Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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Once that modbus connection is installed, however, you're quite right; you've just unlocked the door to all the information and control the heat pump has to offer, whether you use a Home Assistant integration, a Homely box, ESPHome or even your own custom Python code to do the modbus talking.

In this case, it uses the NASA protocol rather than modbus, but the register addresses are the same as far as I know. This is what it looks like on my phone or laptop. The offset value for -0.5 C is displayed as 6553 for some reason with -5 C displayed as 6548.5. I haven't worked out a way to change this on the fly - hence the 2 different ways of adjusting the offset.

Posted by: @toodles

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@majordennisbloodnok I should have qualified my remarks, shouldn’t I, sorry? What I intended to suggest was that after watching their video, you will (possibly) see a link inviting you to download the app for the Dashboard and you will be ‘authorised’ to install that app.

By watching their training video, you will have gained the additional knowledge to fit the Homely controller but I suppose it is assumed that you already have plumbing and electrical ‘sustificates’. Mine was fitted for me and I was granted access to the dashboard as an early adopter who could provide feedback (which I still do).

I have suggested to Homely that they provide access to the dashboard in the user app as it is full of useful data for the keener heat pump owner. They expressed a reluctance based on the idea that a little knowledge may be a dangerous thing and they felt that their installers might receive unwarranted queries from users. Regrets, Toodles. 

No worries, @toodles.

Your last paragraph, however, is also quite telling. Homely seem to be displaying exactly the same mindset as the heat pump manufacturers, regarding access to comprehensive data as a liability rather than an empowerment of the customer. Whether they are correct in that assumption or not, it is still an obstacle to people getting their hands on what they've paid for and, as a customer, I don't want to have to prove myself to anyone in order to be granted the privilege of accessing what's mine already.

I hasten to add this is not a pop at Homely per se but at any company that tries to act in a proprietorial way with a customer's systems or data. Whilst Homely are apparently wary of treating their customers as grown-ups, your experiences do suggest they do at least seem to be open to being convinced otherwise and that is a lot less intransigent than many other actors in this industry.

@majordennisbloodnok I’ll continue to knock on that door, I sense that the lock has been released - now if I can just push a little more against the latch…. Toodles.

@toodles yes, keep knocking! I had a nice phone call from homely today as I signed up for their installer program...he didn't mention the qualified electrician bit but he did hint that normal users may get more next year....we shall see.

@profzarkov Ooh! Perhaps a New Year’s Present then! 😉 Toodles.

@toodles my neighbour is an electrician, 🤔, and has a new ASHP. Oi be thinking he could be persuaded to become an installer?

@profzarkov Sounds good to me!😊 Toodles.

Posted by: @profzarkov

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@toodles yes, keep knocking! I had a nice phone call from homely today as I signed up for their installer program...he didn't mention the qualified electrician bit but he did hint that normal users may get more next year....we shall see.

I had similar- they called to ask if I needed a demo or any help as an installer, but were happy enough when I told them I'd just set up the account to access the dashboard for my own system. They didn't mention users might get more access to me though, that's new and very welcome.

We've had our Homely for a couple of months now. Completely agree the dashboard should be available as standard for owner and installer. Strange decision....

Our installers contacted homely on our behalf a couple of weeks back as I noticed it seemed to be overshooting (another reason why we need access)....so on quite mild days the flow temp would occasionally and seemingly randomly go up to the max of 50 and we could really feel it was getting too hot rather than steady temps. This was incidentally the max flow temp that the homely automatically sets up, and I was initially under the mistaken belief that the max and min parameters are set up in the installer app. We've not got it aligned to any cosy tariffs or anything like that so there's no reason for it to overshoot during cheap periods etc.

Anyway apparently they advised that there was a software fault, changed the settings so we now have a lower max (46) and min flow temp.

This has made a significant difference to our COP- I'd say around 0.5 improvement on average. I guess a bit worrying if we hadn't have monitored and flagged up but in fairness they have sorted it and it seems to now be working really well, and efficiently.

On another interesting side note we got loads of quotes, and heat loss surveys- most with a fair few more radiator changes than we ended up having, and all with a design temp of 50. The quote we went for had a design temp of 45, and was the only one who recommended homely for controls.

@profzarkov Hi, the problem I had when fitting my Homely was the way my heat pump was wired,  the original controls, which had to be removed, activated the post buffer tank pump. To overcome that problem, the pump had to be rewired, so the heat pump started it up when the Homely was introduced.

@el_presidente Hi, just been reading your post on Homely and notice that you have a 2nd monitoring system on your Modbus connection, did this system just connect direct to the Modbus, also how does the data from the Homely compare to your 2nd system, as sometimes it's hard to believe the data on my Homely.

I took the wires that came out of my Midea controller to the Homely and simply tapped off those wires with Wago connectors. I reconnected the Midea controller to Homely so that continued to work as original, but then had a second pair of wires with Modbus data on them. This additional pair I attached to a TTL Serial adapter, which in turn is wired to an ESP32 Microcontroller.  The ESP32 runs something called ESPHome which includes a specific Midea configuration/mapping file to create sensor and switch data on a 10 second update.  Those sensors and switches can be read into a Home Assistant instance runing an ESPHome add-on.

I'm telling you all this because what I see in Home Assistant as values from the Midea ASHP are at a different level of detail to what you see in the Homely app or the Homely Connect web view. There realy isn't much of a comparison opportunity as Homely just doesn't expose all the values to you, especially as I don't pay for the Pro Homely Connect licence. The Modbus data is where much of the value is for me.

I get additional data about energy/power input to the heat pump from a simple Tuya energy meter using a CT clamp on the live wire to the pump inside a consumer unit.  From that I calculate CoP but I still have to reply on the Midea value for heat output as I don't want to invest further in independent heat output measuring.

Heres an example of what Midea says is my general system SCOP:

And here is an example shorter term SCOP for the last 30 days from my Home Assistant measurements which include the Tuya power/energy input values (see the mean values at the bottom):

Here are some of my Midea sensors that come through the Modbus into ESPHome and Home Assistant:

Not sure if that has addressed your question properly, so shout if you have addition queries and I'll see what I can do. My plan for the future does include options for better heat output measurement and potentially more analysis and graphing from my whole system.

Regards.