Trying to understand the requirements for EG4(indoor) battery to talk to Home Assistant via MQTT

dfw_dude · Apr 23, 2024

So while I wait on all my goodies to arrive Wednesday, I dove back down the Solar Assistant rabbit hole. I realize the stock wifi dongle/app from EG4/Luxpower is much improved for the 6000XP inverter, but from my reading on here, I'd like to confirm something:

If I wanted to move the core monitoring functions to Home Assistant (running on my Synology), it sounds like I'll still need to purchase Solar Assistant and a pi so it would be the gateway into the inverter via MQTT? If this is true, does that also include battery monitoring/stats via wifi?

How I imagine the setup:
6000XP -> EG4 wifi dongle -> EG4's app for updates/firmware -> Solar Assistant via Wifi -> Home Assistant via MQTT from SA.

Originally I figured I'd be fine with using EG4's bundled app (it does look plenty robust), but since I like to tinker I know eventually I'll get bored and want to build a custom interface via Home Assistant for a nice tablet/stats setup on a cheapo Amazon fire tablet or something.

It sounds like with the stuff included with my 6000XP, all I really need to do is buy a Solar Assistant Pi bundle and I'd have everything I need.

wpns · Apr 23, 2024

Still waiting for my ship to come in, but if you are using the WiFi dongle apparently SA can connect directly over the LAN and you are done!

I’ll probably start out that way and switch to Ethernet and RS485 once things are stable.

dfw_dude · Apr 23, 2024

wpns said:
Still waiting for my ship to come in, but if you are using the WiFi dongle apparently SA can connect directly over the LAN and you are done!

I’ll probably start out that way and switch to Ethernet and RS485 once things are stable.

Nice - my freight shipment arrives tomorrow, so will probably order the SA bundle "just because" at this point $180 is nothing in the grand scheme of things. And yay federal rebate applying? hah

Normally I'm with you as my whole home is primarily 10gig hard wired, but the location of my battery/inverter setup is absolutely not ideal for wired, so I'm kinda glad the wireless access portion is the go-to for EG4 on the 6000xp. Will need to do some extra securing of their dongle I'm sure to make sure it's not accessible from outside, but that's easy enough.

drps10 · Apr 23, 2024

dfw_dude said:
Will need to do some extra securing of their dongle I'm sure to make sure it's not accessible from outside, but that's easy enough.

Can you explain for the non computer savy people? What makes it vulnerable and how do you lock it down?

dfw_dude · Apr 23, 2024

drps10 said:
Can you explain for the non computer savy people? What makes it vulnerable and how do you lock it down?

change all default usernames/passwords, I don't have hands on the dongle adapter just yet, but it does have the ability to create it's own wifi bubble (which you then feed your own wifi info into)

security wise - instead of giving it full access to your home network you could restrict it as a guest device or vlan, and tunnel certain ports if you wanted it to have internet access for web based stuff.

More than likely I'd disable the dongles ability to communicate to anything outside of my house just because the data I'd want to see is only when I'm at home. I see little need for the ability to look at the system when I'm at work (at night funny enough) Could always temporarily enable net access if you knew a firmware update was available or something like that.

shvm · Apr 23, 2024

This is one such option.

GitHub - celsworth/lxp-bridge: A bridge to MQTT/InfluxDB/Postgres for communications with LuxPower inverters

A bridge to MQTT/InfluxDB/Postgres for communications with LuxPower inverters - celsworth/lxp-bridge

github.com

There are too many common things between 6000XP and LXP units.
I assume the WiFi dongle and its interface to be mostly identical.

I personally do not have an EG4 unit, but this can work with a bit of tinkering.

slypig · Jun 19, 2024

shvm said:
This is one such option.

GitHub - celsworth/lxp-bridge: A bridge to MQTT/InfluxDB/Postgres for communications with LuxPower inverters

A bridge to MQTT/InfluxDB/Postgres for communications with LuxPower inverters - celsworth/lxp-bridge

github.com

There are too many common things between 6000XP and LXP units.
I assume the WiFi dongle and its interface to be mostly identical.

I personally do not have an EG4 unit, but this can work with a bit of tinkering.

I have used that product. If you don't already have Solar Assistant, then this is a great way to connect the EG4 Wi-Fi dongle to Home Assistant. It doesn't seem to add much in terms of features, I already have Solar Assistant. I've compared them and they seem to see the same info, sensors and controls.

I guess it's all up to if you want to build your own interface and not get much out to Solar Assistant. I like Solar Assistant so I'm happy with it but it's nice to know there is another product out there to give you options should SA not do what you need.

marionw · Jun 19, 2024

With the right cables SA can talk to your batteries and your inverter and display the data via the SA WIFI (all in-house). In addition SA can feed the data to Home Assistant via MQTT

wpns · Jun 19, 2024

marionw said:
With the right cables SA can talk to your batteries and your inverter and display the data via the SA WIFI (all in-house). In addition SA can feed the data to Home Assistant via MQTT

Do you know if there’s a way to talk to PowerPro batteries that are in closed-loop communications with an 18Kpv inverter? That’s what I’m missing atm.

Mkgough · Jul 10, 2024

dfw_dude said:
So while I wait on all my goodies to arrive Wednesday, I dove back down the Solar Assistant rabbit hole. I realize the stock wifi dongle/app from EG4/Luxpower is much improved for the 6000XP inverter, but from my reading on here, I'd like to confirm something:

If I wanted to move the core monitoring functions to Home Assistant (running on my Synology), it sounds like I'll still need to purchase Solar Assistant and a pi so it would be the gateway into the inverter via MQTT? If this is true, does that also include battery monitoring/stats via wifi?

How I imagine the setup:
6000XP -> EG4 wifi dongle -> EG4's app for updates/firmware -> Solar Assistant via Wifi -> Home Assistant via MQTT from SA.

Originally I figured I'd be fine with using EG4's bundled app (it does look plenty robust), but since I like to tinker I know eventually I'll get bored and want to build a custom interface via Home Assistant for a nice tablet/stats setup on a cheapo Amazon fire tablet or something.

It sounds like with the stuff included with my 6000XP, all I really need to do is buy a Solar Assistant Pi bundle and I'd have everything I need.

You shouldn't need the WiFi dongle as Solar Assistant Pi has WiFi and talks to the EG4 and batteries. Just get a Pi v5, mine is v3 and missing some features I would like. I do not have the WiFi dongle connected to my AIO, no need with SA.

wpns · Jul 11, 2024

Mkgough said:
You shouldn't need the WiFi dongle as Solar Assistant Pi has WiFi and talks to the EG4 and batteries. Just get a Pi v5, mine is v3 and missing some features I would like. I do not have the WiFi dongle connected to my AIO, no need with SA.

SA doesn’t (currently?) talk to EG4 with cables, it must use WiFi, and the WiFi dongle (not the LAN dongle) has the port it needs to talk to. Not sure if HA can talk directly to EG4 or not, but SA is definitely the easier interface, and then HA can use the SA data.

Mkgough · Jul 11, 2024

wpns said:
SA doesn’t (currently?) talk to EG4 with cables, it must use WiFi, and the WiFi dongle (not the LAN dongle) has the port it needs to talk to. Not sure if HA can talk directly to EG4 or not, but SA is definitely the easier interface, and then HA can use the SA data.

Have you asked SA about this? Usually it is just a pin out on a custom end cable. EG4 AIO shows as supported? I have EG4LL and Lifepower batteries and sees them fine too through the com port cable. HA will not talk to your Solar stuff, it’s for Z-Wave and Zigbee devices by design, not solar.

wpns · Jul 11, 2024

Mkgough said:
Have you asked SA about this? Usually it is just a pin out on a custom end cable. EG4 AIO shows as supported? I have EG4LL and Lifepower batteries and sees them fine too through the com port cable. HA will not talk to your Solar stuff, it’s for Z-Wave and Zigbee devices by design, not solar.

/*
You will notice, when selecting ''Luxpower'' in SolarAssistant that there is no cable option when trying to use a cable.We have been looking at opening up the Luxpower protocol for cable connections as well, but it is not ready for deployment as of yet. Once we have a cable connection supported for these inverters we will be sure to mention it in our changelogs here. Until then, there is no cable connection option in the software when selecting Luxpower and can only be connected via the WiFi dongle.

The LAN/Ethernet dongles do not have WiFi, which we had a look at and is unreadable.
*/
Are there separate selections for EG4 and Luxpower?

Trying to understand the requirements for EG4(indoor) battery to talk to Home Assistant via MQTT

dfw_dude

New Member

wpns

Solar Joules are catch and release

dfw_dude

New Member

drps10

New Member

dfw_dude

New Member

shvm

Solar Enthusiast

GitHub - celsworth/lxp-bridge: A bridge to MQTT/InfluxDB/Postgres for communications with LuxPower inverters

slypig

New Member

GitHub - celsworth/lxp-bridge: A bridge to MQTT/InfluxDB/Postgres for communications with LuxPower inverters

marionw

Solar Addict

wpns

Solar Joules are catch and release

Mkgough

Solar Dude

wpns

Solar Joules are catch and release

Mkgough

Solar Dude

wpns

Solar Joules are catch and release

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