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EG4 monitoring software / app

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AndreasPassat

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Joined
Aug 6, 2023
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108
Location
Sonoran Desert - Eastern
Curious to know who is using either the software for the computer and or the app (for cell) to monitor their EG4 inverters.
I'd like to be able to "check in" during the day and see what's going but I have some hesitancy about this kind of thing.
I'm concerned about data collection from 3rd party sources that have no damn business collecting my data.
Anybody have any insight or suggestions or experience?
 
AndreasPassat said:
Anybody have any insight or suggestions or experience?
Click to expand...
Well, I like to harvest the data myself and/or subscribe to the MQTT on Solar Assistant and then upload micro webpages to AWS S3 buckets, but that’s a lot of work if your primary purpose is to keep people from spying on you.
 
I'm using the app and the PC browser interface -- it's nice enough , does the job. It's not the fanciest or best designed out there, but you can get to what you need easily enough.

Data wise - there's not much they can collect. You don't have to give your name, phone number, address, or any info to the app to setup an account. Just make something up if you want. Only "real" bit of info they can get would be your email address. You can always make up a burner/bullshit account on gmail if you are that worried.

If you are going full tin foil hat -- you could always restrict the dongle interface to a specific VLAN or restricted wireless network. I personally just use it like any other device, there's really not much personally identifiable information they can collect to begin with.
 
dfw_dude said:
If you are going full tin foil hat -- you could always restrict the dongle interface to a specific VLAN or restricted wireless network. I personally just use it like any other device, there's really not much personally identifiable information they can collect to begin with.
Click to expand...
[Note, I've been reading the Risks Digest since it's inception, and I know computers pretty well, so consider this worst-case blue-sky thinking.]

Remember that this means the Chinese (govt?) has a device on your LAN that could potentially do pretty much anything. Full tin-foil-hat would be poke around in your network, rope all your computers into a botnet, silently gather credentials, and then some day shut down/blow up as much stuff as they can (we already know 18Kpv in parallel with the wrong cable can do some serious damage). Once there's sufficient penetration it's conceivable you could destabilize the grid by coordinating enough grid-tie inverters, but on a personal level it'd be a pretty big deal to just brick my inverters and batteries.

Not to say this is likely (they farmed their firmware development out to Elbonia, and the above takes a _lot_ more competence, but it's not impossible), but I've got way other things to worry about. I mean if you are really concerned, just block the Internet and us SA or something to harvest data locally, and only reconnect when you need firmware updates or remote tech support. I mean nowadays you can't trust any software you didn't build yourself using a trusted compiler and only manually vetted APIs and libraries, but life's too short.
 
Using it now but annoyed by frequent re-logins and app resets needed to get a refresh of the data. It would be much nicer to publish the important values to a local MQTT broker and let me store/manipulate the data freely.
 
niallp said:
Using it now but annoyed by frequent re-logins and app resets needed to get a refresh of the data. It would be much nicer to publish the important values to a local MQTT broker and let me store/manipulate the data freely.
Click to expand...

Did you notice the little refresh buttons? I didn't for a few days, and was refreshing the whole page on my desktop, and reloading the app until I did.
 
wpns said:
Well, I like to harvest the data myself and/or subscribe to the MQTT on Solar Assistant and then upload micro webpages to AWS S3 buckets, but that’s a lot of work if your primary purpose is to keep people from spying on you.
Click to expand...
You can use Filebeat to upload MQTT data from SA to the log manager of your choice, or just use the App.
 
Recovering EE said:
Did you notice the little refresh buttons? I didn't for a few days, and was refreshing the whole page on my desktop, and reloading the app until I did.
Click to expand...
Not on the desktop, though it seems to have less problems and a faster refresh from scratch anyway. My login also doesn't timeout as fast now and all I did was complain here (is someone listening ? ... ;)

The app refresh button sometimes works shortly after a restart but seldom after 30 minutes or more, frequent crash and restarts. I can eventually see the data I need, just figure this should be cleaner/easier and was wondering if I have some bad config ?
 
It's been a few days since I've been around.
Thanks for the input. Guess I've got a bit of research / learning to do yet.
I'm still struggling with some basic stuff on the system not related to this request.
I figure I better get the basics figured out before I pile more stuff on top.
 
AndreasPassat said:
It's been a few days since I've been around.
Thanks for the input. Guess I've got a bit of research / learning to do yet.
I'm still struggling with some basic stuff on the system not related to this request.
I figure I better get the basics figured out before I pile more stuff on top.
Click to expand...

I've learned a lot of practical stuff on this site, and Will's YT channel.

Thanks Will!
 
I use the PC app daily to monitor my remote cabin. The app is not very polished and has stuff not relevant to specific set-ups but it works for getting the basic info.
 
wpns said:
[Note, I've been reading the Risks Digest since it's inception, and I know computers pretty well, so consider this worst-case blue-sky thinking.]

Remember that this means the Chinese (govt?) has a device on your LAN that could potentially do pretty much anything. Full tin-foil-hat would be poke around in your network, rope all your computers into a botnet, silently gather credentials, and then some day shut down/blow up as much stuff as they can (we already know 18Kpv in parallel with the wrong cable can do some serious damage). Once there's sufficient penetration it's conceivable you could destabilize the grid by coordinating enough grid-tie inverters, but on a personal level it'd be a pretty big deal to just brick my inverters and batteries.

Not to say this is likely (they farmed their firmware development out to Elbonia, and the above takes a _lot_ more competence, but it's not impossible), but I've got way other things to worry about. I mean if you are really concerned, just block the Internet and us SA or something to harvest data locally, and only reconnect when you need firmware updates or remote tech support. I mean nowadays you can't trust any software you didn't build yourself using a trusted compiler and only manually vetted APIs and libraries, but life's too short.
Click to expand...
People have become like drones and just click agree to just about everything nowadays. Read these terms for a stupid monitoring app that only works 50% of the time. So according to their terms if their government considers it necessary you have just agreed that they can do whatever they want.
 

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aussiesam said:
People have become like drones and just click agree to just about everything nowadays. Read these terms for a stupid monitoring app that only works 50% of the time. So according to their terms if their government considers it necessary you have just agreed that they can do whatever they want.
Click to expand...

My wife had bought a Zumimall security camera from Amazon about 2 years ago. I wanted to switch it to my cell instead of hers, once I found out what she had actually bought and that its from China, I threw it in the garbage.
I'm not into that conspiracy crap but I have a hard time believing they aren't using those apps to spy on us.

Right from the Zumimall site.

ZUMIMALL Technology is committed to shaping Chinese consumer electronics brands in the global market. Through continuous innovation, it brings leading products with technological charm to global consumers and promotes the beauty of Chinese intelligence.

:oops:
 
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