ePaper for Solar power, eCar charger, household appliances

EDIT: As I have a new account here, I can only post 2 Links and one photo…as soon as my forum status is promoted, I will put back the links, until then please find them here: pastebin dot com/2Q2j3zFs

Hi, let me introduce my first project to you, inspired by this great project. community dot home-assistant dot io/t/use-esphome-with-e-ink-displays-to-blend-in-with-your-home-decor/435428)

Some people over at Twitter asked me to provide a guide, so here it is!

My framed ePaper for surveillance of Solar power generation and consumption, electric car charging, household apppliances and more. This is the result:

Some remarks:

  • The quality of the ePaper rendering is a bit poor in this image. It is a lot better with correct power supply, but I am still waiting for my Li-ion battery shield to arrive, so this is currently driven by a power bank, which is a poor choice. It looks a lot better with a RPi power supply.

  • This is my first project. It was made step by step and I am sure that my code can be heavily optimized by more experienced users. Feel free to do so and please keep in mind that I am a beginner in this.

  • The Wallbox module is merely a spaceholder - I do have a wallbox but I am still waiting for my electric vehicle, so I cannot test this yet.

  • Also, I am still waiting for the batteries for my solar inverter. I plan to show their status later on this display.

  • This guide almost certainly cannot be copypasted and be used at your home, as it is heavily integrated with my very personal setup. So you have to adapt to your own devices, integrations etc.

WHAT I NEEDED:

Hardware for the Frame:

  • Waveshare 7.5 Inch E-Paper Display HAT Module V2 Kit 800x480
  • Waveshare Universal e-Paper Driver Board
  • Ikea Ribba 13x18 cm
  • Battery shield for power supply
  • 18650 rechargeable batteries

Hardware at my home:

  • SolarEdge solar inverter with modbus power meter
  • openWB Series 2 Wallbox electric car charger
  • Fritz!DECT 210 outdoor power plug (for the ouside temperature entity)
  • Fritz!DECT 100 Repeater (for the inside temperature entity)
  • Shelly1+Temperature AddOn (for the pool temperature entity)
  • Miele washing machines, tumble dryer and dishwasher

Integrations and addons used:

  • ESPhome (obviously)
  • Miele integration
  • openWB integration via Mosquitto MQTT broker
  • SolarEdge Modbus
  • SolarEdge API (limited to 300 API calls a day, so use modbus entities whenever you can for realtime data without cloud dependency and rate limits

As the SolarEdge inverters only allow one Modbus Client at a time (and I need the values in Home Assistant, my Wallbox and other Devices) I use the Modbus-Proxy addon. Another possibility would be to import the data to the openWB as the modbus client and grab it from there via MQTT. Anyhow, you will need sensors that represent the inverters data.

Red: Inside and outside temperatures obtained from FRITZ!Dect devices.
The empty red frame will show my pool’s temperature in summer only and is empty in winter.
(Shelly1+Temperature addon with DBT162 temperature sensor in the water backflow pipe using a drilling shell).

Blue: Time and date from HA time sensor

Orange: Solar power generation, current total consumption and resulting export or import.
Below statistics for generation, export and consumption per day/month/year.
Sensors from SolarEdge ModBus and SolarEdge API as well as some helper entites/template sensors (e.g. to show values in kWh rather than Wh)

Green: Electric Car Charger openWB Series 2
This is absolutely work in progress as stated above.

Yellow: Status of Miele washing machines, tumble dryer and dishwasher.
Will display Status, program, program phase and remaining time.

Grey: Uptime and WiFi signal strength (inspired by and with code from this project www dot it-adviser dot net/home-assistant-75-e-paper-display-waveshare-mit-esphome-ansteuern-wetterstation/)

If you like it and want to adapt it in parts or as a whole, please feel free to do so. If you have recommendations for optimizations, feel free to post them here. Any feedback is welcome.

Code for the project can be found here on pastebin dot com/WnPArDQ8

6 Likes

Hey,

I tried to add deep sleep mode to save battery. As I have a clock installed, it should wake up every minute, update the sensors and screen and then go back to sleep.

But as soon as I add deep sleep, all sensors coming from HA are not getting any data anymore. I tried fiddling around with the timers, but did not find a working solution. How is this and is there a solution?

(I just added deep-sleep and activity times to the code).