Solar Assistant Alarm Email

[magnet creek]

I wonder is there is a way to generate "alarms" from Solar Assistant in some way shape or form.
I had a water leak this afternoon and the way I found out about it was by (accidentally) looking at Solar Assistant and Seeing a usage spike (see graph below) of 1500W for the waterpump to go on, some time @1000W to pump water and a couple of hours of cavitation @500W (since all the water from the Totes had been pumped).
The pump miraculously survived.
But I would love to be able to generate alarms based on certain set parameters. Like if the load is >500W for more that 30 minutes send email...
Any ideas on if and how that is possible?

 

[Offgrid Jungle]

Home assistant. It’s too bad that inverter apps and Solar Assistant are so far behind the times!

 

[wattmatters]

Home assistant

I have Home Assistant send my phone alerts triggered by whatever conditions I set, e.g.:

 

[Madcodger]

Home assistant. It’s too bad that inverter apps and Solar Assistant are so far behind the times!

Home Assistant is a great suggestion, but I disagree in terms of bashing SA or even (all) inverter apps. They do what they do, and having an ability to communicate with a more "Swiss Army knife" tool like Home Assistant is a feature, not a deficit. Personally, I prefer that approach to having a special purpose tool like SA try to be all things to all people, or having a host of individual tools/apps sending me messages.

 

[Texican]

Emporia Vue will also send alerts based on conditions that you decide

 

[Offgrid Jungle]

I have Emporia Vue. I am going to bash the inverter apps and SA. Every other app int he world sends messages. Not all of us are at home and able to connect to the EG4 dongle, for example. They do need to step up their game. Even compatibility with Google Home oar Alexa should be an easy task for China made inverters.

 

[magnet creek]

Home Assistant sound interesting. So how would you integrate Home Assistant with Solar Assistant?
Do you need an MQTT server?

 

[BarracudaBob]

Home Assistant sound interesting. So how would you integrate Home Assistant with Solar Assistant?
Do you need an MQTT server?

I believe the answer is yes, you need to set up Home Assistant with MQTT. It wouldn't be hard for him to incorporate email alerts in Solar Assistant. That would be very nice. HA is on my to do list. It seems a waist to have to buy or set up a different box.

I was looking at this:

Home Assistant Green | Smart Home hub with Advanced Automation | Official Home Assistant Hardware​

You can go to them direct and save a couple of bucks.

 

[MattMan119]

Home Assistant sound interesting. So how would you integrate Home Assistant with Solar Assistant?
Do you need an MQTT server?

Yes, home assistant has a way to link to solar assistants mqtt server … not too hard.. point to it out in a user and password that is configured in SA and you have them both

 

[TechRider]

From the Solar Assistant website, they have alerts like this as a future item. It was supposed to happen in late 2024 but who knows now.

 

[MattMan119]

They did add a lot of stuff this last version … so much so I have not reviewed it all

 

[BarracudaBob]

I have the Beta and I now get the alarms on EG4 LiFePower4 batteries. No push notification or email yet. He will get there. SA works with my new JBD BMS less than $1K rack mounts. Very happy with it so far.

Email notification is high one my wish list.

 

[jjww]

I would use a 2nd Raspberrypi running Node-red, tons of ways to send messages/emails

 

[BarracudaBob]

It would be cool to even have a usb to relay output to trigger some form of alert or remotely turn on a contactor for a chargeverter. How about a remote shutdown. Not everybody is a programmer or that tech savy. There are a lot of people that can wire up things.

Sounds like an opportunity for someone to produce a nearly plug and play option. You either know or you pay. I am somewhere in the middle.

 

[MattMan119]

Took only a few seconds to configure this one for grid power outage. With Home Assistant it is pretty easy, but that is a lof of overhead for a message when you have power spike or grid outage. But definitely will work and do the job!



Just set the trigger and message and done.


FYI: After thought too -- IDK if this works from all over the place or local only without the remote access option that is a pay service. If you need it then that cost like $65 a year to login and access everything from any device anyplace.

 

[fmeili1]

In my opinion, linking a solar system (e.g. using SolarAssistant) to a SmartHome system is a great thing and the potential for additional options is often underestimated.

Sending messages (e.g. via email or messaging services) is only a small part of this. The monitoring, control and regulation options for consumers depending on the solar system are immense (e.g. changing thermostat settings for heat pumps, etc.). Conversely, the solar system can be regulated depending on the house load (e.g. charging currents for the batteries, optimizing switchover times for grid assistance, etc.). Everything can be controlled via rules triggered by events.

If you also include the weather and PV production data forecasts in your smart home system rules, there are virtually endless possibilities for optimizing the system "PV-solar / house-consumers" on a more integrated level. A typical solar/inverter application by itself will never be such powerful.

 

[wattmatters]

FYI: After thought too -- IDK if this works from all over the place or local only without the remote access option that is a pay service.

I use Nabu Casa because it's easy, it works and is my contribution to the HA developers, however it is certainly possible to set up secure remote access to Home Assistant for no cost, e.g.:

Remote access

Setting up remote access for Home Assistant.

www.home-assistant.io

 

[wattmatters]

In my opinion, linking a solar system (e.g. using SolarAssistant) to a SmartHome system is a great thing and the potential for additional options is often underestimated.

Use it extensively for these and other things.

 

[BarracudaBob]

I am having an issue with home assistant finding solar assistant. On a mesh networks so perhaps that is the issue

 

[MattMan119]

I am having an issue with home assistant finding solar assistant. On a mesh networks so perhaps that is the issue

Make sure you enable the mqtt service in SA .. Configuration tab at the bottom..

 

[MattMan119]

I use Nabu Casa because it's easy, it works and is my contribution to the HA developers, however it is certainly possible to set up secure remote access to Home Assistant for no cost, e.g.:

Remote access

Setting up remote access for Home Assistant.

www.home-assistant.io

Agreed. I use it also, it works, it is easy and helps contribute.

 

[BarracudaBob]

Make sure you enable the mqtt service in SA .. Configuration tab at the bottom..
View attachment 252036

Been there done that

 

[BarracudaBob]

What do you set in configure. using default settings right now
Updating Home Assistant

 

[MattMan119]

What do you set in configure. using default settings right now
Updating Home Assistant

Start easy .



The topic prefix .. just something to make it diffrent from other things in the server.. I would use like "sa"
Allow setting changes allows me to change some setting in inverter..
I used reset energy totals daily..

Unique ID .. Something that is added to the start of all sensors .. use something like "Inverter" or something like that.

I would skip the user name and password till you get everything else working.. Then come back and start down that path ..

 

[BarracudaBob]

Start easy .

There is somthing else going on. Did that and they just don't see each other. I'll put this back on the burner. Company has arrive and open fire.

"... and thank you for your support."
-B & J