Philips Hue…
not Philips Hue 
I found: https://www.smarthome.com.au/product/smarthome-zigbee-smart-plug-with-energy-metering/ but don’t have any experience with it.
I do. They work well.
Anybody here recommend an electrician knowledgeable about installing smart home devices? Specifically, I need a faulty Aeotec Nano Dimmer replaced with a Shelly Dimmer Gen4.
I’m in Melbourne.
Awesome, thanks for that - I’ll grab one and give it a shot!
Future edit: they’ve just arrived and I had a play with them and they seem pretty solid so far! Thanks for the recommendation!
Hi all, me again
I was wondering what people recommend for an EV charger? We’re about to get our first EV and I’d like the charger to be HA compatible. I know I need at least ocpp 1.6, but is there anything else I should look for? I’ve got solar and a battery, so would like it to be able to use excess solar directly if possible without having to think about it too much?
I’ve heard good things about the deta one from bunnings but I don’t think that’s smart enough to integrate with the solar and battery system, is it? I’ve also heard good things about the zappy and ocular IQ chargers, but not sure what’s best?
Also what sort of cost would I be looking at roughly for installation if there’s nothing to upgrade in my switchboard?
TIA!
It is as much about the car as it is the wall charge controller (technically speaking the charger is in the car). As I found out with my BYD Dolphin, the car is the ultimate in deciding when it will charge, and otherwise can go to a deep sleep only to wake when it wants to. In such a case no matter what you do with the charge controller, the car won’t start to charge without an action like unlock lock etc. Zappy tries to do smart things with cars it knows how to keep awake etc, but as early tests with BYDs showed, get it wrong and you have a dead car due to 12V battery drain. So best advice is to reach out to anyone who has the car make/model you are going to get, and research that particular combination with charger controllers.
I have a Fronius Wattpilot which is great HA wise, and I now have my automations set, and know what to do with the car if I want to change from my 11am-2pm charge window (free) to a midnight to 6am window (8c/kwh) which I only use when travelling for work and need 100% before sunrise. In all cases the car wakes up on its once daily schedule, and the Fronius controls if it can charge, as well as stopping charge at 2pm or 6am. Oh, and the car won’t actually set itself to wake up to charge if it does not see charge available when it goes to sleep - this was the really interesting quirk to get right - so HA manages this by allowing charge when it detects a car is plugged and we are home.
Lots of variables here too. Single phase or 3 phase. We are single phase and the BYD Dolphin does single phase charging up to 32A. So alas, this put our max demand at about 82A (electric induction cooktop, AC, car being main loads), over the 63A main board breaker and limit of 80A incoming line. So we did an upgrade to 100A which was a four figure sum (on top of a previous 4 figure sum to upgrade our board when we put in solar as it had asbestos - ah the joys of electricfication!). You may get differing advice on but this was our experience.
Wow, I didn’t realise just how much went into it - I thought you’d be able to choose the brand and model of EV charger that you want and it’d just work, but that’s all good to know!
I got a Zeekr 7X, so I don’t know how that will make a difference. Now I don’t know if I want to have things being controlled through HA and automations or if I should have it integrated but controlled through the car/charger app just to be safe?!
As for my place, I’ve got a single story single phase (I thought I mentioned that but it’s been a long day so apparently not!) Good to know about possibly upgrading the circuit too - I have no idea what I’ve got or how to check it, but hopefully it won’t need too much of an upgrade. Do you know how much it would have cost you to install if you didn’t need to upgrade?
The main takeaway is to do your homework and then test once installed. I am very happy with my setup, just not quite what I thought it may be.
$5K inc GST for service upgrade to 100A, circuit and isolator and install of Wattpilot. A lot of that to L3 sub for 100A upgrade.
It’s generally better to get a charge station which natively integrates with your solar and battery system.
Else pretty much any OCPP unit can be managed with HA integration or via other services such as EVCC or a number of options popping up since the demise of ChargeHQ, like this one:
I have this set up in HA:
and working with my spare charge station (a ZJBeny single phase OCPP unit).
It’s provides basic control over the charger start, stop and charging current plus a million sensors, but automation would be up to you.
I have other charge stations integrated with our solar/battery system (Sigenergy) both the bidirectional EVDC module and an AC charge station. These operate with the Sigenergy system, no need for HA, although it’s certainly possible to control them with HA if I wanted.
Couple of articles to consider:
https://www.solarchoice.net.au/ev/charging/ev-charger-reviews-compared/
This seems to be a BYD issue as I have heard similar mentioned by others. Never experienced such an issue with either of our MG EVs.
I want to add power monitoring to our washing machine and dryer. I have a couple of questions about using Shelly switches for this.
- Is it safe / reliable to use in-wall Shelly PM switches for monitoring washing machines / dryers? Currently I have 2x Tuya TP-Link Tapo devices, which are crap, but they are external so I can easily remove/replace them. (The plug for my fridge died once and I nearly lost everything
) - Both machines are plugged into the same dual GPO. Can I use a 2PM or should I get 2x 1PMs installed? The 2PM is rated as “10 A per channel, 16 A total, 18 A total peak”.
It doesn’t fully adress your questions, but I use individual Shelly PM Mini Gen 3 and Gen 4s for washing maching, dryer and dishwasher, and they have been excellent.
If you don’t need the switching capability, the Shelly PM Mini Gen3 and Shelly EM Mini Gen 4 can do power monitoring up to 16A.
If you want switching and monitoring of higher loads then the Shelly based Ogemray Smart relay is good up to 25A.
They work well but trying to get 2.5mm cable which will be your power circuit into the terminals isn’t the best idea.
I went for 2 x 1PM built into external boxes in leads, same for dishwasher. I don’t switch the loads, just monitor.
I did have a plug in 10A Eve switch and it tripped on overload at about 9.5A so decided the 1PM 16A would give a buffer.
Late to the party, but I also have a Zeekr 7X and I have a Victron NS EV charger - not OCPP compatible but has modbus over WiFi that works well with HA. Also single phase so I have automations set up to manage the charge rate so as not to overload the grid connection, prioritise home battery over car, and soak up excess solar rather than sending it to the grid.
I switched to Globird Zero Hero so get three hours a day free power, limited by 60A grid connection, but usually I can charge at 7kW during those hours as well as putting 8kW into the home battery if there’s any solar as well. It’s all working well.
The Victron charger is pretty good value - about $700 plus installation. It does 3 phase (up to 22kW) but works fine on single phase too. The modbus interface is fully open and documented.
That’s my biggest gripe about Shelly - the terminals are way too small. Only really suitable for lighting circuits IMO.