BCHydro/Powerley now offer two device options ( “Powerlync Hub” for $75 or the “Energy Bridge Hub” for $179). Has anyone tried if both devices work the same (in terms of the mqtt access/data)?
Can you help me with how you are doing this please. Are you using the Energy Bridge Hub? How are you transmitting data from Hydro to MQTT?
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Assuming you know the address of the bridge, uses port 2883
wait so it is possible to use the new hubs to read data thru HA?
Are you saying I just need to replace “address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:2883” with the IP address of the Energy Bridge on my network, and it will automagically start transmitting data over MQTT with your YAML config?
Going to recap my config here in one post as there are a lot of conversational details spread throughout this topic.
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I have the “Energy Bridge (HydroHome Hub)” device I have no idea if any of the newer devices work the same way.
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In my network / router config I have given the Energy Bridge a IP reservation so its IP stays the same.
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The first part is to to change the config of your mosquitto mqtt server so that IT connects to the mqtt service on the hydro hub. If you are running HASOS you will have to figure out how to do that, if you are running it as a separate docker just edit the mosquitto.conf file and add the following at the end
192.168.1.50 is the IP of my Energy Bridge so mosquitto MQTT is connecting to it.
##### Connect to BCHydro Energy Bridge
connection bchydroenergybridge
address 192.168.1.50:2883
clientid mosquitto-ha
try_private false
start_type automatic
topic # both 0
Restart the MQTT service after editing the config… If you use an MQTT client (go look that up) you can monitor the MQTT server and see if it now has the extra MQTT Topics “event/metering/summation/minute” or “event/metering/instantaneous_demand”
- IN the home assistant config I created the following two MQTT sensors.
sensor:
- name: "BCHydro Grid Consumption"
unique_id: energy_bridge_summation_minute_kwh
state_topic: "event/metering/summation/minute"
icon: mdi:transmission-tower
unit_of_measurement: 'kWh'
# the Energy Bridge returns "Watt-minutes" (Wmin) every minute; convert it to kilowatt-hours
value_template: "{{ value_json.value | float / 60000 }}"
# the "time" in the message is a Unix-like timestamp (in milliseconds) of the start of the last reading
last_reset_value_template: "{{ now().fromtimestamp(value_json.time / 1000).replace(tzinfo=now().tzinfo) }}"
device_class: energy
state_class: total
- name: "BCHydro Instantaneous Demand"
unique_id: energy_bridge_instantaneous_demand
state_topic: "event/metering/instantaneous_demand"
icon: mdi:transmission-tower-export
value_template: "{{ value_json.demand | int }}"
unit_of_measurement: 'W'
device_class: power
state_class: measurement
- Last part you should be able to go add the “BCHydro Grid Consumption” sensor to the energy dashboard in HA under Electricity grid.
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I just got the $75 Hydro Powerlync plug working - no luck with mqtt/2883
It’s advertising HomeKit over MDNS and it listens on http port 80. The HomeKit logo and pairing info are covered up by stickers so probably not supported unofficially.
It works for live data with the app but it goes to the cloud. The plug itself shows power usage of what’s plugged in.
Does it only show power usage for the device that is plugged in, or does it enable live power readings for the whole house?
Just catching up with this thread which seems to span from 2019 to at least 2024. Anyway, the meter location can vary widely depending on when the building was built or retrofitted. I bought a bridge because our meters are in the hallway, between 2 and 3m away, so I thought I’d give it a shot.
Hey everyone! I followed this post over the last few months. A big thank you to everyone who contributed ideas to it!
If anyone is still interested getting data from BC Hydro the free way without hardware and relying solely on BC Hydro’s website, I created a Puppeteer script that you can find in my repository (along with a bash script to compile it to be used in configuration.yaml or rest.yaml).
BC Hydro updates consumption data daily so this may not have enough granularity to track specific device consumption but it does allow you to track your bill, projected total at the end of the billing period, daily consumption and more.
Looks a bit something like this:
Please feel free to raise an issue on the repository if updates are required.
Note: Running the script requires running the Browserless Home Assistant Add-On .
Please see walkthrough if you are having trouble setting it up.
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So this hub will allow you to bridge the live consumption over MQTT into HA?
Unofficially and requires some additional setup to get the MQTT server to pull the data.
SOME risk that access to it might get closed at some time in the future.
Having said that the tracking and app they provide is rather good on its own.