Solar Assistant vs. Home Assistant

Daddy Tanuki said:

so in other words it si not like a women where you cross the wires one times and it blows up in your face?

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No no and at 3.3v it doesn't normally bite either

I am sitting talking smack to all parties involved when in reality i do not know my backside from a hole in the ground. Exactly what data do you need Kolek? is it historical data for debugging the system, or just shits and giggles? and how important is it int he grand scheme.

kolek said:

@SeaGal @ThaiTaffy

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Btw don't lump seagal with my "embedded engineering" contrary to what you believe I'm a idiot hobbyist with very little formal training (think we had to build a crystal radio and a small class d amplifier for my electronics section of my Diploma both of which are likely taught in highschool now) I just glue modules together with lead and copy/paste code from github
@SeaGal in the other hand can actually design/fabricate and code.

ThaiTaffy said:

Btw don't lump seagal with my "embedded engineering" contrary to what you believe I'm a idiot hobbyist with very little formal training (think we had to build a crystal radio and a small class d amplifier for my electronics section of my Diploma both of which are likely taught in highschool now) I just glue modules together with lead and copy/paste code from github
@SeaGal in the other hand can actually design/fabricate and code.

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i thought you were a ..... not gonna go there in public

kolek said:

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.

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I wish it was only 18 years of experience... more like 40... feels like 81

kolek said:

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."

ThaiTaffy said:

@SeaGal in the other hand can actually design/fabricate and code.

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I do my best... but who said I never blew anything up...

Daddy Tanuki said:

I am sitting talking smack to all parties involved when in reality i do not know my backside from a hole in the ground. Exactly what data do you need Kolek? is it historical data for debugging the system, or just shits and giggles? and how important is it int he grand scheme.

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Bro it's not a big deal, I'm just throwing shade at 3 parties:
1. Deye for failing to offer a proper user interface to their inverters because they're trying too hard to steal people's data and maintain remote control their machines (this is my main gripe)

And the Deye defenders who include:
- The engineers who pretend that hooking up comm chips is childsplay, act like we're mentally defective if we don't celebrate the DIY comm chip wiring process like they do, and don't acknowledge the fact that end users shouldn't have to wire up comm chips to communicate with their inverter in the first place
- Apologists who think there's nothing wrong with having to pay for proprietary software just to connect to devices on your own network.

kolek said:

I'm just throwing shade at 3 parties

kolek said:

The engineers who pretend that hooking up comm chips is childsplay, act like we're mentally defective if we don't celebrate the DIY comm chip wiring process like they do

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@SeaGal feels guilty as charged... just don't throw shade at my solar panels

SeaGal said:

just don't throw shade at my solar panels

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LOL.

Actually I just wanted to use the phrase "throwing shade" because I heard some hip young people saying it. Maybe some Gen Z person here can let me know if I used the phrase correctly.

I've been planting trees on our farm for nearly a decade(literally throwing shade) now 10 years later I'm asking myself "where do I put panels everywhere has damn shade"

Edit: I should add 50% of the trees I planted are endangered species to prevent people from chopping them down for charcoal (20year jail sentence) so I can't even chop down the damn things myself.

ThaiTaffy said:

I'm asking myself "where do I put panels everywhere has damn shade"

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Sorted...

SeaGal said:

Sorted...

Interesting tree mount for morning light

Hi all. tall tree to the east of home blocks light until about 10 AM, this is our booster idea that followed some property maintainance. Surplus everything except the pvc box. The buried wire is #2 (in conduit) for about a 50 foot run to an unused PWM controller, which should be fine for this...

diysolarforum.com

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Seriously that is clever. Only problem I see with that is that tree is probably still gonna grow and potentially break whatever brackets they have holding those panels. Well, that plus the crimes of multiple electrical code and homeowner association violations, and carbon-footprint-global-warming-mother-earth-deforestation-environmental-destruction. For sure you'd have the tree huggers in the neighborhood calling the city to complain.

kolek said:

I don't want to buy some crappy proprietary 3rd party software to access a networked device that I own.

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Why did you buy it then?

I bought mine knowing its limitations. But I also knew the addition of SA would make it far more useful/valuable and do so without any difficulty for a non-IT person.

kolek said:

Seriously that is clever. Only problem I see with that is that tree is probably still gonna grow and potentially break whatever brackets they have holding those panels. Well, that plus the crimes of multiple electrical code and homeowner association violations, and carbon-footprint-global-warming-mother-earth-deforestation-environmental-destruction. For sure you'd have the tree huggers in the neighborhood calling the city to complain.

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Codes and violations aren't something I need to worry about but brackets exploding due to growth are definitely going to happen here

Then just hang it from one bracket at the top and it will just get higher as the tree grows

SeaGal said:

Then just hang it from one bracket at the top and it will just get higher as the tree grows

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A women should know girth is more important than length

ThaiTaffy said:

I've been planting trees on our farm for nearly a decade(literally throwing shade) now 10 years later I'm asking myself "where do I put panels everywhere has damn shade"

Edit: I should add 50% of the trees I planted are endangered species to prevent people from chopping them down for charcoal (20year jail sentence) so I can't even chop down the damn things myself.

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just digg up the ground around it right before a typhoon, when the winds blow it over document and then remove.

Copper sulfate is your friend

Quattrohead said:

Copper sulfate is your friend

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Sadly my wife loves the wild mushrooms that grow around our farm so I'd get boiled and fed to the dogs if she caught me contaminating our ground water with a fungicide.

kolek said:

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?

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I've been in IT long enough to know that giving the PEBKAC crowd direct access, has its own costs. Anyone with real enterprise IT experience would know that enabling access is cheap, quick, easy. Documenting and Supporting that access, making it stable, reliable, testing, etc... really damn expensive. With decades of medical device industry experience, I realize just how wrong your assertion is from a full device lifecycle perspective, including warranty support. And even in the short term, their testing is SOOOO much simpler going 'cloud'.

Look, I totally get self-sufficient end-users wanting non-cloud, all local, data & system control. Basic security, reliability, etc. Please note, I think the same... I HIGHLY distrust cloud solutions, especially for important systems. I've been around long enough to see most cloud providers fail one way or another, use User Data for their own intent (rarely adequately disclosed), devices bricked when cloud back-end gets turned off, etc.
So, I think it is right for users to insist on local data, control, etc. BUT, that requirement must be part of the purchase evaluation criteria, NOT an after-thought.

Daddy Tanuki said:

you totally missed the point. why should I have to bare my soul to get the data form the turds?

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No, I didn't miss the point. My argument is that if a customer (you) wants Feature X, don't buy something that doesn't have it. Fully comparable alternatives exist, with your desired local data access. So, if you, or anyone, wants your data without baring your soul (a right position to take), then buy products that support such.
And that is my point.

It will cost Deye a not insignificant sum to properly enable local data access. If vendors that offer such capability start selling better, then maybe Deye will respond. Or maybe if customers ask and offer to pay for the capability?

Not doing one's research and then whining after-the-fact... I have no patience for

This reminds me of the regret videos being posted on Youtube by the owners of those Tesla trucks.
People are like "I had no idea that it had problem A, B, C, D..... L, M, N... " and they go on for hours about everything they hate about the truck.

Lawrence here has no patience for those people. He thinks everyone should have know of every flaw of every device they purchase, before they make the purchase. Ok Laurence. Sorry to disappoint you bro. I did not know the Deye comms were crap before I bought it. Next time I'll try harder.

I still think its not a vs but a marriage They work great together :



All of the inverter data is being fed into home assistant by solar assistant. Also the victron shunt data is coming from solar assistant too.

Crowz said:

All of the inverter data is being fed into home assistant by solar assistant. Also the victron shunt data is coming from solar assistant too.

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That's great it works for you. I'm sure the Deye cloud works great for some people as well. Personally, I refuse to pay for a 3rd party proprietary app to access a device on my network. And I'm not going to use some cloud server in China to access a device sitting 2 meters away from me either. It's a matter of principle for me. Eventually I will get UART/RS485 ESPHome etc. working.

kolek said:

That's great it works for you. I'm sure the Deye cloud works great for some people as well. Personally, I refuse to pay for a 3rd party proprietary app to access a device on my network. And I'm not going to the cloud to access a device sitting 2 meters away from me either. It's a matter of principle for me. Eventually I will get UART/RS485 ESPHome etc. working.

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Well solar assistant doesn't require the internet.

Home assistant doesn't require the internet.

Hmm well no cloud there.

Home assistant is free but solar assistant isn't.

Windows isn't free so if your running windows to look at things then you shouldn't have a problem paying one time for a program that gathers information for you to use as you see fit.

I don't see downside. Now monthly fees and phones apps needed would be a completely different ballgame.

But spending money one time to do a project with no strings attached and no recurring bills seems fair. Solar isn't a cheap hobby so initial cost are hard to argue with. Recurring cost seems counter productive for something that is supposed to lead to possible financial independence.

@Crowz Why is it necessary to use a 3rd party proprietary app to access a device sitting 2 meters away from me?

Let's say I told you you can't just walk over to your refrigerator and open it, instead you need to use your "Fridge Assistant" app. Are you cool with that too?

"But I just want to grab a beer."

Well, but Fridge Assistant is easy. No internet access required. It's easy! Only costs $60!

It's the same concept for me.

kolek said:

Why is it necessary to use a 3rd party proprietary app to access a device sitting 2 meters away from me?

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Was such access advertised as being included with the device you bought?