Personally I use pzem power monitors with esphome to measure usage from the grid and almost every circuit in the house aswell as many appliances, it likey gives you much better data and better polling rates than any inverter could, such as power factors and frequency aswell as all the basic stuff V,A,W,Wh I think each one costs less than $10 including the esp.
Solar Assistant vs. Home Assistant
- Thread starter cmack
- Start date
kolek
Inventor of the Electron
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2021
- Messages
- 922
This is totally new to me, so you put a pzem sensor on every appliance or circuit at a cost of about $15 each and they communicate to ESPhome?
Yes kinda esphome is more the information broker and coding companion similar to Arduino ide this allows you to program the plc/sbc which then talks to home assistant and stores the data.
So this may be of interest from what I read the sol-ark registers are similar to the Deye ones with some minor changes it should work using an esphome device though if you wanted really reliable info it best to connect to the esp via lan rather than WiFi.
This is single phase
GitHub - slipx06/Sunsynk-Home-Assistant-Dash: Home Assistant Dashboard to display Inverter information. ESPHome configuration to collect inverter sensor data via modbus
Home Assistant Dashboard to display Inverter information. ESPHome configuration to collect inverter sensor data via modbus - slipx06/Sunsynk-Home-Assistant-Dash
github.com
This is three phase
GitHub - klatremis/esphome-for-deye: Esphome component for Deye 3 phase inverters for Home Assistant
Esphome component for Deye 3 phase inverters for Home Assistant - klatremis/esphome-for-deye
github.com
Considering the work they put into the settings cards for home assistant I would hope they work, seems like they have all the registers figured out seems pretty nice tbh I'm still undecided on going Deye or Solis after looking at this I'll need to take a look how far they've got with esphome and solis or this might heavily sway my decision
kolek
Inventor of the Electron
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2021
- Messages
- 922
I don't have Solis and don't know anything about them, but I have Deye and I wouldn't go with Deye again. The hardware itself may be ok, but the support is non-existent and if you ever have a problem you only have this forum for support. With Deye, assume you have zero warranty as well. Basically assume the company Deye doesn't exist after the purchase.
Noted !! The Solis is pretty well worked out also, though unless I want to hack the WiFi dongle that comes with it I'll need to find some proprietary connector on ali if I want to build my own esp comms device.
Mr.Hyde
New Member
No, I started using Solar Assistant, and it works really well, so I haven't bothered to bypass it yet. The other investigation I haven't done is just to snoop on the serial comms.
Keith Moreau
New Member
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2019
- Messages
- 71
I purchased a loaded Orange Pi from Solar Assistant directly last year and just set it up to work with my Sol-Ark 15K. I find the user interface to be very "90's" but acceptable with a lot of Sol-Ark monitoring and control options if you know what you're doing. I have Home Assistant already installed, using it for near real time bluetooth monitoring of my JBD / Overkill BMSs with an integration called BatMon. Home Assistant needed the MQTT 'Mosquito' integration to run Batmon so I installed that and decided to also use that to get information from Solar Assistant.
The Solar Assistant MQTT to Home Assistant configuration is simple but it is easy to get it wrong and become befuddled as the Solar Assistant documentation isn't that clear in places and skips over important information about MQTT, however eventually I got the connection to Home Assistant working and it sends tons of info to HA which MQTT turns into entities/sensors, I can pretty easily turn into useful dashboards.
However... my Solar Assistant Orange PI seems unstable. I haven't gotten it to stay up without hanging for more than 18 hours. Rebooting it results in it coming up to the dashboard screen, working for a second and then hanging. Ironically, when I was video recording the screen to show the Solar Assistant hang it actually booted that time and worked for 18 hours, now it is hung and stops spitting out MQTT info. Now I have to go back to troubleshooting to see how to get this to work again or somehow get support for it.
Previous I had tried getting the direct Sol-Ark RS-485 to Home Assistant integration to work (https://github.com/pbix/HA-solark-PV) , but couldn't, though I gave up perhaps a bit early. Again, missing a lot of setup information for people newbies to know how to troubleshoot problems, but I may go back to it. However, I'd love to see some pre-built dashboards for that so I don't have to do a lot of yaml config file coding for it...
Anyway, my 2 cents.
The Solar Assistant MQTT to Home Assistant configuration is simple but it is easy to get it wrong and become befuddled as the Solar Assistant documentation isn't that clear in places and skips over important information about MQTT, however eventually I got the connection to Home Assistant working and it sends tons of info to HA which MQTT turns into entities/sensors, I can pretty easily turn into useful dashboards.
However... my Solar Assistant Orange PI seems unstable. I haven't gotten it to stay up without hanging for more than 18 hours. Rebooting it results in it coming up to the dashboard screen, working for a second and then hanging. Ironically, when I was video recording the screen to show the Solar Assistant hang it actually booted that time and worked for 18 hours, now it is hung and stops spitting out MQTT info. Now I have to go back to troubleshooting to see how to get this to work again or somehow get support for it.
Previous I had tried getting the direct Sol-Ark RS-485 to Home Assistant integration to work (https://github.com/pbix/HA-solark-PV) , but couldn't, though I gave up perhaps a bit early. Again, missing a lot of setup information for people newbies to know how to troubleshoot problems, but I may go back to it. However, I'd love to see some pre-built dashboards for that so I don't have to do a lot of yaml config file coding for it...
Anyway, my 2 cents.
The sunsynk card can likely be used, you still have to input your own entities but it's a pretty neat card for a quick overview
Keith Moreau
New Member
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2019
- Messages
- 71
Thank you @ThaiTaffy I'll check it out. In the meantime I think I may have solved the Solar Assistant hang... I had not reserved an IP address for it and I think my DHCP server, (TP-Link Deco system) had changed its IP address overnight. It is possible that this was the cause of the apparent hang and lack of MQTT going out as my pointer within the Home Assistant Config file was no longer pointing to it. I was able to do the reserved IP, and after more fiddling in SA MQTT config and HA about why it still wasn't working with the correct SA ip address, I eventually went to Home Assistant / Add Ons / MQTT / Info tab and chose 'restart' and this seems to have reset the MQTT and it now functions. I'll keep everybody posted about any other issues with Solar Assistant, it should basically be headless 'appliance' that is always up but we'll see and for now the automatic MQTT discover and creation of Home Assistant Entities / Sensors is convenient as I don't have to do a bunch of creating interfaces just to look at my Sol-Ark.
kolek
Inventor of the Electron
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2021
- Messages
- 922
The fact that the end user has to go thru all this nonsense to get their data directly from the Deye/Sunsync/SolArk inverters is unacceptable and I'm going to continue bemoaning the situation in the off chance that Deye will get the message and ship an inverter with a decent user interface or ship their inverters with this (otherwise inexpensive hardware) wired up and functional. I know there's a whole group of programmers and engineers out there that just love the process of tinkering with this crap and like to chirp about "this is the DIY solar forum after all, let's celebrate the opportunity to wire up a RS485 board!", but on behalf of regular people that have a life: Seriously. Screw. Deye.
Last edited:
Lawrence_SoCal
New Member
I completely agree with you that the entire consumer ESS industry status on interoperability is pretty dismal. And I look forward to better standards.. I may be naive/overly hopeful, but I'm hoping that things like the power control system certification, once updated (possibly couple of iterations) will effectively require a level of interoperability (or better yet, and industry agreement on a secure communication standard for ESS and related components)
HOWEVER,
Your comment strikes me as more of a caveat emptor situation, than a legitimate vendor complaint. It is not fair to a vendor to complain when purchaser didn't research, or check for, a requirement in advance, purchasing a low-cost DIY product, and then whining about something not being there that they want.
It is perfectly valid to complain when something that is supposed to be there, either isn't or works so badly as to be unusable/worthless.
But to want something you weren't willing to research/pay for... in the IT world, the acronyms ID10T, PEBKAC, and the like are used to describe such behavior/people.
For customers who 'have a life', the answer is simple - don't go the DIY roll-your-own route. not yet anyway, not this early in the technology product lifecycle. I won't be surprised if it is another 5-10 years before easy interoperability between residential ESS components becomes mature, robust and common place.
Properly coding an interface, testing, thorough exception coding and testing when trying to interoperate with equipment that may, or most likely is not coded to a mature quality level, is expensive. End-user support for that interface is a LOT more expensive. And there are products that do this, and they are, naturally, as to be expected, a lot more expensive. Sort of like the old Project Management saying, "Good, Fast, and Cheap, pick 2" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle [For those into modern Project Mgmt lingo, replace Good, Fast, and Cheap with Scope, Schedule, and Cost... same thing] You only get all 3 once something simple/limited in scope is VERY mature and optimized
kolek
Inventor of the Electron
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2021
- Messages
- 922
@Lawrence_SoCal
Some people just don't get it. Do you really work in an IT-related field?
Don't you realize how much cheaper, simplier, and easier it would be for Deye to ship inverters that allow their customers to directly access the inverter and get to their data?
They don't want to do that.
Like most of the tech industry, they see more value in collecting as much of their user's personal and use information as they possibly can, AND they want total remote control over your device. If you set up access the way Deye wants you to, they can, for example, remotely update your firmware and settings, which means there is nothing stopping them from even remotely bricking users devices.
So you want your data from your inverter? It's in the cloud, dude. Ain't the cloud wonderful?
They've created a crappy convoluted system where the only easy way to your data is though them. And they want you using phone apps which further demand all kinds of permissions (so they can grab yet more personal information) from your phone.
Some people just don't get it. Do you really work in an IT-related field?
Don't you realize how much cheaper, simplier, and easier it would be for Deye to ship inverters that allow their customers to directly access the inverter and get to their data?
They don't want to do that.
Like most of the tech industry, they see more value in collecting as much of their user's personal and use information as they possibly can, AND they want total remote control over your device. If you set up access the way Deye wants you to, they can, for example, remotely update your firmware and settings, which means there is nothing stopping them from even remotely bricking users devices.
So you want your data from your inverter? It's in the cloud, dude. Ain't the cloud wonderful?
They've created a crappy convoluted system where the only easy way to your data is though them. And they want you using phone apps which further demand all kinds of permissions (so they can grab yet more personal information) from your phone.
Last edited:
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
you totally missed the point. why should I have to bare my soul to get the data form the turds?
kolek
Inventor of the Electron
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2021
- Messages
- 922
Didn't the FBI just recently release a report calling the access Chinese manufacturers have to the solar infrastructure via control and data capture interfaces like this a threat?
And for me I'm not even so concerned about the threat the FBI references, I just want my data directly from the device with no nonsense and no intermediaries.
Getting to it directly is the part that requires hand wiring little chips together, which some programmers and engineers here enjoy, but which is beyond the technical skill level of the average Joe user, and which nobody would have to bother with if Deye wasn't trying to collect data from and have total remote control over all the devices it sells.
And for me I'm not even so concerned about the threat the FBI references, I just want my data directly from the device with no nonsense and no intermediaries.
Getting to it directly is the part that requires hand wiring little chips together, which some programmers and engineers here enjoy, but which is beyond the technical skill level of the average Joe user, and which nobody would have to bother with if Deye wasn't trying to collect data from and have total remote control over all the devices it sells.
It's perspective as you pointed out if you have an interest in embedded engineering your going to look for a product you can hotwire with a SBC/PLC. I generally don't buy any electrical product considered smart unless I can hack it whether that's making a pot of coffee when I leave my bed in the morning or controlling AC units/fans to switch on/off automatically depending on my PV production.
Some people just want a product to work without having to go through all the trouble of understanding modbus protocols and learning how to micro solder along with the costs of tools etc.
In my case Deye inverters are a brilliant product but I'm looking to hotwire it but for someone who wants total control straight out of the box without having it cloud connected it's most definitely not a good choice.
wattmatters
Solar Wizard
Deye + Solar Assistant linked via MQTT to Home Assistant would seem to provide the local data and customisable automation control aspects.
Certainly that's working well with the non-Deye inverters I have been using it for nearly three years. I am certainly no IT person.
Certainly that's working well with the non-Deye inverters I have been using it for nearly three years. I am certainly no IT person.
I'm cheap Deye+$2 esp32 linked via esphome to home assistant works better
kolek
Inventor of the Electron
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2021
- Messages
- 922
@SeaGal @ThaiTaffy
Engineers love to tell you it's only $2 in parts as if that's all you need to make it happen.
Somehow they fail to mention the 18 years of relevant experience they have, that the average person doesn't have, and can't practically duplicate.
Of course it's easy as pie, if you already know how to do it. It's like a gymnast telling you how easy it is to do a triple backflip. "Ya just jump, hold your legs, and spin. Doesn't even cost $2. Free and only takes 2 seconds. Ok now you do it."
No mention of the risks either. "Oh yeah dude I forgot to mention, if you accidently swap wire 6 & 7, magic smoke and your $2000 inverter goes poof." Like the gymnast who forgets to mention that you'll be a paraplegic for life if you spin a little too slow and land on your head. Just a minor oversight.
Last edited:
No arguments here though the risks with rs485/UART seem fairly low if you stick to 3.3v I've had wires crossed a few times and nothing has blown so far.
kolek
Inventor of the Electron
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2021
- Messages
- 922
Why is this hard for people to understand?
I don't want to buy some crappy proprietary 3rd party software to access a networked device that I own. None of the other networked devices I own operate that way. A standard networked device doesn't require a paid 3rd party app to connect. It has an IP address on the network and you login with your browser.
The problem with apologists who say "but it works for me with Solar Assistant" is that Deye is never going to correct this issue if people just roll over, comply with their nonsense, and don't complain.
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
so in other words it si not like a women where you cross the wires one times and it blows up in your face?
Technically you can still do this with esphome without home assistant if the esphome has a web server( I can add that to the code I sent) you would just log into the devices IP and you can view live data and change settings but you wouldn't have access to historical data.
Similar threads
