Using Home Assistant to monitor energy usage and compare tariffs

Bendo

noitsnotme said:

The_Green_Hornet said:

noitsnotme said:

FreeBear said:

noitsnotme said: Are you using any other hardware to control the boiler through OpenTherm (eg Nest, Tado, etc)?  Or is that what you use ESP32 for?

The ESP32 is just acting as an interface between the boiler and HA. I have a climate component to signal the boiler when heat is required, and a custom python script to set the temperature depending on the time & day. Once I have set the PID parameters, the ESP32 should take care of things like modulation, and between the two, do the weather compensation. Just need a few days of cold weather to run the autotune routine on the ESP32.

Also need to fine tune the radiator balance..

Can share the code & configs if you need them.

Thanks, that would be useful.

What climate component are you using?  I have a Hive stat and smart TRVs from the previous boiler which I can use to send on/off calls to the boiler based on temp at the stat and can control individual room temp with the TRVs but I’ve never liked the Hive interface.

Home Assistant has a core Hive integration which should be auto-discovered --> Hive - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io)

I was looking at that last night.  I'm not overly keen with the Hive system.  The only benefit I can see to keeping it is for the smart TRVs.  I'll have a play with that integration before I decide whether to keep them or not.

My mini PC arrived this afternoon so I'll start to set HA up in the next few days.

Not sure yet whether to go with a bare metal HA OS or Proxmox with the OS. Not yet sure what else I would use the PC for if I go with Proxmox but at least it gives me options down the line.

Hive is pretty awful but HA can work around it's failing. That said their TRVs are overpriced rubbish, their only benefit was their ability to boost the main stat to turn the heating on. Home assistant can do that for you with el cheapo smart TRVs.

noitsnotme

Bendo said:

noitsnotme said:

The_Green_Hornet said:

noitsnotme said:

FreeBear said:

noitsnotme said: Are you using any other hardware to control the boiler through OpenTherm (eg Nest, Tado, etc)?  Or is that what you use ESP32 for?

The ESP32 is just acting as an interface between the boiler and HA. I have a climate component to signal the boiler when heat is required, and a custom python script to set the temperature depending on the time & day. Once I have set the PID parameters, the ESP32 should take care of things like modulation, and between the two, do the weather compensation. Just need a few days of cold weather to run the autotune routine on the ESP32.

Also need to fine tune the radiator balance..

Can share the code & configs if you need them.

Thanks, that would be useful.

What climate component are you using?  I have a Hive stat and smart TRVs from the previous boiler which I can use to send on/off calls to the boiler based on temp at the stat and can control individual room temp with the TRVs but I’ve never liked the Hive interface.

Home Assistant has a core Hive integration which should be auto-discovered --> Hive - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io)

I was looking at that last night.  I'm not overly keen with the Hive system.  The only benefit I can see to keeping it is for the smart TRVs.  I'll have a play with that integration before I decide whether to keep them or not.

My mini PC arrived this afternoon so I'll start to set HA up in the next few days.

Not sure yet whether to go with a bare metal HA OS or Proxmox with the OS. Not yet sure what else I would use the PC for if I go with Proxmox but at least it gives me options down the line.

Hive is pretty awful but HA can work around it's failing. That said their TRVs are overpriced rubbish, their only benefit was their ability to boost the main stat to turn the heating on. Home assistant can do that for you with el cheapo smart TRVs.

The only benefit I can see of keeping Hive is to be able to remotely control individual room temp on their own schedules.  But I’m not sure that will lead to much of an energy saving.  Hive stuff still seems to sell for quite good prices on ebay so I might just get rid on there and go back to basic TRVs.

Bendo

noitsnotme said:

Bendo said:

noitsnotme said:

The_Green_Hornet said:

noitsnotme said:

FreeBear said:

noitsnotme said: Are you using any other hardware to control the boiler through OpenTherm (eg Nest, Tado, etc)?  Or is that what you use ESP32 for?

The ESP32 is just acting as an interface between the boiler and HA. I have a climate component to signal the boiler when heat is required, and a custom python script to set the temperature depending on the time & day. Once I have set the PID parameters, the ESP32 should take care of things like modulation, and between the two, do the weather compensation. Just need a few days of cold weather to run the autotune routine on the ESP32.

Also need to fine tune the radiator balance..

Can share the code & configs if you need them.

Thanks, that would be useful.

What climate component are you using?  I have a Hive stat and smart TRVs from the previous boiler which I can use to send on/off calls to the boiler based on temp at the stat and can control individual room temp with the TRVs but I’ve never liked the Hive interface.

Home Assistant has a core Hive integration which should be auto-discovered --> Hive - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io)

I was looking at that last night.  I'm not overly keen with the Hive system.  The only benefit I can see to keeping it is for the smart TRVs.  I'll have a play with that integration before I decide whether to keep them or not.

My mini PC arrived this afternoon so I'll start to set HA up in the next few days.

Not sure yet whether to go with a bare metal HA OS or Proxmox with the OS. Not yet sure what else I would use the PC for if I go with Proxmox but at least it gives me options down the line.

Hive is pretty awful but HA can work around it's failing. That said their TRVs are overpriced rubbish, their only benefit was their ability to boost the main stat to turn the heating on. Home assistant can do that for you with el cheapo smart TRVs.

The only benefit I can see of keeping Hive is to be able to remotely control individual room temp on their own schedules.  But I’m not sure that will lead to much of an energy saving.  Hive stuff still seems to sell for quite good prices on ebay so I might just get rid on there and go back to basic TRVs.

You can do that with pretty much any smart TRV and HA. I picked up some Devolo branded Z Wave ones a while back on Amazon for £8. Using HA they can do anything the Hive ones can, but without all the issues that coke with the Hive ones. I.e. you won't put them on one day and find despite being set to 32 degrees the rad valve hasn't opened.

FreeBear

noitsnotme said:

FreeBear said:

noitsnotme said: Not sure yet whether to go with a bare metal HA OS or Proxmox with the OS. Not yet sure what else I would use the PC for if I go with Proxmox but at least it gives me options down the line.

Just install Debian on it, and then HA on top.

Influx & Grafana both provide .deb packages should you wish to use them.

Are there benefits to using a Linux install?

the box I currently use as a data store was originally set up to replace the NanoPi. The data store also acts as a WiFi access point so that I can migrate all the IoT "smarts" across to a restricted address block (also means I don't have to worry about the router/hub going down). Having a linux installed means it is easy enough to pull in a package when I need it..

With the NanoPi, I needed GCC installed so that I could compile a couple of drivers.

But as Proxmox is just a hypervisor (or virtual machine), so you are going to have to install Linux anyways (or use HAOS). Keep it simple, cut out any unnecessary layers, and there is less to go wrong. Also a much shorter learning curve if you are not familiar with all the layers.

FreeBear

FreeBear said:

mmmmikey said:

noitsnotme said:

FreeBear said:

noitsnotme said: Are you using any other hardware to control the boiler through OpenTherm (eg Nest, Tado, etc)?  Or is that what you use ESP32 for?

The ESP32 is just acting as an interface between the boiler and HA. I have a climate component to signal the boiler when heat is required, and a custom python script to set the temperature depending on the time & day. Once I have set the PID parameters, the ESP32 should take care of things like modulation, and between the two, do the weather compensation. Just need a few days of cold weather to run the autotune routine on the ESP32.

Also need to fine tune the radiator balance..

Can share the code & configs if you need them.

Thanks, that would be useful.

What climate component are you using?  I have a Hive stat and smart TRVs from the previous boiler which I can use to send on/off calls to the boiler based on temp at the stat and can control individual room temp with the TRVs but I’ve never liked the Hive interface.

Not sure what @FreeBear is using but if you Google "Home Assistant Generic Thermostat" you'll find loads of info you might find useful ( if you haven't found it already :-) ).

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/generic_thermostat/ is the one I use. The input temperature is from a small SHT20 sensor using MODBUS (got several of them dotted around the house).

Slight correction - Actually using a PID Climate component running on an ESP32, but the HA card is to all intents & purposes, the generic thermostat.

Still trying to figure out the PID settings so that I can get a tighter control over the heating.

FreeBear

noitsnotme said:

FreeBear said:

noitsnotme said: Are you using any other hardware to control the boiler through OpenTherm (eg Nest, Tado, etc)?  Or is that what you use ESP32 for?

The ESP32 is just acting as an interface between the boiler and HA. I have a climate component to signal the boiler when heat is required, and a custom python script to set the temperature depending on the time & day. Once I have set the PID parameters, the ESP32 should take care of things like modulation, and between the two, do the weather compensation. Just need a few days of cold weather to run the autotune routine on the ESP32.

Also need to fine tune the radiator balance..

Can share the code & configs if you need them.

Thanks, that would be useful.

What climate component are you using?

Uploaded the yaml file I'm using with an ESP32 to control the boiler - You'll find it in the ./examples directory.

Still waiting for a few days of cold weather so that I can run the PID tuning code. Once the numbers are in, I'll start messing with weather compensation.