Stuck on the basics - how to update a value?

nikkilocke · October 24, 2022, 2:55pm

I have integrated Home Assistant to talk to my Heat Pump, Eddi, Zappi, Solar Panels and electric car.
I have no trouble retrieving values from any of these, and displaying them.

But I want to be able to tell my Zappi to switch to Eco mode, or to tell my car to set the max charging level to 80%, or to tell my Eddi to boost tank 1.

Unfortunately, I haven’t the faintest idea how to do that.

I can go into Helpers, and create a dropdown for the different charge modes in my Zappi, or to accept input for the max state of charge (which is a stepped slider that can take values 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 or 100).

But, if I add them to a panel, they don’t reflect the current setting in the device, and changing them doesn’t update the setting in the device.

I fear I am missing something basic in how to link these up properly.

templeton_nash · October 24, 2022, 3:03pm

You need to find the documentation for the integrations that connect HA to the devices you list. The documentation should describe Services you can call to get the devices to do something.

123 · October 24, 2022, 3:32pm

It sounds like you are using a custom integration called Myenergi.

It appears to provide 3 services and they’re described here:

github.com

CJNE/ha-myenergi/blob/507946a65b4d634c1d25e178fed55e49a82443f3/custom_components/myenergi/services.yaml

# Service ID
myenergi_boost:
  name: Boost
  description: Start manual boost
  target:
    entity:
      domain: select
  fields:
    amount:
      name: Amount
      description: Boost amount (kWh)
      required: true
      selector:
        number:
          min: 1
          max: 99
myenergi_eddi_boost:
  name: Boost
  description: Start manual boost
  target:

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nikkilocke · October 24, 2022, 6:07pm

Thanks for that. But it doesn’t tell me how to add something to my dashboard that lets me boost the Eddi.

What do I do in the edit dashboard UI to get a control on the dashboard I can interact with?

123 · October 24, 2022, 7:58pm

Because the author of the custom integration you are using didn’t provide examples of how the services can be employed. It’s left up to the user to experiment with it.

If you create an Input Select, you can make an automation that monitors the Input Select for changes and employs the new user-selected value in a service call (one of the three service calls listed above).

nikkilocke · October 30, 2022, 9:21am

Where can I find clear instructions for how to do that, please? Including setting the input select to whatever the current value is (as it can be changed elsewhere).

123 · October 30, 2022, 1:01pm

Have you reviewed the examples in the documentation for Input Select?

nikkilocke · October 31, 2022, 2:29pm

Yes - seems horrendously complicated, and it’s totally unclear which bits are necessary.

There doesn’t seem to be any kind of ui.

You would have thought it would be the click of a button to add a select for a value which can be read or set. Why the necessity to create 3 separate bits of unintelligible code?

Also, I don’t understand why the addon folder has a services.yml, but those services don’t seem to appear anywhere in the UI.

Nonetheless, I will have a try at creating the code, and see if it works.