@betpred

If you are using the Solis data in HA through the Solis dongle, as far as I can tell it is still only updating every 5 minutes, unless you have mlade some hardwire changes to your Solis inverter.

@batpred 

I want to see in real time how much the inverter is discharging our battery banks.

The overall 5 minutes view is ok for a quick overview once a while through the Solis Cloud.

Integrating this into HA seems pointless if it's only polling the data every 5 minutes.

Posted by: @bash

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@batpred 

I want to see in real time how much the inverter is discharging our battery banks.

 

The overall 5 minutes view is ok for a quick overview once a while through the Solis Cloud.

 

Integrating this into HA seems pointless if it's only polling the data every 5 minutes.

@bash, I'd like to clarify; are you asking if it's possible to create a real time connection to an inverter like @batpred's?

If so, whilst I can't absolutely guarantee that that particular model of inverter is compatible, in general terms the Home Assistant integration most likely is the one I use for my Growatt - the SolaX Inverter Modbus integration. It certainly supports Solis, Sofar, SolaX and Growatt although the documentation is a little old and incomplete so there is simply no mention of newer inverter model numbers.

If this is the information you're after, I can confirm that two wires from within a network cable plugged into the RJ45 socket set aside for RS485 connections can be connected to an RS485 to Ethernet adapter and the HA integration pointed at that adapter across the network. Mine polls every 15 seconds. Alternatively, using the same modbus setup (or an RS485 to serial adapter of some sort) you could go down the same route @cathoderay has trailblazed and write your own python scripts in which case you'd be polling as often as you want.

Posted by: @bash

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@batpred

If you are using the Solis data in HA through the Solis dongle, as far as I can tell it is still only updating every 5 minutes, unless you have mlade some hardwire changes to your Solis inverter.

I must say I had not noticed the frequency until this morning as I was sending Solis some graphs on usage. They seem to trust Solis AI less than it deserves!   

I had some challenge keeping the Solax modbus integration that @majordennisbloodnok mentioned going (it did work the first time, just had to select Solis in the window where I configured it). But there is now also a Solis modbus on HA - that served my purpose. With my USB dongle, I just used Rj45 cable from a wifi retrans. 

To be aware, that if you want to use both soliscloud and modbus, you may need to set a "number of connections" parameter. I think I had done that using Soliscloud via the browser so did not come across any limitation. 

@batpred 

It should be easy to see in HA if it's real time as you will see the inverter/battery discharge rate changing frequently, certainly more than every 5 minutes.

That is the data everyone wants from Solis, it just seems quite tricky to get that to work.

I'd hoped that I could integrate the Solis API data, which is easy to get from Solis, on the tablet in my kitchen so I can monitor in real time if I hit the inverter discharge limit.

Without it in real time it's useless, as you only get a snap shot of that micro second and then have to wait another 5 minutes for the next data point.

Posted by: @bash

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@batpred 

I want to see in real time how much the inverter is discharging our battery banks.

A more direct option may be to use a bluetooth or modbus integration to the BMS. The bluetooth option worked for me, on the seplos I could connect to the jk balancer and the seplos bms. I think it was not providing data per cell but it had info on highest and lowest voltage, etc  

@batpred 

Cell voltage is of no value, it doesn't provide any meaningful information as it won't show when the inverter hits its discharge limit.

You can't even tell from the cell voltage (unless it's at either end of the charge/discharge curve) what the actual capacity of the cell/pack is either.

@majordennisbloodnok 

Yes polling is the issue with Solis inverters, they only do it every 5 minutes.

I (like a lot of Solis owners) was trying to find out if batpred, who has integrated theirs with HA, has found out how to do it.

Unfortunately it seems not, which isn't a surprise as it's not easy!

Posted by: @bash

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I'd hoped that I could integrate the Solis API data, which is easy to get from Solis, on the tablet in my kitchen so I can monitor in real time if I hit the inverter discharge limit.

I just checked and the sensors from the solis modbus integration update every few seconds (10?) with the battery charge and discharge power.   

@batpred 

Well that sounds positive. When you say modbus sensors, what does that mean?

How did you set this up, what equipment did you buy/attach to the inverter?

Thanks.

Posted by: @bash

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@majordennisbloodnok 

 

Yes polling is the issue with Solis inverters, they only do it every 5 minutes.

I (like a lot of Solis owners) was trying to find out if batpred, who has integrated theirs with HA, has found out how to do it.

Unfortunately it seems not, which isn't a surprise as it's not easy!

I guessed that’d be about it.

As such, you are, as you suggested, limited by the fact the wifi adapter plugged into the inverter is only programmed to send data to the manufacturer’s cloud every 5 minutes; you could poll the API every 10 seconds but if’d do no good, HA or otherwise.

Your only option to get near real time visibility and control is to talk locally to the inverter. Modbus is one option and, at least for Growatt (and therefore likely for Solis), another is one of the online projects whereby you buy a second-hand wifi adapter and flash some new code to it that turns it into an MQTT client. That latter relies on the fact the wifi adapters for many Chinese inverters are based around an ESP32 chip.

In practice the modbus route is far more straightforward than it seems. It does, however, rely on you being OK with running one cable and doing a bit of HA tinkering which scares some people.

@majordennisbloodnok 

This sounds like it could be a similar project to getting data from our soon to be installed Daikin HP!

In an ideal world it'd be great to see the real time data of the HP and our battery storage on the Samsung tablet that permanently sits in our kitchen connected to our hifi and used as a WiFi music/radio player.

It would be great if I could add HA and an mqqt server to the tablet and it can happily sit there displaying the useful HP and battery storage data!