Alfen Eve Single Pro support

Ideas & Suggestions
21

Sorry, my previous post should have been in English.

  • My Alfen Eve Single Pro is NOT in my network.
  • Tibber has announced support for the Charger, without stating when.

Currently:

  • the EV charger is using load balancing by a connection to the P1 on my smart energy meter.
  • the smart charging part is done using the Tibber App which integrates with my Skoda car (Enyaq iV).
  • I have a Tibber energy contract, otherwise, I suspect, it will not work.
22

Ik stuur mijn Alfen palen aan met de modbus app, geef dan dus modbus commando`s. Der is ook aardig wat uit te lezen via modbus

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23

So I recently went through the required hoops to get the root password for my Alfen Eve charging station and took it “offline” (disconnected the remote backoffice for which I had to pay 6 Euro’s per month, and converted the P1 cable into a network cable, and added back load balancing capabilities via the HomeWizard P1 WiFi dongle). I now have several options to integrate into Homey:

  • Talk to the Alfen HTTP API directly (which is also used by the ACE Service Installer application and gives full access to all configuration items)
  • Run an Energy Management System (maybe combined with something like EVCC.io) and integrate that into Homey (write custom app or use the proven MQTT route)
  • Build an app for Homey that basically implements the OCPP server protocol and have the charger talk directly to that (the most low-level option, but can add a lot of awesome features as if you’re running your own remote back-office provider!)

I think I’m gonna give the 3rd option a try. This would not only add support for the Alven Eve, but a whole lot of other chargers that support OCPP (which is pretty much the industry standard nowadays, at least in the EU).

Chris

1 Like
24

That sounds great Chris. look forward to the Homey app for Alfen Eve

25

Small update on my progress.

Implementing OCPP is going quite well. I can send and receive messages to a (simulated) charging station. I have also made a start on auto-discovery for known charging station manufacturers, starting with Alfen (based on mDNS). I’m implementing OCPP in such a way that any charging station that was added during a Homey pairing flow is automatically whitelisted on the OCPP server. Then you can configure the charging station to point to Homey as remote back office (I’ll add some instructions in the pairing flow). I’m also adding RFID tag whitelisting to the app settings. Please let me know what other features you would like to see.

Chris

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26

Sounds good, what comes to mind is that it would be great to set charging to max, comfort or green for the Alfen stations from homey.

27

Hi Chris,
This approche would mean that a OCPP backoffice for split-billing cannot be configered on the Alfen anymore?

28

Depending on the charging station it could still be possible. OCPP supports a charging station having multiple back office providers (on different network interfaces, e.g. LAN for Homey and SIM for a remote provider that you use for automated billing). OCPP also supports proxying, so I could add that to the Homey app so you can still forward the charging session information to the billing provider.

29

Makes sense! I’m not sure if that’s standard OCPP functionality, or an Alfen custom message. Could still be implemented by creating some device sub-types for specific manufacturers with additional controls.