UK "smart" energy meters

SianiAnni · February 11, 2021, 8:37am

Hi @denver, I’ve been asking Ovo for a live usage API for years, and although there was a rumour that someone was working on one late last year, I haven’t been tagged in the ovo forum about its release. I started using Home Assistant just before Xmas 2020, and installed the Ovo integration, but I don’t understand what data it’s providing. Have you been able to get your hands on the Ovo live usage API?

SianiAnni · February 11, 2021, 9:02am

Hi @timmo001, I started using Home Assistant on a raspberry pi last December to monitor my home environment to continue baselining before doing some more retrofit. The first thing I installed and got working was the Met Office integration for external temperatures. Then I found the Ovo integration - I can see you’ve done some bug fixing in GitHub recently. I didn’t understand what it was showing me, but left it running anyway. Since then I’ve got Hive returning lots of good data which all makes sense. I’ve now got 5 Aquara temperature and humidity sensors feeding in via a ConBee II. I already had a couple of emonTH feeding into emoncms. And I have access to my energy use via an emonTx and Carbon Co-op, but can’t get data from either into Home Assistant at the moment. Can you explain what data the Ovo integration is pulling into Home Assistant? It it daily readings, or half hourly, or something else altogether? I was hoping this would be the missing link in the puzzle, but so far I’ve failed to interpret it. Thanks in anticipation of you being able throw some light on this!

stryker · February 11, 2021, 3:31pm

I’m in the UK… I monitor my power using a PZEM-016 which is wired to a wifi Elfin-EW11… home assistant uses the modbus integration to read values from it… I’ve got volts, watts, power factor and amps… got it all graphed in grafana and use the HA Utility Meter components to also track power usage per day, week and month.

I looked into reading directly from the smart meter and gave up… seemed a nightmare

Eldudemeister · February 11, 2021, 4:47pm

This sounds interesting, do you have a link to a set up guide? Does the PZEM just clamp onto the incoming mains cable?

delboydell · February 12, 2021, 1:12pm

I use the PZEM-0046 V3 sensor with a D1 mini and get all the values but cannot get it to work with the Utility meter component, Would you mind sharing you Yaml?
Yes the PZEM just clamps around one of the tails to or from the meter it does not matter.

stryker · February 16, 2021, 11:08am

Actually I got my inspiration on these forums, if you search you’ll find a lot of topics, such as this one:

nickcj · March 14, 2021, 9:54am

Yep thats correct mate. I must admit i’ve been blown away by their supoprt. I had some issues with my IHD and i emailed them they fixed it remotly and back in action.

The only thing i am noticing as i’ve been using this for a while now is that if you change electricity suppliers, the IHD seems to stop working. So i dont know if the meter drops all config when current supplier lets go of the meter and handover to new supplier?

So you have to email them to reset the IHD as you cant do it yourself since you have no direct access to admin it.

The whole smart meter thing in the UK is so imature and very poorly implemented, no supplier fully has the grasp of it and what they are doing with it. just my 2 cents worth. Hopfuly things will improve and become a bit more seemless!

snakesms · July 13, 2021, 9:45pm

Hey,

Is there anyone who’s got Geo Trio from
https://www.geotogether.com/products-services/smarter-energy/
Smart Meeterr?
They seem to be pretty popular nowadays

I’ve was trying to find official doc how to use their API but instead found and implementation of the integration for Open Hub

Its quality is questionable (it can’t even be started) but the idea is pretty clear:

github.com

owainlloyd/Geohome_Integration/blob/725e006225ac9bffe0a15d241db5a3ea22d92f9b/geohome.py

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""
Script to intergrate GeoTogether meter readings into the Openhab
Still needs some work to handle errors

"""
import requests, json
import threading
import time
from datetime import datetime
from openhab import OpenHAB
import os

BASE_URL='https://api.geotogether.com/'
LOGIN_URL='usersservice/v2/login'
DEVICEDETAILS_URL='api/userapi/v2/user/detail-systems?systemDetails=true'
LIVEDATA_URL = 'api/userapi/system/smets2-live-data/'
PERIODICDATA_URL = 'api/userapi/system/smets2-periodic-data/'
USERNAME= 'xxxxxxx'
PASSWORD = 'xxxxxxx'

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Maybe someone with proper knowledge in Python multi-threading can convert it to the working integration for HA

Puntoboy · August 4, 2021, 9:19am

I have this as well and it would be ace to get the info into HA. I like the mobile app but having it all together in one place is much better.

dharvey24 · August 9, 2021, 10:39am

Okay i’ve managed to get the code ‘working’ in that I can output the data to a json file. Can anyybody help is getting that data stored and in to Home Assistant?

vmartinv · August 9, 2021, 10:58am

You can create an integration by first setting up the development workflow and then running the command to start a new integration. It adds a barebone integration from where you can add your code. You can specify a config, services and provide entity’s states. I’m doing the same for my meter on EDF energy. Share your code on Github please!

IgnatiusA · September 7, 2021, 8:19pm

Hi.

I’m interested in the glow device- though it all appears to be out of stock at present.

I wonder, do the manufacturers charge a monthly fee to access their API?

While nobody wants to pay another subscription, I’d feel a little more comfortable that the company won’t just stop supporting it two months in if they’re receiving a revenue to cover their server expenses.

sour_brambles · September 13, 2021, 1:12pm

No, there are no monthly fees or costs at this time. I guess with anything that relies on a third party service there is a chance that could change but for me the 60ish quid was worth it to have the instant electricity usage. I’ve been happy with the company so far though, they are responsive in their forums and via email.

metalblue · September 15, 2021, 8:08pm

Does the glow addon just provide current usage, or does it provide historical data too?

Having not written a home assistant addon before I’m trying to use and understand that code base and was planning to try and use it as the basis for an attempt at an addon to work with the Geo Trio IHD.

sour_brambles · September 17, 2021, 12:38am

I don’t know about the addon as I’ve not used it. I use the mqtt connection they provide.

This gives a good overview of what’s accessible via the mqtt connection:

gist.github.com

https://gist.github.com/ndfred/b373eeafc4f5b0870c1b8857041289a9

glowmqtt.py

import datetime
import logging
import json
import paho.mqtt.client as mqtt # pip3 install paho-mqtt

GLOW_LOGIN = "GLOW_LOGIN"
GLOW_PASSWORD = "GLOW_PASSWORD"
GLOW_DEVICE_ID = "GLOW_DEVICE_ID"

# Fields gathered from the ZigBee Smart Energy Standard document

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stuart.kjw · October 4, 2021, 11:10am

I’ve got a trio 2, and a basic python script to pull data from the API.
Just need to find some time and learn how to get that data into HA

sccowl · October 4, 2021, 3:53pm

I’m in same position with trio 2 so will be interested as and when you get it working. I’ll update once I’ve had chance to try and figure it out.

H3ALY · October 5, 2021, 8:14am

Late to the party I’m sure but just throwing this out there in case it hasn’t already been said, I recently had a Honeywell SMET2 meter fitted which came with Chameleon’s IHD6, my current energy supplier is Outfox the Market which I’ve currently had no response to my queries around opening up access to the Chameleon Technology “cloud” or creating some form of API themselves for me to access my data.

I saw someone mention Samsung Smart Things has an Integration for accessing the Smart Meter data for Bulb Energy customers. After looking at the setup document on Samsung’s website ( Set up Samsung SmartThings Energy Control | Samsung UK) this is geared specifically for the IHD3 and IHD6 so I tried my luck with the setup process and it seems to have worked?

My thought is that Samsung Smart things is dealing directly with the Chameleon API rather than a Bulb API to pull the data which means it’s not verifying that you are a Bulb customer. As it stands currently my energy data is being displayed in the app and as I say I’m not a Bulb customer.

The current pitfall to this is the app displays that I’m on the “Vari-fair” tariff so the kWh charges for both fuels are incorrect. The usage seems to be out of kilter but needs to dig into the settings as it may just be interpreting the data for the month rather than the day. I set this up late last night and was surprised to see data this morning so I may need to poke around in the settings on the IHD or in the app to correct the inconsistencies. Then go off and see if there is any way for me to link this into HomeAssistant as I’ve not used the SmartThings integration.

Hope this has the same success for anyone else with this IHD.

umbramalison · October 5, 2021, 7:45pm

Hi,

IIUC, and my experience of getting this working this evening (some caveats) supports. is that some SMETSv1 and any SMETSv2 can be used with the “Bright/Glow” API, for which there are apps for on Android and iOS.

So i’m with PurePlanet, and they fitted me with a GEO TRIO 2. Turns out I have the WiFi module, but i didn’t configure that for this to work.

the magic is all here:

I followed that guide, and I now have 30min updates in HA.
Glow will tell you that in order to get “real-time” (as in relatively regular and by no-means deterministic which is what real-time actually means - argh) you will need the IHD with MQTT online backend.

at this point i’ve now got my smart meters in HA, and a bright app on my phone and I can see on my phone all past data. In HA i can only see data since activating the integration.

caveats are:

update period - 30mins i think
gas. HA Energy thingy expects gas meter to be in m3, which isn’t very helpful as you need to apply a formula to convert that into kWh taking into account environmental factors. The Bright/Glow api or rather the energy supplier or just something in the path does this conversion already into kWh but HA doesn’t expect this - probably HA needs to adapt.

Next I realised that I have the WiFi module, after reading that PurePlanet don’t provide this. Anyway, it’s there. it’s now connected to my wifi, and i’ve installed the ‘Geo Home’ app.
that’s where my journey tonight ends, I don’t know how to use the Geo stuff in HA.

Edit/update:

Now using:

Also October’s release of home assistant now supports kWh gas meters, and this fork of glow API provides m3 meters, as well as tariff and costs trackers

stuart.kjw · October 7, 2021, 7:44am

How did you setup the geo trio2 in the bright app?