Posted by: @grantmethestrength

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I was kind of looking for a neater all in one solution

It's an attractive idea but I fear neat all-in-one solutions and detailed and layered levels of control don't always happen together! If you haven't tried it already, don't be afraid to write your own python code (rather than use HA which is python, but rather complicated python) as it is not difficult, particularly if you are already familiar with python, which I suspect you are, perhaps to quite a high level. The key module/package you need to make the connection is minimalmodbus, which is tolerably well documented. All this can be done without the HA complexity overload.

@cathoderay i will have to take a look at that, tbh as I am already deep into the home assistant (regrown virginity) ecosphere it is just as easy for me to use it. My Grant Aerona3 home assistant integration is python based, but I am very much an AI powered vibe coder!

@grantmethestrength if you already have Home Assistant, just buy the Svenar dongle. It will take you 5 minutes to set up and you will have everything controllable through HA. It gives you 259 entities (data points) of which some 70 controllable.

An extract:

Posted by: @mphb

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@grantmethestrength if you already have Home Assistant, just buy the Svenar dongle. It will take you 5 minutes to set up and you will have everything controllable through HA. It gives you 259 entities (data points) of which some 70 controllable.

An extract:

Ours arrived a couple of days ago as it happens and plan to get it up and running tomorrow am. 

@mphb I have built a custom integration that exposes 245 entities on my Grant Aerona3 I currently use the Waveshare modbus to eth POE Module B to control the ASHP modbus registers and a couple of shelly minis to control dry contact switches on the PCB of the ASHP. I was just hoping that the new waveshare device would give me an all in one solution with 8 switches built in. I have just got a different device, the waveshare POE modbus 8 channel relay up and running so I will swap out that for the shelly's and use it with the original modbus controller.

The issue with the Grant is that you have to wire directly into the PCB on the ASHP both for the modbus connection and the dry contact switches so I have run two ethernet cables to it as well as another power cable (in the vain hope that I can figure out how to control the diverter valve). This will give me control of night mode, low tariff mode, dual set point Heating/DHW via Home Assistant.

Connected up the Svenar heat pump controller this morning. 

Quite new to HA so need to figure out a way to customise the dashboard as currently I've just getting a massively long portrait view list of all paramaters, but the above device looks good thus far. It allows control of all of the customisable WC curve parameters from what I can see, and my hope is that I can set up some automations linked to these and a tapo temp sensor in the hallway, to prevent any under or over shooting if required.

I'l keep our disconnected homely for now and see how this approach compares with respect to comfort and efficiency, when we need the heating back on. The homely would occasionally do some odd over shooting with the heating so I was looking to eradicate this (hence looking into alternative controls in the first place), and having a legitimate way of plotting all of the data I want to see. 

@benson I have had much discussion with Homely about this overheating feature; this ‘feature’ has been removed for me by not using Smart+. It would seem that this feature has a tendency to focus in on the highest temperature setting in any programme set up and endeavours to target this as though a lower temperature is undesirable at any time! I hope that Homely will come to their senses and re-write this element of the software soon. Regards, Toodles.

@benson best advice I can give is look at the entities you find useful then copy and paste them into a text file then create a new dashboard and play around with different cards. I normally just smash them into an AI and use a prompt like

“ you are a specialist in UI/UX design with extensive experience designing Home Assistant dashboards, create me a useful well designed dashboard for my XXXX ASHP with the following entities: XXXXXX. Feel free to suggest any additional entities that will help me control the ASHP efficiently as well as any strategies to get the best out of it.”

Also if you have any additional sensors like temp/humidity you can create a blueprint to add them to get even more granular control over the system.

@benson I would also recommend the EMONCMS add on if you aren’t already using it. Speak to the Geek did a good tutorial on how to set it up;

@toodles I never used smart+ with ours, so no reason really for it to over shoot like it did. Last autumn it would just randomly go up to whatever the max flow temp was set at, occasionally. The only way they could fix it was to set the max flow temp slightly lower, which then impacted on keeping the house warm enough in really cold weather. 

Maybe after a month or two with this svenar device I will have had enough and all will be forgiven with homely but if nothing else it will help scratch my itch that just taking back a bit more control of what my heating is doing, might work better.

@benson 😆 Toodles.