Just purchased a 16 sensor meter from Amazon for half the price of Emporia. No integration currently, but will be fun to see if it can either be flashed with EspHome or building an integration. More to follow.
I remember looking at this a year or so ago and couldn’t remember why I never pulled the trigger. In searching around more, I think I had determined that it was integrated with Huawei and chose not to pursue it further, however I may have mistaken Fusion Solar for Fusion Energy. Either way, let me know what you see, I’d definitely be interested in this if it’s able to work without ever touching a cloud.
Since it only communicates with 45.77.120.52 and that is a datacenter in California, I think there are now 3 options.
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Make the DNS name they are looking up point to Home Assistant and make a custom integration to catch the data and update home assistant.
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Flash the device like Emporia Vue. It is supposedly and ESP32 device, need to verify that.
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Write a custom integration to read from the cloud service. I already started a python client that logs in to the api, and there are only 2 other calls. This would still be cloud connected, but follows the same thing as GitHub - magico13/ha-emporia-vue: Home Assistant Integration for Emporia Vue Energy Monitor. I am familiar with this api because I wrote a c# port of GitHub - magico13/PyEmVue: Python Library for the Emporia Vue Energy Monitor in a few days. Shouldn’t be too hard to transform the integration to work with the data of another energy monitor.
@pcartwright81 Were you able to confirm that it is an ESP32 based device? I am thinking about buying the same unit (currently $110 at Amazon with 16 consumption channels).
My thinking is around disabling the internal CPU and wiring in a new ESP32 unless it is easy to figure out the schematics and create a new ESPHome based firmware.
I also found another unit at Amazon currently for $120 ($150 - $30 coupon). Unfortunately no information about HA compatibility is available.
Smart Home Energy Monitor with 16 50A and 2-200A Circuit Level Sensors, Real-Time Accurate Energy Consumption Tracking, WiFi Meter Solar/Net Metering, 2.4 GHz WiFi: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
And then there is the Refoss option which claims to be HA compatible with the latest firmware. It is $170 ($200 - $30 coupon).
Refoss Smart Home Energy Monitor Supports Home Assistant, Real-Time Accurate Energy Consumption Tracking, Electricity Usage Monitor with 16x60A Circuit Sensors, 36-Month History, Solar Metering, 2.4G - Amazon.com
Confirmed ESP32-C3. Other than verifying I have not had much time to do much exploration. I did study the traffic going to the server, the traffic in the Android App, Vue local, and Vue HA Integration.
Great photos. Remarkable similarities to the Emporia Vue 2 (previous version). Notably the Vue 2 has a few different chips so no guarantee the same esphome config will work. If you do decide to flash or backup the firmware, take a closer look at J22 which is closer to where the Vue 2 gets flashed.
Good point. Those are the same pins I am used to on the Treatlife devices I flash with a 3d printed pogo pin adapter. Unfortunately the GPIO0 pin is under the glue. Tried poking a needle through it. but still can not get it to connect. Possibly my TTL adapter is too weak, or I am not making a connection. I don’t think that there is an fcc filing for this device, and every tp I see is not GPIO0. On another note this device has built in usb according to the specs, so might be able to do it that way.