Monitor SMA solar devices with Homey
App Store Page: SMA Energy | Homey
Description
Monitor and automate your SMA solar inverters, batteries and Sunny Home Manager from Homey. Everything runs locally: inverters and batteries over Modbus TCP, the Home Manager / Energy Meter over Speedwire multicast. No cloud needed.
Device types
Add the device types that match your system. You can add more than one of the same type, e.g. several inverters.
| Device type | What it shows / does | Homey Energy | Connection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inverter | Solar power, daily/total yield, AC voltage per phase, MPP A/B/C voltage and power, operational status. Flow actions to limit the active power. | Solar panel | Modbus TCP (IP, port 502) |
| Battery | State of charge, charge/discharge power, voltage, current, temperature, charged/discharged energy. On a Sunny Island it also shows grid voltage per phase and the grid connection status (mains / backup). | Home battery | Modbus TCP (IP, port 502) |
| Energy Meter (Sunny Home Manager 2.0 / SMA Energy Meter) | Grid power, current and voltage per phase, frequency, imported/exported energy. Phase utilisation alerts and the Set export limit action. | Main meter | Speedwire multicast (no IP needed) |
| Energy Summary (virtual) | Combines your inverters, batteries and energy meter into solar, battery, grid and home consumption. Also available as a dashboard widget. | – | – |
| PVOutput | Uploads your production to PVOutput.org. | – | Internet |
Which devices do I add?
- Solar inverter (Sunny Boy, Sunny Tripower, Tripower X …): add an Inverter.
- Hybrid inverter with a battery (Sunny Tripower Smart Energy (STP SE), Sunny Boy Smart Energy): add both an Inverter and a Battery device. They use the same IP address. The inverter then reports PV production only, so battery discharge isn’t counted as solar.
- Sunny Boy Storage and Sunny Island: add a Battery.
- Sunny Home Manager 2.0 / Energy Meter: add an Energy Meter.
- The old Sunny Boy Storage device type is deprecated. Use the Battery device type instead.
Enable Modbus on your inverter / battery
Modbus TCP is off by default on all SMA inverters and batteries, and Homey can’t read them until it’s turned on. The Home Manager / Energy Meter doesn’t need this, since it uses multicast.
You need Installer access for this. On newer models there is no factory default password; it was set during commissioning, so ask your installer if you don’t have it.
Models with a built-in web interface (e.g. Sunny Boy -40/-41, Sunny Tripower -40, Sunny Tripower Smart Energy, Sunny Boy Storage):
- Open the inverter’s IP address in a browser and log in as Installer.
- Go to Device parameters → Edit parameters → External communication → Modbus → TCP server.
- Set Activated to Yes and leave the port at 502.
- Click Save all.
ennexOS models (Sunny Tripower X, Sunny Boy Smart Energy, …): the menus are different. In the device’s configuration, look for the Modbus TCP server parameter and switch it on (port 502). The exact wording depends on the firmware.
Older models without a web interface (e.g. Sunny Tripower TL-10/-20/-30, Sunny Boy TL-21): use SMA Sunny Explorer on a Windows PC.
- Create a new plant, select Speedwire, and wait for your inverter to be found.
- Log in as Installer (the default password on these older models is 1111, unless your installer changed it).
- Select the inverter → Settings → External communication → Edit, and enable Modbus TCP Server (port 502).
- Save and close Sunny Explorer.
Then add it in Homey:
- Add a new device from the SMA Energy app and pick Inverter or Battery.
- If your network allows multicast, the device is found automatically. Otherwise enter its IP address (
IP:portalso works). - The default polling interval is 10 seconds.
Tips:
- Give the inverter a fixed IP address in your router.
- Most SMA inverters accept only one Modbus connection at a time. Don’t point two Homeys, or Homey and another system, at the same inverter.
- If you see occasional read errors on an older or slower inverter, raise Modbus timeout in the device settings (default 5 s) to 10–15 s.
- If an inverter got a new IP address, use Repair on the device instead of removing and re-adding it.
Set export limit (Energy Meter device)
The action “Set the export limit to [[limit]]” (since v2.7.9) limits how much solar power is fed into the grid, e.g. 0 % during hours with negative electricity prices.
It needs a Sunny Home Manager 2.0 with firmware 2.16.4.R or newer. Older firmware requires an SMA Grid Guard code, which the app doesn’t support.
Configure the Home Manager in Sunny Portal
- Log in to Sunny Portal as Installer or PV System Administrator.
- Go to Configuration → PV system properties → Parameters → Edit.
- Under Limitation of the active power feed-in, pick anything except No limitation of the active power feed-in. If you don’t want a fixed limit, choose Implement external setpoints only.
- Set Grid management services via Ethernet based communication to Yes. Leave the port at 502, because the app always uses 502.
- Click Save. It can take up to 5 minutes before the setting is active.
Using the action
- The value is a percentage of the total power of all PV inverters connected to the Home Manager: 0 = no export, 100 = back to normal.
- The Home Manager still takes your own consumption into account, so the house keeps running on solar.
- Per SMA, a written value is valid for 60 minutes. After that it falls back to 100 % (or the limit configured in Sunny Portal). Repeat the action, e.g. every 30–45 minutes, if you need the limit to stay active longer.
Limit a single inverter
The Inverter device has two actions:
- Set active power curtailment (%) is meant for frequent, automated use. External control has to be enabled in the inverter first.
- Set active power limit (W) writes to the inverter’s flash memory. Only use it for occasional changes.
SMA EV chargers
SMA EV chargers are not supported. The SMA eCharger has no published Modbus registers, and SMA describes its Modbus connection as monitoring only. The older EV Charger 7.4/22 has no Modbus at all. See GitHub issue #43. If you own an eCharger and can help, please comment there.
Troubleshooting
- Device not found during pairing? Check that Modbus is enabled (see above) and enter the IP address manually.
- Something looks wrong? Send a diagnostic report from the app while the problem is happening, and post the code here or in a GitHub issue.
