Octopus Tracker

QrizB

Telegraph_Sam said:

I have to confess that what I take to be the Home Mini turned up here unannounced - and has not yet come out of lts box. .

I thought they were only sent out on request?

If you're not going to use it, you should return it so they can reallocate it to someone who will.

Telegraph_Sam

I would like to use it for its intended purpose if I was more clued up

debitcardmayhem

there sam https://octopus.energy/blog/octopus-home-mini/

FreeBear

Telegraph_Sam said:

I have to confess that what I take to be the Home Mini turned up here unannounced - and has not yet come out of lts box. A solution looking for a problem. Could someone explain in simple language just how I "use" it, in what situations, and what benefits it offers. I prefer to use my desktop PC rather than a not-so-reliable mobile for my interactions with Octopus.

You need to install the app on a phone or tablet and enable geolocation. Then you can activate the Home Mini.

Realtime electricity consumption will appear on the Octopus web page via your desktop. If you want today's gas & electricity consumption, you'll need to fire up the app.

For me, the app keeps crashing on my tablet, and I really CBA to do a system reset and reinstall all the apps I use. However, I do use BottlecapDave's software to import current gas & electricity consumption in to Home Assistant, so the Home Mini isn't completely useless.

Telegraph_Sam

Thanks for that. As someone said: If all else fails, read the instructions ... Bedtime reading.
Up to now I have been under the impression that I could get all relevant info by a combination of the octopus website and my IHD.  But perhaps there are smarter ways of doing this (as you have hinted at)

Telegraph_Sam

I get the impression that the North [East], myself included, is over represented in this blog.

FreeBear

Telegraph_Sam said: Up to now I have been under the impression that I could get all relevant info by a combination of the octopus website and my IHD.  But perhaps there are smarter ways of doing this (as you have hinted at)

Octopus, along with many others, assume that everyone wants to use a phone (or tablet) with their app installed. In some respects, I can understand the logic - Slightly better security, lower development & deployment costs, and changes can be rolled out without breaking the main web site. But not everyone has (or wants) a smart phone, and the app isn't particularly stable (on my tablet at least). I also question the need for geolocation when setting up the Home Mini...

Home Assistant is a powerful tool, but way over the top for just basic energy monitoring. It might no be a rabbit hole you want to dive in to unless you are comfortable setting up computers and digging in to python code if things go sideways.

Telegraph_Sam

There's a lot of common ground in what you say. Security and stability are not the strong points of my "smart" phone although the majority view would be to disagree. Downloading csv files and processing them efficiently is just  unthinkable on (my) mobile.
Can I use your BotleCapDave's and HomeAssistant software on my PC?

FreeBear

Telegraph_Sam said: Can I use your BotleCapDave's and HomeAssistant software on my PC?

BottlecapDave is the developer/author of his code. Now't to do with me... Home Assistant works best run on a dedicated computer - Many people use a Raspberry Pi (I use a NanoPi Neo and dump the data to a headless PC). If you use an SD card for database storage, they'll often die after 3 months or so.

Home Assistant is written in Python, so you can run it on just about any computer, even one with Windows installed if you really, really wanted to.

Telegraph_Sam

Just about rules me out .. Tks for saving me wasting a lot of time burying into rabbit holes with no exit