Efergy Switch in HASS

Configuration
1

Hi experts,

Due to a recent bill shock from my Energy supplier, I am tempted to go for an energy monitoring device/switch. Though a lot of vendors currently have these sort of devices but I found Efergy a bit more interesting than others.

Now the question comes down to compatibility with hass. I found the efergy component integration but that category is about the sensor. I am unable to understand which particular product it’s referring to, would the efergy switch work in hass or I have to buy the Efergy meter ? Would appreciate any feedback or suggestion from an experience user.

Thanks

2

Okay… it seems I misunderstood the efergy products completely.

What I gather from the web so far, there are two line of products, one is the smart meter which can measure the various power parameters and can show that via their display module or mobile app. And hass can also display those parameters via sensor:efergy component.

Second product is the efergy switch with power measurement capability. In this case, hass can’t control the switch but whether it can use the switch as a sensor and hence show the power parameters, this is not clear to me. May be someone can enlighten me a bit ?

Thanks

3

Are you referring to the efergy ego? It doesn’t look like it would work. In order to use the efergy sensor, you have to get an API key for your account from the efergy engage website. The website will also show API keys generated by the efergy mobile apps. The ego doesn’t seem to carry the engage branding though, and it has its own mobile app, so it seems that it’s probably using its own web service.

4

Hi @miniconfig ,

Thanks for the reply. You are right I was referring to Efergy Ego. But I was wondering if the sensor component should work with those devices ?

The above is the component I was referring to. If I take out the individual services offered by Efergy Ego, then there are 2 distinct services. First one is the remote switching (there are lot of alternatives for this) and second one is the capability to measure the energy usage which I understood hass can show up in front end using the sensor platform:efergy.

Would you please clarify a bit more where my thoughts are misleaded ?

Thanks

5

Efergy’s website lists an “Efergy Engage Socket” as “Coming soon.” This socket uses the Engage branding, and, if you look at the screenshots of the interface on that site, you can see that it displays the reading for different sensors, including the whole-house ones. All of those sensors connect to the hub, which connects to the Efergy Engage website. That website is where we pull the data from. The Efergy Ego, however, seems to be a completely different product. There’s no mention of the Engage branding, it doesn’t connect to a hub like the others do, and the interface displayed on their site doesn’t make any mention of the cirucut-based energy sensors. I don’t have one, so I’m not saying it’s impossible that it doesn’t connect to the same web service under the hood, but I don’t see anything indicating that’s the case. In fact, in the Ego’s FAQ, it says that their SDK/API is currently closed, but they may open it up in the future. Basically, I suspect it’s the case that these products, while made by the same company, are really two completely different things. That being said, if you have one, take a look at your network traffic and see which site it’s connecting to. I wouldn’t, however recommend buying one expecting that it will work.

1 Like
6

I have the “Online Energy Monitor Engage Home” and have used it for over 4 years with no issues. Since using HA I have integrated it easily into my RasPi

7

Yes, but that’s the Engage. I wrote the HomeAssistant for the engage platform. When I wrote it, the Efergy Ego did no exist. The Efergy Ego doesn’t connect to the Efergy Engage Home Hub, it connects directly to the internet (well, through your router) via wifi.

8

Thanks a lot for your detailed explanation. That helps… indeed I am now looking for the engage hub. Reading some reviews about the measurement accuracy and setup challenges.

9

@miniconfig ,

Hi mate, finally my efergy unit has arrived today and I am more than happy to see its data within home assistant front-end. However, the UTC offset value I am a bit confused , its not showing any error though but I guess I am not getting all the configured sensors on efergy platform may be due to wrong UTC-Offset format. What should be the format ? I used +10:00 which is most likely wrong.

Aside to @BertrumUK , what icon you used for the custom symbol ?

10

I am in the UK so UTC is 0. Here is my config for sensor 3 on my YAML

 sensor 3:
  platform: efergy
  app_token: !secret efergy_token
  utc_offset: 0
  monitored_variables:
    - type: instant_readings
    - type: budget
    - type: cost
      period: day
      currency: £
    - type: amount
      period: day
11

Thanks a lot for the config. Didn’t you do any customization of icon ? How did you get the little power icon on the left ?

My config is pretty much same except the UTC offset. from the configuration instruction I got this below information…

utc_offset (Required): Some variables (currently only the daily_cost) require that the negative number of minutes your timezone is ahead/behind UTC time.

This confused me. However, looking into your sensor output, I assume I am also getting the same so most likely the UTC_Offset format is not being an issue here.

Best Regards

12

My apologies for the absolutely horrible wording for that parameter. I thought surely someone else must have written that, but no, git insists that’s the exact wording I had in my initial commit of the component. I’m working on a fix for multiple sensors right now, and when I update the documentation, I’ll be sure to clarify that too. The parameter is actually in minutes, and the negative of what you’d think (this is from the API, not my design). For example, my timezone is UTC-5:00, so my utc_offset is 300.

That parameter, however is only used for the daily cost, so assuming it didn’t choke altogether on an invalid string, the others should be right.

2 Likes
13

Thanks a lot @miniconfig . So in my case should it be -600 (UTC + 10:00) ?

14

Yep. Also, apparently posts on the forum have to be at least 10 characters, so “yep” is not a valid response.

1 Like
15

Yes I do have the icons customised

  customize:
    sensor.energy_budget:
       icon: mdi:power-plug
    sensor.energy_cost:
       icon: mdi:power-plug
    sensor.energy_usage:
       icon: mdi:power-plug
    sensor.energy_consumed:
       friendly_name: 'Daily Usage'
       icon: mdi:power-plug
1 Like
16

Thanks a lot… Now it looks prettier :slight_smile:

by the way is there any document or cheat sheet where I can peek for those icon list? I mean how did you know what should be the name, power-plug in this case… previously I always did some guestimate which sometimes worked…

17

Yes, look here https://materialdesignicons.com/

1 Like
18

BertrumUK, I am brand new to HA, trying to get my efergy to show. I don’t yet have the full picture of setting up the YAML config. Would you mind to post your complete efergy config here (drop the API token :slight_smile: ). I don’t see how your customisation with the icons link up to the efergy API values. A full example would be most enlightening!
thanks!

19

@NelisW

Here is my configuration below. Hope it would help. I have broken my configuration in several parts, so it would be misleading to show all parts here, rather I would cover the relevant parts only related to efergy component.

Configuration part in configuration.yaml.

homeassistant:
  name: Home
  unit_system: metric
  customize: !include customization.yaml
group: !include groups.yaml
sensor: !include sensors.yaml

Relevant sensor configuration in sensors.yaml:

- platform: efergy
  app_token: !secret efergy_key
  utc_offset: -600
  monitored_variables:
    - type: instant_readings
    - type: budget
    - type: cost
      period: day
      currency: $
    - type: amount
      period: day

All pretty straight forward except the -600 in the offset value which is equivalent to GMT-10:00 in minutes. Would be different to your case depending on your location.

Relevant configuration from groups.yaml

Energy Usage:
  entities:
    - sensor.energy_budget
    - sensor.energy_usage
    - sensor.energy_consumed
    - sensor.energy_cost 

default_view:
  view: yes
  entities:
    - group.energy_usage
    - group.Weather
    - group.System_Information
    - group.Daily_Commute
    - group.Scenes

Finally the customization part.

sensor.energy_budget:
  icon: mdi:power-plug
sensor.energy_consumed:
  icon: mdi:power-plug
sensor.energy_cost:
  icon: mdi:power-plug
sensor.energy_usage:
  icon: mdi:power-plug

I assume you don’t use the hadashboard yet. In case you do, I have a little widget to show the energy parameters all together. However, this is a shameless copy from the haweather widget which is one amazing piece of work from @aimc.

Best Regards

20

Hello, my full config is in my post dated 7th Feb with my customised icons on the 8th. If you need help setting it up then post your config for everyone to check :+1:t2: