Hildebrandglow - Smart Meters - SMETS2

@droomurray, thank you for the feedback.
I have a flat rate tariff, so my reply is based on a guess.
From the Hildebrand API, the tariff the integration is accessing is called currentRates. This is checked approx every 5 minutes, so I am assuming this is the tariff being used at the time of the API call.
There is the complication, the meter readings are delayed by upto 30 minutes, so It is not clear if the tariff change will also be delayed.
I am assuming the cost sensor will be accurate, as the calculation is done by the Glow servers, using the DCC data.
The only way to know for sure is run it for 24 hours, and then look at the sensor history.

Same here and I have the IHD feeding my data back to Hildebrand. Nothing on the Bright app either and nothing on their portal

Mine stopped getting data about 2 hours ago.
Using the Hildebrand-Glow-Python-Library to test things, the Hildebrand Glow API is timing out.
So looks like a problem at the Hildebrand end.

I just signed up and posted a note on their forum listed in my post above. It does seem like another outage.

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The API is returning info again now. Consumption & cost are coming through for me.

Colin thanks for your efforts on this integration! :+1:

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Yes, thanks, came back for me about 1.30 this morning

I also got data back at around 1:30, but itā€™s still only updated once per day :frowning:

TBH I am confused by it all lol.

We have :-

1 - The Hildebrand plugin that uses DDC data via their app
2 - A fork of the Hildebrand plugin using DDC data via their app that Colin has done
3 - The Hildebrand plugin that uses their API with their hardware

I have their hardware but currently canā€™t get 3 to work as never get asked for the appID when setting up.
So I am running option 2 for now but have some gaps / looking at tariff info with a complexity my meter does not seem to have the gas tarrif loaded (but this is a static unit and day charge so should be able to set somewhere? )

Drew.

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Hi Drew,

updated.

I donā€™t have Hildebrand hardware, I only use the Hildebrand free API (via the fork, as it bug fixes and extends the original).

If your smart meter IHD is not showing a tariff for gas, then in all likelihood your gas provider is not providing a value to DCC, so it will not show up in the Hildebrand app or API either.
I had this issue initially, and had to raise a support call on my gas provider to get them to fix it.
I used an input_number helper as a work around, until it was fixed.

On the AppID point, the AppID is hard coded for the Hildebrand Glow API, I am not aware of any reason to change this.
If using the Hildebrand hardware, then you need to use the MQTT integration.

@ColinRobbins Thanks for this integration! Ive been trying for a week to set up my new octopus smart meter with HA and thanks to this im finally getting some figures which look good! The only thing is that im only getting 2 entities, sensor.electric_consumption_today and sensor.gas_consumption_today. No costs or anything else. Its also not letting me add my gas sensor to the energy dashboard (possibly because the unit is kwh and i think its expecting m3) I also didnt get any prompt to enter gas conversion or calorific values. Am i doing something wrong? Thanks

EDIT: Sorry i realised i added the wrong repository! Is it usual to update the readme to your repo address or is that frowned upon as its a fork? Anyway all looking good now, thanks for your hard work!

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Glad its working.
Itā€™s not good practice to update the Readme, as a fork, but I think I may do as a temporary measure.

Yep I have spoke to Octopus about my meter not having the correct tariff loaded so hopefully that will get fixed soon.

I tried tha MQTT integration but it did not seem to pass any data; I might have another go at it !

Keep up the awesome integration work !

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I had the same issue. Took many weeks and many phone calls to resolve.

Not an issue with the integration as bright app is showing the same missing data periods but is everyone else getting 1 or 2 (sometimes 0) updates a day from DDC at the moment rather than updating every 30 minutes? Or is it just my meters that are struggling to connect to DDC?

Mine is only once a day at around 2am. When I first used the Bright app it was almost real-time, but a week after it went to be once a day

Could you expand on how you worked around this issue please? Iā€™ve had my Hildebrand account for a couple of days and although Iā€™m getting usage data thereā€™s no tariff/cost information coming back. Iā€™ve checked in the Android app and its the same there saying ā€œTariff not foundā€ so I guess my supplier havenā€™t uploaded that info. That may change in the coming days as Iā€™ve only just switched tariffs but Iā€™d like to add them manually for now if possible. Thanks

The best solution is to get your energy supplier to solve it. There seems to be a general problem suppliers are not keeping meters up to date with accurate tariff info.

It took about 4 weeks for my supplier to fix it in my case - had to send photos of the smart meter IHD showing no tariff data to get them to understand the issue!

When mine was wrong, I temporarily created an input_number helper, then I could use that in templates/energy cost calculations.

Iā€™ve just checked my smart meter display and that has updated its tariff info so hopefully that means Hildebrand might pick that info up soon as well, or is that a separate database?

It was the input_number bit I didnā€™t really understand tbh, can I set those up to forcefully overwrite the relevant attributes or is it more in depth than that?

Good news your smart meter is showing the right data. This now shows the data is ā€œin the systemā€, so should find its way via DCC to Hildebrand. I have seen reports of it taking a few days.

input_number is a configuration you can make in HA, to allow you to manually put type data into HA. You can then use this, just like you would any other sensor in HA - so use it in calculations or display on screen. So instead of sensor.electricity_tariff_rate Hildebrand manages, you can have input_number.electricity_tariff_rate where you have typed the rate in.

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Ah OK I understand now, I was thinking that the sensor.gas_cost_today and sensor.electric_cost_today attributes had to be calculated by using the tariff sensors hence why I was thinking I needed to override the tariff sensors to make the calculation work but obviously not.

Maybe Iā€™ll just wait a few days to see if Hildebrand do update before I worry too much about getting the cost element working. In the Energy configuration page of HA it appears to let you set a static price for kwh so I thought I could use that but that doesnā€™t seem to be working ether. That seems to be quite a common complaint though, unrelated to this issue I believe. https://community.home-assistant.io/t/solved-energy-cost-not-calculated/329068/19

Thanks for your help and all your work on the integration.

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