I have an off-grid farm on Dartmoor which uses an Inverter (Quattro 48/15000/200-2x100) to supply power. When the batteries are between 85% - 100%, the inverter puts a second output live. This allows me to run all sorts of appliances via smart plugs. I use the Tapo system. Does anyone know if I can get the two systems to talk, either directly or via a third party ( eg IFTTT). Essentially I want the Tapo App to know when the Victron second output is live. Thanks!
Look into home assistant. It is an open-source project that you can self host to make these kind of smart automations graphically. I see there is already a Tapo integration. If you would install HACS (an external library manager) and then the Victron integration you can monitor and control both from one app on your phone.
Hope this helps!
Hey - thanks for your response!
Looks like I would need a Raspberry Pi or similar to run the Home Assistant Hub. Is there anyone out there who is running Vitron with Home Assistant to feedback whether theyve had a good experience of it? Thanks
I do it. It works well. But you do need a raspberry pi (or other computer/server). The Home Assistant Hub is also nice, it is an raspberry pi with Home Assistant preinstalled. My recommendations:
- Install raspberry pi Home assistant OS (least amount of computer knowledge needed and a lot of YouTube tutorials)
- Install HACS and Victron MQTT integration (this integration works better then the modbus one in my opinion)
- Install Tapo integration
- Configure automations where if battery above x% enable plugs. if below x% disable plugs.
I can vouch for home assistant as it is a mature and big open-source project. But it requires you to learn some stuff about computers. I do not know how comfortable you with these things, but I believe it is doable. Please check out some tutorials on the internet, many people went before you installing such systems. I have found this one, it is German, but up-to-date. If you encounter any specific problem you can always get back to this thread, maybe I can help you out.
Good luck!
I’m running Home Assistant as virtual server on my Synology NAS.
@guybarrett look into “Venus OS large” and NodeRed if you do not want to setup a third system like Home Assistant.
Again - thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it! And thanks for the offer of help where possible….
It looks like I could be heading down quite the rabbit hole! Before I get going, there is one issue that could be a deal breaker. The Color Control GX ( which I assume is the device the HA HUB would communicate with) is located out in the barns below the solar panels with the solar charger and inverter etc. If the HA hub sits in the house, what range would the two devices be able to talk across? The distance would be approx 25 / 30m.
I currently use a wifi extender device to supply the GX with a better internet connection.
Home assistant and your Color Control GX will have to communicate over your local internet, they do not have a direct connection. This means as long both devices are connected to a router (I recommend Ethernet cable, but wifi is also possible) they will be able to talk to each other. The Color Control GX is a somewhat older bit of kit, but it should support MQTT and ModbusTCP just fine. Please check it though before moving on if they are available in your settings.
Hi All - Thank you for your advice above. I have set up Home Assistant and am running the home through it now. The one thing I haven’t been able to do is link the victron ccgx.
The Victron MQTT Integration is installed in HA. Everything seems to have worked fine and I can see my system reflected in the Overview Dashboard. However, no current data appears.
I therefore looked directly at the ccgx using MQTT Explorer and cannot see the information here either. I was hoping to see the entire data tree populated under N/#. See below. I am having to go through a wifi extender set up as a bridge, but I’ve fixed the IP and it is finding the MAC address of the ccgx.
The CCGX should be publishing as per the settings below - see image. Are there any other settings on the ccgx that I should be using? Can anyone offer any guidance?
Thanks for your time…
Hi,
For me the Victron MQTT integration worked out of the box, so I am not sure what the issue is. Maybe it is a quirk of the older CCGX? Could you share a screenshot of the exposed entities of the hacs Victron MQTT integration (if any)? Or could you try to use the Victron ModbusTCP integration instead to see if that works?
I do not have access to my own victron installation at the moment but it could also be that you have to initialize the traffic in the mqtt explorer. Try sending a read request to R/<portal ID>/keepalive (or the legacy R/<portal ID>/system/0/Serial). Portal-id the the number in your case startin with f8… check if the topics start appearing under N/<portal ID>/system
I see quattro 48 …… x 39 entities. If you click on that you do not see real-time values? Is everything unavailable?
Hi - I have had more success this morning and picked up the information through to HA. Thanks!
Most of the time everything is unavailable. I think the conflict is around the IP that Victron MQTT integration is looking at. My lack of knowledge around networks! I will work on getting a more stable connection through the extender to the ccgx.
Many thanks for responding - it helped unlock a few things!
You need to assign fixed IP addresses to Cerbo and to HA or use DNS. With dynamic IPs from dhcp - standard in every home network - the address might change at certain times or vents like reboot.
Easiest way is configure a static IP in DNS server within your router. Alternatively you can configure fixed IP in Cerbo and HA.
Hi - we’re very close now!
It feels like the ‘keepalive’ isn’t being triggered from Home Assistant.
If I send a request from mqtt-explorer directly to the ccgx (R//system/0/Serial) then while I’m seeing the reply in mqtt-explorer, home assistant will update. As soon as that info dies away, HA stops updating.
Do I need an ‘optional root topic prefix’ as in the config screen below?
Thanks!
