North Texas regional Electricity smarthub integration - Coserv

Hi All, I have a regional provider in north Texas - Coserv. They use a web service that is provided by many co-op electricity companies for meter data. Each one of these regional providers ends in “smarthub.coop”

Does anyone know of a integration that would work to pull this data? I cannot use smartmetertexas as it does not seem to have the regional co-ops available.

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I wouldn’t worry too much about it. They won’t be reporting any usage this winter anyway. :slight_smile:

But seriously, I have the same with LCRA (Lower Colorado River Association) down here around the Austin region. I’ve been inquiring but no response yet.

Stay tuned.

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Same. I have a cabin in Llano, TX (CTEC serviced). I am looking to see if there is an API to gather data.

My provider uses the same smarthub.coop system and I’ve been wondering if anyone has figured out a way to get the usage data into HA?

Really stinks. Would be awesome to get this data to compare against what you have monitored by HA internally.

I’m also on Coserv. I called them about a month ago and asked them, and they said it was too much expense/effort to implement.

This is the company that provides the smarthub service. A little DNS and google play store probing exposes that they have all of the electric coop’s data in one AWS instance, for all the companies they provide access to, and host it at least behind an nginx proxy.

I’ve sent in a contact form on their page requesting access to the API, since they already provide this data via the smarthub app.

Did you hear anything back? My power company is also using this application and would love an integration.

Thanks!

I actually did hear back, but through my electricity provider since the above company is technically an MSP providing hosting services to the electric company.
Here’s the response in full:

Good afternoon, Nathan.

My name is Stephen Meers, and I am the Director of Customer Care at CoServ. Our information solutions provider, National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC), shared the message below. I hope I have the right Nathan Spin because I did not receive any contact information when the message was shared with me.

Lead Name: Nathan Spin

Date: 8/29/2022

Comments: I’m a homeowner (and IT engineer) and looking to get access to an API for downloading my home meter power usage to my HomeAssistant instance at my house.

So far, my electric service provider, COSERV (coserv.smarthub.coop) and other providers utilizing the smarthub service have stated that they don’t have an API to get this data, but I believe there is because it is available smarthub app. Is there a way I can query this data from another system?

Unfortunately, there is not a public API that allows you to query this data. However, we can link any Zigbee Compatible Energy Consumption monitor to our smart metering network you providing us the install code and mac address of the installed device. CoServ does not sell, install, or recommend a particular device.

In addition, there are many monitors that do as good of job that do not need to be connected to our smart meter network. Here are a couple examples for research purposes. We are not recommending a particular device, and we also recommend having a certified electrician install these devices.

https://sense.com/
https://www.theenergydetective.com/

I did some quick research on HomeAsssitant and see they have existing integrations for Zigbee, Sense, and The Energy Detective.

I hope this information helps, and please reach out if you have any additional questions.

Thank you,

Stephen Meers
DIRECTOR | Customer Care

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Well, that was a very thorough response. Kudos to them for not just blowing you off with a canned answer and clearly doing some research to help you.

I’m interested in this as well. We use HILCO Coop, and they are on SmartHub.coop as well. They have a Green Button XML/CSV download option that I would love to take advantage of but have not found any integrations yet.

@nuetron, any idea what he’s referring to with the Zigbee sensor? I understand what kind of hardware he is referring to, but I’m confused by his need to have the MAC address and install code. That sounds to me like that would be for them to use the sensor, but don’t see how that helps you/I out. I’m sure I’m missing a nuance here.

From what I understand, the meters do communicate over the electrical lines, so I’d be buying a $50 meter to replace my existing one with, and then I can link to it at the same time they link to it over the power lines.

I’m beginning to go a different route of using the 7-segment OCR with wifi camera to stare at the meter… Same thing with my water meter.

At the moment I’m testing a solar panel and esp32 low power modes with spare parts I have cobbled together to see if they will work.

My electric company uses the same smarthub software. I managed to find a javascript SDK that they’ve published, but I’m still digging for something to build an integration from.
https://stash.nisc.coop/projects/SHM/repos/smarthub-sdk/browse

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I can’t speak for the other utilities, as to what works but I suggest going the zigbee route on CoServ’s meters. The data from smarthub has a decent delay from when the meter data is received to pushing out to their service. I have been testing the Emporia Vue zigbee device CoServ’s meters and so far it works fine. The sample rate is much faster than what smarthub is able to display. Smarthub will only give the 15 minute interval data.
Home assistant interfaces with Emporia very easily.

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@Dixey, I have been trying with PEC to get access. I did install a Software Defined Radio and am scanning to find any transmissions as an alternative. Did you get any further information? I have not been able to Isolate the Frequency/Decode for the Meter but still trying. If there is another way, such as Green Button, I am really interested as well
Mike

Nothing. All dead ends. I am now researching those plug into your main breaker box real time current monitors. They’re a bit pricey.

Has anyone considered a Shelly device to somehow monitor the current?

I used the Shelly EM + 120A Clamp (x2). Works great and integration is easy. Highly recommend.

Can you share more details about the setup process? Did you just buy the Emporia Vue device and then provide Coserve with the install code and mac address noted in the Coserv reply above?

For those looking for API access to smarthub, this person has seemingly figured out how to access the data:

Passing this along in case it gives someone a starting point for an integration. I would love to see one and I think there are many people using electric cooperatives that would too.

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