Thanks that worked a treat. I do have to re-call the service after each restart if I want it to work for ‘today’ but it completely solves the problem once I do that.
A few follow up uses and ideas I’ve had plus a couple of questions and suggestions…
Today’s rates - is it possible to graph these or display on a dash without having to click an entity? I tried history but it doesn’t render a graph
I’m using it to trigger a tts “premium rate” announcement when rates go over 16p - works brilliantly - planning to do more stuff with this like “if the washing machine comes on and rates are over X then announce a warning and propose a better time”. Is there a smarter way of doing this? i.e. spotting the spike or spotting when it becomes a multiple of itself?
One very nice addition to your runtimes would be if one could force an event to be after another - for example, washing machine needs to run in the cheapest block after a washing machine event - at the moment both suggest the same time.
Glad you got it working! Strange that you have to re-call the service after each, I will have a better look at it. You’re the first person to run it other than me so there are bound to be a couple of things I’ve not thought of. In your configuration directory has a file named octopusagile.json been created? What should happen is that gets read at startup to populate the timers/rates etc until the next update.
I haven’t managed to find a way to display the future rates in a graph yet, but it’s something I want to do too so am going to have a better look.
Do you think that taking the average for the day and then looking to see if it’s X pence or X % above that would be a good way of working out the high rates? I’d been taking 16p also as that’s roughly what I pay for per unit at the moment. I love the idea of announcements if usage is high and the rate goes up.
Do you mean be able to add 2 washing machine run devices so that you get the best times to run the washing machine twice?
Glad you’re finding it useful and thanks for the ideas!
I don’t have to keep calling it after every restart now - seems to have solved itself which is nice! Oddly I can’t see octopusagile.json though - would that be the rates? I can list out the rates now no problem (working on a way to graph today’s rates actually)
For the ‘leap’ warnings - it’s working well for me on a threshold - I’ve set 9 pence. I found we tended to forget if it was premium rate or not so I’ve changed it a bit - what’s been most effective is that when you turn the washing machine on, I have an automation that checks the current rate, and if it’s <9 pence then the alexa in the utility room announced “Great timing - electricity is nice and cheap” and if it’s over 9 then it tells you to wait until later. I can’t for the life of me figure out template_values in Home Assistant yet - but when I do, I want it to say “wait until SPECIFIC TIME” using your plugin.
Not exactly - we have a separate washer and dryer, so we ideally want the 90 minute cheapest slot to run the washer, and then then next 90 minute slot to run the dryer. For the moment, I have just made it a single block of 3 hours - perhaps on reflection that’s best because it means you can take the clothes straight out of one and put them in the other.
@badguy One feature that might be nice for your component. - a problem I’m having because I can’t figure out template_values properly yet - is that I wanted to display my effective pence/kwh for the month.
@Markg and @badguy - as an Octopus customer - both of your components are proving valuable in tandem - you might like to consider merging projects.
I started the octopus on the 3oth but turns out they are not connected to my meter yet so i am just on a paying plan at the moment, they said to contact back on the 11th may when they should have been able to connect by then.
Was bit annoyed as they did not say this when I signed up but its coronavirus so not surpised the system was not in place to warn people.
I did mention that the plan I would be on for the next 11+ days was more expensive then what I was on before and they sent me a cheaper rate to use in the meantime, which is similar/slightly cheaper then i was on before so thats nice/good customer service
I have the entitiies ready but they say 0p, so fingers crossed they will start working when data comes in.
I see you have monthly and yearly, is there not a ‘‘yesterday’’ one? I know todays can;t be done due to data not updating.
I’m finding I only get usage data from about 3 days ago. Haven’t had a chance to look into why yet - it might actually be a limitation of the smart meter system. I’ve seen some people have live usage, but I think they’re using additional energy monitors connected to their smart meters.
This sounds awesome, it’s really interesting to see what everybody else is doing with this.
How have you managed to list out the rates? If you manage to graph today’s rates I’d be interested to see that too.
Not exactly - we have a separate washer and dryer, so we ideally want the 90 minute cheapest slot to run the washer, and then then next 90 minute slot to run the dryer. For the moment, I have just made it a single block of 3 hours - perhaps on reflection that’s best because it means you can take the clothes straight out of one and put them in the other.
That makes sense, I recon that should be doable. The best run times also update every 30 mins so you will get a new time for the dryer if you check after the washer has finished. It’ll just be a tweak of that calculation. Your fix does also sound like a good way to work around it though.
I’d be more than happy to merge components, octocost and octoblock look really useful, my switchover should happen this week so I’ll be looking at getting them setup soon.
@Markg I’m more than happy for you to pull Octoblock/Octocost to your code, and make it work together, and I can help you with it going forward. I’m not precious about it - I just wrote it as I couldn’t find anything like it when I was starting out with Octopus Energy.
I’m currently rewriting octoblock a bit, as I’m working on a sensor that will say (true/false) if the price is going below a certain value at any point, up to the next x hours in the future. I want this so that I can use it to turn of the scheduled gas hot water if it would be cheaper to heat with the immersion in the near future - i.e. there’s no point heating the water with gas at 8am if I could have done it for free/cheaper with electric at 10am, so turn off the schedule gas hot water in that case.
I don’t have any IHD, is there any purpose to one on the cost seeing side?
I am assuming there only useful to see current wattage and not bother with cost?
As seen on others Im not fussed on a graph, I currently use the app ‘‘octupus tariff’’ which shows quickly and easy to read in text, I find graphs are too cumbersome to get an idea of when I should put things on, looking forward to ditching this app when i can have something similar on HA
Really it’s a matter of personal preference. I love graphs as (I find) they quickly display data giving an overall understanding. Mrs C absolutely loathes graphs, her mind blanks and she mutters about statistics proving anything It’s probably the same with an IHD. Mine ceased displaying data after about 2 days; I’ve idly rebooted a few times since but not worried at all.
You do need something, without some data you will have no control. If the app does it for you, the app is best.
@badguy I’m much the same, just wanted to have a play around and couldn’t find anything that quite suited my needs. I will have a look at pulling your code in, I need to get HACS setup properly and add my repo to it, that looks like a neat way to deploy components. I’ve not looked at node red yet so keen to try your component in there too, the graphs look great for what I’m after.
Love the idea of deciding whether to heat with gas or electric based on price. I’m all electric so I’m mostly focused on getting the best price I can for water/heating. I like the idea of taking into account carbon intensity as well, I saw you were talking to somebody further up the thread about that.
@Chiny the Pi display looks good, I want to do something similar to have in the kitchen to show the best times for washing machine/dishwasher to run.
It’s probably the same with an IHD. Mine ceased displaying data after about 2 days; I’ve idly rebooted a few times since but not worried at all.
