I’m testing the water here to see if there would be any desire for an esphome-powered APC UPS device using the smartcard slot. Most business- or enterprise-grade APC UPS devices contain such a slot, and I’d like to see if people would want an esphome-driven module to install in the smartcard slot and provide power monitoring/control.
My reasoning for replacing the snmpwebcard devices is that I am dissatisfied with the feature set. NUT can only monitor the APC via SNMP, and USB on newer devices doesn’t bring in power monitoring. RS232 only works on linux using the APC application, but they are phasing that out.
There’s a project that already links up to the APC UPS via traditional RS232, which is what the smartslots utilize:
Hints and more data on the smartslot pinout:
Please let me know if this is an attractive idea, and if there are any features you’d like in addition to this list:
- Device Model / Serial / Firmware
- Input Voltage / Power / Current / Frequency
- Load Voltage / Power / Current / Frequency
- Battery stats: Current / Voltage / Charge / State
- UPS functions: Tests / Calibration
- Network Capability: Wifi, HA API, MQTT, possibly SNMP
- Possible future improvements: Ethernet, external serial port for devices without smartslots, using RJ-50 (APC standard) interface with the UPS
TL;DR
I want to know if people want in-system esphome power monitoring for their APC UPS devices using the smartslot, which provides integration into the energy dashboard. If so, I’ll design a module and set up a source for purchasing them.