homebridge-solax
v1.3.4TypeScript
A Solax connector that (crudely) exposes readonly metrics as Light Sensors for power generation, import, export, individual string generation, and (experimental) battery metrics. Due to the constraints around HomeKit's support for power inverters, this se
0/weekUpdated 3 years agoApache-2.0Unpacked: 3.0 MB
Published by troygnz
npm install homebridge-solax
Homebridge-Solax Platform Plugin
Use this plugin to monitor your Solax Inverter. It can provide realtime metrics from your inverter along with configurable alerts for Automation purposes.
Note: HomeKit doesn't natively support a solar inverter or a watts based acccessory. To work around this limitation, a light sensor accessory is used the display the various metrics. Noting the minimum allowed value for a light sensor is 0.1.
Requires the installation of the Solax Monitoring Dongle, and usage of a static IP address on your LAN. Refer to your Router configuration guide on how to do this.
Once you know the IP address of your Solax Inverter, navigate to http://{InverterIpAddress}/api/realTimeData.htm
Here you should get a (malformed) JSON payload, but this will confirm it's possible to extract metrics from it.
Installation
$3
``
npm install homebridge-solax
$3
`
"platforms": [
{
"platform" : "SolaxHomebridgePlugin",
"name" : "Solax Inverter",
"address": "http://192.168.1.40",
"pollingFrequencySeconds": 60,
"movingAverageHistoryLength": 10,
"exportAlertThresholds": [-5000, 0, 1000, 1500],
"showStrings": true,
"hasBattery": false,
"valueStrategy": "SimpleMovingAverage"
}
]
address: The base hostname of your inverter connection dongle
pollingFrequencySeconds: _Optional_: Specifies how often to poll the Solax Inverter, and issue updates to HomeKit. Defaults to 60 seconds.
movingAverageHistoryLength: _Optional_: Specifies the number of samples to keep when using Averaging over time based value strategies. Defaults to 10 entries. See valueStrategy field for details on how this is used.
exportAlertThresholds: _Optional_: Array of integers specifying the thresholds to create Alerts for. This will activate a motion trigger when the power export matches or exceeds the threshold value. Example: [-1000, 500, 2000] will create three motion sensors - "1000 watts imported", "500 watts exported" and "2000 watts exported".
showStrings: _Optional_: Defaults to true. Shows Individual Inverter String metrics (PV1, PV2).
hasBattery: _Optional_: Defaults to true. Experimental. Shows Battery information. Note, due to limited documentaiton from Solax, the Charging State is estimated based on the delta of Battery Watts.
valueStrategy: _Optional_: Defaults to SimpleMovingAverage. LatestReading = use the latest values at each polling period, SimpleMovingAverage for providing some smoothing of values, to handle scenarios like sporadic cloud/sun moments. Averages over the entire history. ExpoentialMovingAverage = Use standard Exponential Moving Average calculation to provide a smoothed last value. Refer to movingAverageHistoryLength for Moving Average based history tuning.
exposeRawMetrics: _Optional_: Defaults to true. 3 additional accessories will be exposed to provide the raw value feed (no averaging based filtering).
$3
You can then create Automations in HomeKit as a result of the motion detection events (or them ceasing to happen).
Example: If 2000 watts or more is being exported, and heatpump isn't already cranked, then bump the temperature up.
I personally use Home+, as it allows for smarter controlling of devices. E.g. See below
!Solar Excess Automation
!Solar Insufficient Automation