Solar Assistant -> Home Assistant connection issues

[trad]

I have Solar Assistant working fine and it is publishing mqtt messages, confirmed with MQTT explorer.

But using the documentation on Solar Assistant to set up Home Assistant seems to be no longer valid. Likely the integration needs to happen slightly differently now. It seems that Home Assistant is getting messages because the "Start Listening" seems to show messages coming into the Mosquitto broker. Also in the devices page under MQQT, I can see Luxpower SNA by Luxpower which I assume means my 6000XP is being recognized.

What isn't working is the next step to set up the Energy dashboard? Adding consumption, adding my solar panels seems to be not working. The setup screens say it cannot find any statistics when I try and setup following the guide on the Solar Assistant page. Where is the best place to get help with getting Home Assistant integrated with Solar Assistant?

 

[wattmatters]

Also in the devices page under MQQT, I can see Luxpower SNA by Luxpower which I assume means my 6000XP is being recognized.

Might want to check with Solar Assistant tech support but I had to make a change to my Solar Assistant - Home Assistant MQTT set up. It wasn't that it wasn't working, it was, rather it was because I wanted to start adding MQTT data streams from other sources into HA. The way the SA instructions were written sets the SA Pi up as the MQTT broker, which is fine if HA is the only client.

However I needed to set up an MQTT broker in HA, that way SA and my other MQTT data stream could all talk with HA.

But before going down that path (for which all I can do is point you to HA's own documentation on MQTT), what do you see when you click on the Luxpower from the MQTT page?

This is after selecting the MQTT from the Settings/Integrations menu:



Click on Devices I get the list of MQTT devices:



Click on Axpert Max and I get all the entities etc for that Solar Assistant Pi:



If you can get to this last page then you can set up a dashboard.

 

[trad]

Context: Raspberry Pi 3b with newly installed HA. I wiped my initial install and reflashed just to make sure I didn't do something wrong there..

Might want to check with Solar Assistant tech support but I had to make a change to my Solar Assistant - Home Assistant MQTT set up. It wasn't that it wasn't working, it was, rather it was because I wanted to start adding MQTT data streams from other sources into HA. The way the SA instructions were written sets the SA Pi up as the MQTT broker, which is fine if HA is the only client.

However I needed to set up an MQTT broker in HA, that way SA and my other MQTT data stream could all talk with HA.

But before going down that path (for which all I can do is point you to HA's own documentation on MQTT), what do you see when you click on the Luxpower from the MQTT page?

This is after selecting the MQTT from the Settings/Integrations menu:

First I don't have a Setting / Integration menu on my HA But I can get to Setting / Devices and see the MQQT with the Luxpower

View attachment 241168

Click on Devices I get the list of MQTT devices:

Through Setting / Devices I get your screen above, except I only get one device (my Luxpower) and much more troubling, I only get one entity which seems to suggest that nothing is being transmitted.



Your screens below are nowhere to be found.

View attachment 241173

Click on Axpert Max and I get all the entities etc for that Solar Assistant Pi:

View attachment 241172

If you can get to this last page then you can set up a dashboard.

It seems like something has changed. I have the latest version of HA from Aug 21, just over a week ago.

 

[wildbillpdx]

Context: Raspberry Pi 3b with newly installed HA. I wiped my initial install and reflashed just to make sure I didn't do something wrong there..



First I don't have a Setting / Integration menu on my HA But I can get to Setting / Devices and see the MQQT with the Luxpower
View attachment 241187



Through Setting / Devices I get your screen above, except I only get one device (my Luxpower) and much more troubling, I only get one entity which seems to suggest that nothing is being transmitted.

View attachment 241188

Your screens below are nowhere to be found.



It seems like something has changed. I have the latest version of HA from Aug 21, just over a week ago.

It partially depends on how you installed/setup HA. You can use Docker, or a dedicated HAS/IO image for Pi or several others. Some include different functions than others.

 

[wattmatters]

First I don't have a Setting / Integration menu on my HA

Yes I meant Settings/Devices & services menu, which then has an Integrations tab.

As for the rest of it, since yours is not getting to that last page I'm not the right person to help.

 

[trad]

It partially depends on how you installed/setup HA. You can use Docker, or a dedicated HAS/IO image for Pi or several others. Some include different functions than others.

I just did the standard no docker install using a spare Pi 3B with a 32gb SD card. This is my first play with HA so I am getting used to what it looks like. I just don't know what it should look like once it is fully integrated as the Solar Assistant integration documentation don't show what the final working install should look like. I just know that I am unable to complete the final dashboard for some strange reason.

 

[trad]

I was able to get SmartMeterTX integrated and working on my Energy Dashboard, so slowly I am making progress.

Solar Assistant is still a puzzle.

 

[rtax]

I have Solar Assistant working fine and it is publishing mqtt messages, confirmed with MQTT explorer.

But using the documentation on Solar Assistant to set up Home Assistant seems to be no longer valid. Likely the integration needs to happen slightly differently now. It seems that Home Assistant is getting messages because the "Start Listening" seems to show messages coming into the Mosquitto broker. Also in the devices page under MQQT, I can see Luxpower SNA by Luxpower which I assume means my 6000XP is being recognized.

What isn't working is the next step to set up the Energy dashboard? Adding consumption, adding my solar panels seems to be not working. The setup screens say it cannot find any statistics when I try and setup following the guide on the Solar Assistant page. Where is the best place to get help with getting Home Assistant integrated with Solar Assistant?

moin , got a quite similar problem ihave HA running in an proxmox environment, i have got SA running on a PI4 (everything is good so far), but when i connect the SA to HA via MQTT Integration all my other MQTT Devices are gone an not working fine as before .... the SA documentation is outdated, because HA has changed the MQTT Integration ... over the time ... how can i connect my SA PI4 to HA via MQTT so that all ZigBee2MQTT devices running fine ..... please help

thanks and excuse my bad english
regards rtax

 

[MaikaiLife]

The instructions provided here are still accurate, however, I would suggest using the Visual Studio add-on rather than the file explorer.

Home Assistant broker setup with SolarAssistant

Configure Home Assistant to run an MQTT broker with a bridge reading from SolarAssistant.

solar-assistant.io

These are the add-ons I would suggest.

1. Home Assistant Add-on: Mosquitto broker​

2. Home Assistant Community Add-on: Visual Studio Code​

3. MQTT Explorer​

The Broker gets your HA instance setup to receive the MQTT data, VS Code lets you make the changes in the SA documentation by creating the solar_assistant.conf file and the explorer lets you see the data live streaming to HA.

In my solar_assistant.conf file I have the following. Don't care about password security.

connection SolarAssistant
remote_username solar
remote_password solar
address 192.168.86.82
topic # in
topic solar_assistant/# out

Under Solar Assistant on the MQTT configuration page I have the following.



Finally when you get all this done you have to go to HA -> settings -> Integrations and add the MQTT integration


The only problem I have is that it sends everything to HA, so I actually unsubscribed from everything using the MQTT explorer and then add my own MQTT entries in a config file. So first, in my configuration.yaml, in SA I have this line

mqtt: !include mqtt_entities.yaml

Then in that file I have individual MQTT entries that let me control what I want to see from HA.

  ######## Battery #1 ##########
  - name: "SOC - Battery 1"
    icon: mdi:battery-high
    unique_id: "SOC - Battery 1"
    state_topic: "solar_assistant/battery_1/state_of_charge/state"
    device_class: battery
    value_template: "{{ (value) }}"
    unit_of_measurement: "%"

  - name: "V - Battery 1"
    icon: mdi:sine-wave
    unique_id: "V - Battery 1"
    state_topic: "solar_assistant/battery_1/voltage/state"
    device_class: voltage
    value_template: "{{ (value) }}"
    unit_of_measurement: "V"

  - name: "W - Battery 1"
    icon: mdi:current-dc
    unique_id: "W - Battery 1"
    state_topic: "solar_assistant/battery_1/power/state"
    device_class: power
    value_template: "{{ (value) }}"
    unit_of_measurement: "W"

What this ends up giving me is exact entries with exact value templates, icons and wording in HA.

Under entries in the MQTT integration my batteries for example look like this.



This is for Victron but it's essentially the same thing, the reason I reference it is because it gives a lot of good details explaining how to use these tools.

HomeAssistant + Victron.md

GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

 

[Texican]

I was able to get SmartMeterTX integrated and working on my Energy Dashboard, so slowly I am making progress.

Solar Assistant is still a puzzle.

How did you get data from smart meter texas into the HA energy dashboard ?

 

[MattMan119]

I have Solar Assistant working fine and it is publishing mqtt messages, confirmed with MQTT explorer.

But using the documentation on Solar Assistant to set up Home Assistant seems to be no longer valid. Likely the integration needs to happen slightly differently now. It seems that Home Assistant is getting messages because the "Start Listening" seems to show messages coming into the Mosquitto broker. Also in the devices page under MQQT, I can see Luxpower SNA by Luxpower which I assume means my 6000XP is being recognized.

What isn't working is the next step to set up the Energy dashboard? Adding consumption, adding my solar panels seems to be not working. The setup screens say it cannot find any statistics when I try and setup following the guide on the Solar Assistant page. Where is the best place to get help with getting Home Assistant integrated with Solar Assistant?

Are you just connecting the HA to SA or are you adding in the Victron also?

For the first it easy, the second esquires a little more setup but just did the same thing and should be able to give you step by step

 

[trad]

How did you get data from smart meter texas into the HA energy dashboard ?

Smart Meter Texas

Instructions on how to integrate Smart Meter Texas into Home Assistant.

www.home-assistant.io

 

[trad]

Are you just connecting the HA to SA or are you adding in the Victron also?

No Victron here. Only 6000xp with Solar Assistant.

 

[MattMan119]

No Victron here. Only 6000xp with Solar Assistant.

Then should be easy, just enable the MQTT server in Solar assistant .. and point MQTT service in HA to that IP… if you don’t want to configure it use the middle HA auto configure part.

just put a simple topic pre I’d in in case you do add other stuff like switches or other MQTT stuff .

Home Assistant auto registration willl give you most of the details and sensors you have in SA in HA ….

I started without the ID and password ..then once you get it connected you can go back and add it.

If you have problems let me know, most of this should be automatic ..

 

[Philspain72]

Hi I'm trying to connect Solar Assistant to Home Assistant I have followed their instructions on Solar Assistant website but nothing. I already have Mqtt with 36 devices on in Home Assistant. But know idea what I'm doing wrong. I can't even connect to it with MQTT Explorer. Im sure its just me be getting really frustrated now because the only reason I bought Solar Assistant was to connect my Batteries and Inverter to HA, but their actual instruction don't work for me at least. its not me. Any help would be appreciated. I tried emailing Solar Assistant but they sent me an email with this "
Thanks for taking the time to reach out, we are always more than happy to advise or assist in any way we can. When it comes to the MQTT integrations, this usually includes using 3rd-party software that we are not experts on and cannot really advise further on either. However, when it comes to our side of things, there are a few things we can recommend. First, we do advise using MQTT Explorer to check the MQTT messages from SolarAssistant. Not only will this show you what kind of data is being published, but it will also show you the entity names etc. Then, these articles may be able to assist:

• MQTT Setup
• MQTT Integration
• MQTT Energy dashboard
• Adjusting Settings via MQTT"

 

[Crowz]

To have the energy panel in home assistant use the data from solar assistant in the electricity generation part of the setup it has to be an energy type variable. Normal power stuff won't work for that.

I have this in my configuration.yaml at the end of the file to handle the problem your having.

utility_meter:
daily_energy:
name: Daily Energy
source: sensor.main_energyin
cycle: daily
unique_id: daily_energy

monthly_energy:
name: Monthly Energy
source: sensor.main_energyin
cycle: monthly
unique_id: monthly_energy

The sensor.main_energyin is from the mqtt stuff.

In my mqtt.yaml I have this :

- name: "MAIN energyIn"
state_topic: "SEMMETER/A085E3FC6916/HA"
value_template: "{{ value_json.sense[16][3] | float | multiply(0.001) + value_json.sense[17][3] | float | multiply(0.001) +value_json.sense[18][3] | float | multiply(0.001)}}"
unit_of_measurement: "kWh"
icon: "mdi:counter"
device_class: energy
state_class: total_increasing
unique_id: main_energyin

I use a emporia vue 2 clone that provides that mqtt data. But any mqtt device would work as long as its device_class is energy and state_class is total_increasing