Solar & Battery System Requires Internet Access: Set it on a Guest Network?

poshsimontemplar

I'm about to get a solar and battery installation, and having read about the software, it needs to run on my WiFi. Not a problem, but then, I understand that others (such as the installer) may be able to access the system to assist with setup and running.

That being the case, i'm inclined to put the software on a Guest WiFi network. 

Thoughts?

QrizB

If you want to segment the PV & battery system from your main network, and your router implements this properly, then yes it should work.

Alternatively you could buy a 4G router and a cheap data SIM and set up an entirely separate data network for this purpose. Probably overkill but it depends on your threat assessment.

flaneurs_lobster

A guest Wi-fi password is just that - temporary access to your Wi-fi router, there's no separate network. 

The software doesn't run "on your Wi-fi", it probably needs internet access via your Wi-fi and will need to be set up using your Wi-fi's password. 

Either

allow the engineer to set it up using a guest password, once set up move the access to your main password and delete the guest  

or enter the main password secretly for the engineer when they need it.

Qyburn

flaneurs_lobster said:

A guest Wi-fi password is just that - temporary access to your Wi-fi router, there's no separate network. 

That depends on his network. Plenty of people do set up separate guest networks, with client isolation and permitting Internet access only. Which would be fine for his inverter unless he's one of the minority who need to access the inverter from his home network.

poshsimontemplar

Thanks for the answers. 

Unfortunately, 4g is a rubbish signal around here.

I have the ability to set up a permanent, separate guest network, so I was thinking of running the whole of the solar set-up on there, permanently. However, i've been thinking that the software, which will be on my phone, will be on the house network. That'll be a real pain to keep switching to and from. I don't think there will be an elegant option, unfortunately. I'll probably have to put the solar onto my own network.

Qyburn

poshsimontemplar said:

Thanks for the answers. 

Unfortunately, 4g is a rubbish signal around here.

I have the ability to set up a permanent, separate guest network, so I was thinking of running the whole of the solar set-up on there, permanently. However, i've been thinking that the software, which will be on my phone, will be on the house network. That'll be a real pain to keep switching to and from. I don't think there will be an elegant option, unfortunately. I'll probably have to put the solar onto my own network.

The software on the phone quite probably connects to the Internet. 

I don't know what system you have but for example I have Solaredge. The app and the monitoring web page all talk to SolarEdge on the Internet, so as an example they work if I'm connecting away from home.  The special requirement that I have is that I run Homeassistant that connects directly to the inverter.