Solar assistant: do you use it?

[Crowz]

I have a question about HA.
Can it connect with more than one SA?

Yep.

 

[curiouscarbon]

ESP chips are actually quite powerful while being exceptionally power efficient at the same time.

poor programming skills results in inefficient resource utilization.

raspi might work with SA, however, that does not imply that SA is efficiently written.

on a side note, this board is rather appealing to me for BMS <-> data broker (HA/SA) interface due to wired connection

W5500-EVB-Pico - DEV-19958 - SparkFun Electronics

W5500-EVB-Pico is a microcontroller evaluation board based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 and fully hardwired TCP/IP controller W5500.

www.sparkfun.com

it's a rp2040 microcontroller with built in w5500 ethernet! no POE though.

just gonna go ahead and also mention MQTT is cool and any open source program that supports it has my automatic interest

 

[Crowz]

That's odd, since it's fairly common practice. My Emporia view is working just fine on an ESP32, recording 16 channels of information down to the second, serving it up to the web, allowing me to analyze it...

I have an emporia too but it couldn't do what SA does. Think if it this way the emporia has no interface itself and processes no data internally. EVERYTHING is sent to emporia's webservers. All your seeing and using is their website. All the emporia device itself does is snag/store/relay data. It can't even hold more than so many minutes of data before its lost.

 

[curiouscarbon]

for clarity, in this context, the ESP would just shuttle data to some raspberry/orange pi single board computer.

that's what i took from it. maybe mistaken.

modularity system design concept

 

[Crowz]

for clarity, in this context, the ESP would just shuttle data to some raspberry/orange pi single board computer.

that's what i took from it. maybe mistaken.

modularity system design concept

The ESP is handy and I use them but to compare it to the SA discussion here is like saying you want to run windows 10 on the ESP and store a database and plot graphs and act as a server to broadcast data real time to another server (home assistant) and support storing all of the protocols with all of the inverters SA has to work with and act as a webserver that supports all known browsers with the latest security updates, etc. The list goes on and on. All of this at one time. Not happening.

 

[curiouscarbon]

with multiple devices connected, i agree that an ESP would likely have a difficult time doing database duty even with the best of codes.

the architecture that interests me is like
SCC -> ESP#1 -> WiFi/Ethernet -> RasPi#1 -> SA/HA
BMS -> ESP#2 -> WiFi/Ethernet -> RasPi#1 -> SA/HA
Inverter -> ESP#3 -> WiFi/Ethernet -> RasPi#1 -> SA/HA

one raspberry pi for SA/etc and one ESP for each individual reporting device.

that way i can use RJ45 or WiFi as connection, rather than many USB cables, which can introduce grounding issues.
and benefit from cheap commodity ethernet/wifi switch/accesspoint.

 

[Crowz]

with multiple devices connected, i agree that an ESP would likely have a difficult time doing database duty even with the best of codes.

the architecture that interests me is like
SCC -> ESP#1 -> WiFi/Ethernet -> RasPi#1 -> SA/HA
BMS -> ESP#2 -> WiFi/Ethernet -> RasPi#1 -> SA/HA
Inverter -> ESP#3 -> WiFi/Ethernet -> RasPi#1 -> SA/HA

one raspberry pi for SA/etc and one ESP for each individual reporting device.

that way i can use RJ45 or WiFi as connection, rather than many USB cables, which can introduce grounding issues.
and benefit from cheap commodity ethernet/wifi switch/accesspoint.

That could work.

 

[Brett V]

Solar Assistant changed my satisfaction with the Growatt from meh to wow. I’m using a Victron smart shunt to report the batteries SOC but the built in reporting in the Overkill BMS is also quite accurate. It integrates everything together in to one very functional control and operation common platform. I can’t imagine not having it on my system.

About some complaints regarding the proprietary software violating GPL agreements, this is occurring across several industries and so far hasn’t been challenged in a court of law. In the court of public acceptance, the trend has been positive and I don’t see it changing. I dabble in astrophotography and ZWO makes a Pi based device with proprietary software and incompatibility with third party hardware. People are buying them up like crazy.

 

[wattmatters]

If you could interface with your hardware via other means, is there much benefit to SA over just using HA integration?

There is no HA integration for these inverters. That's the point. SA enables it.

Is there anything significant that you can't do from HA that you can from SA, or that SA is just much better at?

I can't directly interface my inverter with HA.

Note that the SA integration is not so much Home Assistant but via an MQTT broker integration in HA.

IOW I can read/write directly with Node Red MQTT nodes and not use HA at all. HA is just nicer for display of information, but from an automation point of view either HA or Node Red will do fine. I actually have a bit of both.

I haven't found much that you can't, relatively easily (from what I can tell) integrate into HA directly.

If you can point me to a HA integration which interfaces with my EASun inverter (Voltronic / Axpert Max family, same as the MPP 8048 Max), I'm all eyes and ears.

 

[euphonius]

What I'm not sure about is whether SA can operate with just batteries/BMS and not be connected to an inverter.

I first used Solar Assistant to monitor three G4LL/GYLL batteries under a (pre-hybrid) Magnum/Midnite system. RS485 USB cable between one battery and the SA. No inverter or charge controller connection. Simple and effective.

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Solar Assistant is a solar system monitoring and remote control app. It can also be used for home automation and load control.

I am using this poll to measure its popularity on the forum. I have never used it before, but am curious how many people are using it.

Yes have been using it for 18 months.

The graphs are basic but informative.

Probably the best part about it is the MQTT broker to send stats to Home Assistant or other displays.

 

[webbbn]

If you can point me to a HA integration which interfaces with my EASun inverter (Voltronic / Axpert Max family, same as the MPP 8048 Max), I'm all eyes and ears.

I'm sure there are many inverters that I haven't even heard of, but would this work? https://esphome.io/components/pipsolar.html

The SA website only lists 16 classes of supported inverters, and as many unsupported. A quick google search seems to indicate that at least some of them are supported by ESPHome/HA (Epever, Fronius, Victron) one way or another.

My question really was more about the SA software, not the hardware interface. I don't plan on purchasing any hardware that I have to rely on a 3rd party to talk to, so, assuming that I can already interface to HA, does SA bring any significant advantages?

 

[webbbn]

The graphs are basic but informative.

Probably the best part about it is the MQTT broker to send stats to Home Assistant or other displays.

I guess that answers my question.

 

[houseofancients]

thanks!

undervoltage crashes have visited me a number of times before. kinda picky about PSUs..

interesting to hear about the absence of power supply brownout issues. cheers

Use a. POE hat and you're golden..
Provides active cooling too

 

[houseofancients]

Solar Assistant changed my satisfaction with the Growatt from meh to wow. I’m using a Victron smart shunt to report the batteries SOC but the built in reporting in the Overkill BMS is also quite accurate. It integrates everything together in to one very functional control and operation common platform. I can’t imagine not having it on my system.

About some complaints regarding the proprietary software violating GPL agreements, this is occurring across several industries and so far hasn’t been challenged in a court of law. In the court of public acceptance, the trend has been positive and I don’t see it changing. I dabble in astrophotography and ZWO makes a Pi based device with proprietary software and incompatibility with third party hardware. People are buying them up like crazy.

And to be honest..
All software used is under a bsd licence, which allows resell

 

[Pierre]

I wish SA supported Schneider and Outback but according to the email I got back they never will. I really wanted to use it to monitor a future system on those two inverters.

Also the whole Victron family , then I am in. Quite happy with VRM but the Growatt server sucks !

 

[wattmatters]

I'm sure there are many inverters that I haven't even heard of, but would this work? https://esphome.io/components/pipsolar.html

I've no idea.

Seems to be an unsupported home project, not a finished product I can just plug in and follow a set up guide or wizard. There's no support, no manual, no info on hardware, no info of how to build or how to connect it.

 

[webbbn]

I've no idea.

Seems to be an unsupported home project, not a finished product I can just plug in and follow a set up guide or wizard. There's no support, no manual, no info on hardware, no info of how to build or how to connect it.

It's not plug-and-play, but it's far from an unsupported home project. That said, not everyone wants to spend the time learning such things.

In any case, I think my questions have been answered, and I don't think I have a need to try SA.

 

[Crowz]

For those wanting a "demo" of solar assistant this might help some. While not user usable demo it actually is better since you would have to purchase a pi to even try a demo of it anyways. @Will Prowse might find this informative.

 

[Joeyhza]

Been waiting in anticipation for Solis support. Have used Solar Assistant in the past on an Axpert inverter many moons back. It definitely added value and enhanced functionality.