EV Charger MQTT topic for light ring brightness

[ankoh]

Currently I have my light ring dimmed so it is not shining brightly at night, but that also means it is not very visible during the daytime.
It would be nice if the configuration page would allow to set a day and a night brightness. For this to work for the switch between day and night needs to be relative to sunrise/sunset time, not fixed times.

So maybe a better idea would be to having the light ring brightness available via MQTT. Then you could create a simple (Home Assistant) automation which dims the brightness at sunset and un-dims it at sunrise.

[ankoh]

Closing this enhancement as I found good methods to change the light ring value via modbus, controlled either from NodeRed or Home Assistant.

Solution via NodeRed:

Where the ‘Dawn or Dusk’ node is a bigtimer mode that sets ON Msg ‘ON’ at Dawn and OFF Msg ‘OFF’ at dusk.

The ‘Switch’ will compare msg.payload, == ON → 1 and == OFF → 2

The ‘Set to 100’ and ‘Set to 15’ nodes will simply Set msg.payload to number 100 or 15

And the ‘EVCS Light Ring’ node is a Modbus-Write node with params:

• Unit-Id: 40 (might be different for other systems)
• FC: FC6 - Preset Single Register
• Address 5132
• Server: EV-Charger IP and Port (not GX device!)

Alternative solution via Home Assistant, define a modbus hub:

modbus:
- name: "victron evcharger"
  type: tcp
  host: 192.168.88.253
  port: 502
  sensors:
    - name: 'Modbus EV Charger Ring Brightness'
      unique_id: "victron_ev_charger_modbus_40_5132"
      unit_of_measurement: "%"
      slave: 40
      address: 5132
      data_type: uint16 
      scan_interval: 60

Then in an automation:

action: modbus.write_register
data:
  hub: victron evcharger
  slave: 40
  address: 5132
  value: 30

Modbus addresses for the EVCS can be found via page https://www.victronenergy.com/ev-charging/ev-charging-station-ns#technical-information
Scroll down to bottom of page and expand ‘Technical Information +’ to show the link to an Excel file with all possible modbus addresses.