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Home Alone with Home Assistant (previously A Beginner's Guide to ASHP Monitoring)

cathodeRay · 2023-01-08T14:45:53Z

An even more Important Note: as this thread amply demonstrates, the original notion of a Beginner's Guide got lost in the complexities that appeared as I attempted the development of a simple monitoring system that any interested lay person could implement at reasonable cost and with sensible effort. The two main problems that emerged are (1) the difficulties of communicating with a heat pump over a network and (2) what software to use to do the monitoring. I decided to run with Home Assistant, a decision I consider based on my experience to have been a mistake. The fundamental problem is that it is too complex, and the ensuing chaos is a bit like trying to use a Met Office super-computer to work out the cost of your weekly grocery shop. What could possibly go wrong? I am now well on the way towards having established a viable wired connection, using much simpler software and hopefully will post details in a new thread, A Beginner's Guide to Heat Pump Monitoring v2, before too long. In the meantime, this thread will remain available, partly because it contains some material that is still relevant even when using a wired connection, and partly because, well, it is a record of a journey down a long long road with many a winding turn that leads to who knows where...or you could say it is one home owner's experience of being home alone with Home Assistant. Part 1: Introduction Important note, especially for newcomers to heat pumps: all of this, everything in this thread is voluntary, you absolutely do not need to do it, so don't let this thread put you off heat pumps, because they are just 'too complicated'. That said, unlike fossil fuel boilers, heat pumps are not a 'fit, fire and forget' solution, you do need to have some understanding of things like COPs (coefficients of performance), to get the best out of them, and avoid spending £££ that you don't need to spend. In most if not all cases, the manufacturers' own inbuilt displays will have all the necessary data, but not necessarily in an easy to read and assimilate form. Voluntarily adding your own monitoring will give you access to data that is both more comprehensive and better presented. But you don't have to do it, only do it if you want to do it. I'm starting this thread to provide what it says in the title: a beginner's guide to air source heat pump monitoring. I am just such a beginner, and frustrated by the limited questionable and ephemeral data provided by the heat pump's standard installation and 'app', I wanted a way of getting more accurate real time data that ended up being logged on my PC so that I could see what was really going on both in real time and over time. I am not a complete airhead when it comes to technical stuff, but every time I started googling how to set up such a monitoring system, I ended up with 30 tabs open in the browser, only to collapse under the weight of baffling jargon, multiple options and the sheer mass of either impenetrable or badly written posts that contradict each other. I was also rather put off by the fact that the top search results for most search queries I used tended to be full of 'my widget doesn't work with my gizmo, what can I do to make it work' threads, with rarely any actual solution provided. It all looks like a technology not yet ready for prime time. But I kept on coming back to it. Surely it can't be that complicated? The system is already sending heat pump data to the manufacturer's servers, which is then downloaded into the app. I've decided I am going to give it one last try. I'm setting a time limit: if I haven't got a working monitoring system by 1st April 2023 (choice of 1st April is deliberate), then the effort becomes history. This thread will document my progress, or lack of it, plus any other, hopefully many, other's input on the practical ways to get local monitoring working. My heat pump is a Midea M-Thermal mono block 14kw unit, but I am hoping some of what I learn will be useful to owners of other brands of heat pumps. In this first post, I am going to set out what I want. In summary: a simple, minimally invasive, affordable (preferably tens not hundreds of pounds) and reliable (both in operation and data quality) setup a locally based system, because I don't like sending my data to a commercial corporation, and then having to retrieve it from them. Put more bluntly, my data is my data, and I should have access to it real time and historical (ie logged) data that ends up on my PC that I can view with a browser based interface/dashboard access to the underlying data (ie it is stored in an easy to read format such as csv, xls or a simple sql based system eg sqlite) so I can check it, and if I want to, manipulate it minimum data set: energy in (kWh), energy out (kWh), flow and return temps (I have a plate heat exchange, need to decide whether I want both circuits monitored or just one and if so which one?), room temps from important rooms, and lastly outside ambient tem...

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Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHPs)

Last Post by Majordennisbloodnok 3 months ago

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bontwoody

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30/06/2026 9:20 am

@majordennisbloodnok Thanks. It does help.

Am I right in thinking that an automation without a trigger could be written as a script?

House-3 bed partial stone bungalow, 5kW Samsung Gen 6 ASHP (Self install)
6.9 kWp of PV
10kWh DC coupled battery
Blog: https://thegreeningofrosecottage.weebly.com/
Heatpump Stats: http://heatpumpmonitor.org/system/view?id=60

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Majordennisbloodnok

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30/06/2026 9:44 am

Posted by: @bontwoody

↑

...

Am I right in thinking that an automation without a trigger could be written as a script?

Even closer than you might think.

If you go to Settings, Automations & scenes then you'll see on the top bar that there is an icon for scripts. Effectively, a script is an automation without the triggers and conditions. Alternatively, an automation is a script with conditions. If you ignore the triggers and conditions sections of an automation, the underlying YAML is almost exactly the same except automations have an actions: section with one or more actions beneath it whilst scripts have a sequence: section with one or more actions beneath it.

If you want a button to do something, it can be pointed to a script just as easily as an automation.

105 m2 bungalow in South East England
Mitsubishi Ecodan 8.5 kW air source heat pump
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bontwoody

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30/06/2026 9:51 am

@majordennisbloodnok

Unfortunately it didnt work. Ill try and see why

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Majordennisbloodnok

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30/06/2026 10:00 am

OK, let's step back a moment.

When you set up the Huawei Solar integration, did you select "Elevate permissions"?

"Semper in excretia; sumus solum profundum variat"

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bontwoody

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30/06/2026 10:03 am

@majordennisbloodnok I dont actually recall, sorry. Any way to check?

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Majordennisbloodnok

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30/06/2026 10:11 am

I think the way of checking is the same as the way of correcting; "reconfiguring" the integration. If you go down to the bottom of the Huawei Solar page here, the last troubleshooting FAQ is on exactly this subject.

"Semper in excretia; sumus solum profundum variat"

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bontwoody

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30/06/2026 10:33 am

@majordennisbloodnok I think it worked, no errors reported, but the sun came out between 10:25 and 10:30 when I set it to run, so it was difficult to be sure 🙂

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bontwoody

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30/06/2026 10:52 am

Not so sure now 🙁 No errors but set this for 10:45 to 10:50

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bontwoody

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30/06/2026 11:18 am

@majordennisbloodnok Looks like its the target SOC thats causing it

Log details (ERROR)

Logger: homeassistant.components.automation.force_discharge_battery
Source: helpers/script.py:2185
Integration: Automation (documentation, issues)
First occurred: 10:25:00 (3 occurrences)
Last logged: 11:10:00
Force Discharge Battery: Error executing script. Invalid data for call_service at pos 1: extra keys not allowed @ data['target_soc']

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Majordennisbloodnok

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30/06/2026 11:28 am

That would suggest you've got forcible_discharge in your script with a data section containing target_soc rather than either using forcible_discharge with no data section or using forcible_discharge_soc with the data section.

Oh, and that target_soc was only the result of my trawling around the interweb a bit. The documentation is rather light on that front.

This post was modified 4 months ago by Majordennisbloodnok

"Semper in excretia; sumus solum profundum variat"

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bontwoody

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