorry for another question. If you have removed the normal thermostat, how are you feeding the temperature information back to the Geyserwise unit? I'm wondering what temperature sensor the Geyserwise thermostat is using and if it might be possible to tap into the temperature reading from the thermostat to the Geyserwise unit.  That way one can keep the protection of the mechanical cut out.

On 2020/07/20 at 3:35 PM, PaulF007 said:

Sure it is quite simple. So i have a SonOff running Tasmota on it . You will need to flash the sonoff with the new firmware. This will add the benefit that you can add atleast 3 sensors to the SonOff , (TX , RX and GPOI14 , I think thats the last pin). In tasmota to you just select the correct sensor for the pin that you connected that DS18B20 sensor.  Here is a tutorial as to how to wireup the sensor.  The nice part of tasmota is that every thing is already done and you only need to add the broker details and it will publish to sensor data to the "tele/#/SENSOR" topic. 

Here is some pictures of the Tasmota setup. 

 

There a lot of info as to how to flash the sonoff switch with tasmota , alternatively you could also use a Wemos D1 with Tasmota loaded to do the same. 
Last thing is that I placed the sensor where the normal thermostat of the geyser would go. So that was quite easy 

Thanks for the info, I went for a similiar route.  I used the Sonoff TH16 and coupled it to a 25 amp solid state relay.  The Sonoff is flashed with Tasmota and I have set hard coded rules for the power to be turned off and stay off at a set temperature.  This allows the unit to act like a mechanical thermostat should it loose connection to my home assistant server.  In home assistant I have set up timing schedules with desired temperatures to control the geyser and maximise my solar availability.

With the added functionality of being able to measure and track the geyser temperatures and standing losses I'm planning to log a baseline over the next 2 weeks and then add pipe insulation and a geyser blanket.  Want to see how much this really improves the standing losses.

 

Looking good. Well done. You should also notice that when you start to run hot water the temp will spike as the hottest water will be on top. As the old saying goes  " he who measures will know" ...

On 2020/01/30 at 4:05 PM, calypso said:

Home Assistant is free and for hardware many run in on a Raspberry Pi. No need for any professionals. Most of it can also be programmed through the GUI now. 

I think you might be confusing this with Control 4, Crestron etc. 

I agree with Calypso. HA is free and is very much meant for DIY and open source projects. OpenHab is an Home Assistant alternative, and is also open source, free and for DIY.

Maybe its a deeper dive because now you have control over another layer (the automation software) and if a Raspberry Pi and some Linux style command line stuff is added to the setup, then for sure it is more "involved". But its still DIY route.
If I look at the amount of devices Peter is adding, he is not afraid of "Diving in". So Peter, on the long run and having the ultimate control over you home automation, maybe have a look at Home Assistant and OpenHab (both of them can integrate with the list of components you already have)

My choice is OpenHab (Choosing it over Home Assistant was a toss up... I just like OpenHab more)
My own home automation is on a "holiday break" as I first had to prioritise some other things (the solar install, water tanks, my workshop, paving, new vibracrete wall, etc). This will all be completed by end of November, so I will be picking up the home automation project in February again. Currently 2 x google home, RPi with OpenHab, 3 IP outdoor cameras, and having control over both my smart TVs in the automation) Going to hook into my Risco alarm system with konnected.io, and also hook into my BlueIris security camera software.

On 2020/05/10 at 10:15 AM, vlan_one said:

I have tried to post to this topic twice on two different occasions. I can see the reply once posted, but when I return to the post, my reply is gone. If my replies somehow displays twice, I apologize. The last post I can see was from Tim Thursday 07/05/2020 @ 09:03.

I would like to know if anyone has tested the Voltronic Docker in a parallel setup?

hi i used to use the nedkelly setup with parallel it only reads one inverter at a time, so you either need to run 2 docker instance or 2 raspberry pi's

im currently dabbling with ICC, the ned kelly way was rock solid stable in homeassistant as i run my charging from grid through homeassistant when battery was below 50% only to charge betweeen the 7 hours electricity was cheap.

with ICC i havent even had it run 24hours without it crashing or stop posting mqtt

ive had it about 5 days so far, ive updated it and its on a pi3 b+ i might change to a rpi4 if its a speed issue but the ned kelly app run fine on just a standard 3b

ICC has features i need like Victron BVM over mqtt and the mppsolar 2 way control.

ned kelly had 2 way control but for some reason it never displayed the MPTT solar panel wattage or yeild anything to do with PV power it just always stayed at 0 which was why im trying ICC software.

my first impressions of the ICC is its a nice interface and simple to set up, but its realiablilty so far has been a load of crap which is not a good start

 

Edited December 28, 20205 yr by gazzaman2k

I have been using Sonoff devices for a long time now but wanted to do some security Automations but the ewelink app was unable to change the colour of the lights activated by motion sensors. Unable to buy a pi4 for for Home Assistant due to no stock I started using HomeKit on my Apple TV. Got a old pi3 from a friend and running homebrige on it I started using Homekit. Although Homekit’s automation is a bit limiting Siri makes up for it. 

Most useful automations.

All iphones can activate alarm and panic button.

Outside zones has its own colour, motion outside change colour of colour lamps in my house. I have a open green area at back of my home and now I know when someone get to close to my fence or if they already jumped the fence.

Best automation, I have an old Ethereum mine that only runs during daytime from solar. Homekit only starts it if battery is above 50% and cloud cover is less than 51%. Also checking every hour if cloud cover changed to switch it on or off.

Battery Current, Voltage and Soc runnning as temperature and humidity on homekit.

 

 

 

 

 

Hi PaulF007

Are you home assistant? And if you are how did you get the victron image dashboard to display in home assistant.