This App has been developed to control a Charge Amps car charger device from Homey.
Important notice!
When upgrading this App from 3.1.4 (or older) to version 3.2.0 (or newer) you have to remove the ChargeAmps device in your Homey and add it again. I had to do some changes in the code which had the downside that devices added with older version doesn’t work with the new code.
Currently the APP has support for AURA, DAWN, HALO & LUNA, it also supports the ability to add multiple chargers in your Homey. The app support both CAPI and OCPP versions of software in the ChargeAmps chargers.
For AURA users who only have access to one of the Charging Ports (i.e. sharing the charger with a neighbour) it is from version 3.7.0 also possible to use the App, add a AURA device and go into device settings and choose which of the ports you have access to.
It has the ability to:
Turn on/off the charger port/s
Turn on/off the 220V Outlet in the charger (HALO Only)
Turn on/off the ground light (HALO Only)
Control the LED ring in the charger
Control RFID Lock on/off
Control Cable Lock on/off (AURA, DAWN & LUNA only)
Control the Current limit (A) in the charger
Several Flow Cards that you can use to implement the AURA/DAWN/HALO/LUNA in your Flows
In the app you can see:
Real-time charging consumption.
Cumulative consumption over time.
Amount of energy delivered during the last charge session.
Car connection status.
Status of ports and lights in the charger.
Firmware version.
Whether the charger uses CAPI or OCPP protocol.
Important requirement:
For this App to work you will need a API key from ChargeAmps, they are normally rather quick in their support, so just contact their support and they will assist you with what you need.
Installation process:
Given how this has been developed there are a few IMPORTANT steps needed to setup a ChargeAmps device in your Homey. User credentials are needed before adding a device, so if you follow the steps below everything will work smoothly.
Install the ChargeAmps App
In the App Settings, enter your credentials: email, password and API key
(API key you need to request from Charge Amps support, is is a 24 long character key)
Add a AURA, DAWN, HALO or LUNA device in Homey
Start to control your Charge Amps charger from your Homey!
Things on the ToDo list:
General code cleanup
“Under the hood” improvements
Requests for improvements and new features/functions are more than welcome
Special thanks to: The app would not exist with all the features and functions it has today without your good help with testing, test data and diag reports! @pellen @Goliath @Stefan_Rehnberg
The APIkey is a short (roughly 24 character long) key you receive from Charge Amps Support. The Bearer is something completely different, The Bearer is something the APP received once a login with email, password and APIkey is successful
Several things have been rewritten in the background to handle some situations that could lead to issues. The ChargeAmps API are not 100% “stable” so there could still be some issues that can occur. One issue is that under normal circumstances the respons time from Charge Amps API is 0,5-1,5 seconds, but over period of time it can take 40-70 seconds. Trying to handle it in the App but it is challenging…
In this version there are some capabilities added to display Status, Current (A), Last Charged kWh, Lights and FW version.
Next development steps will be to dig even deeper in error handling to make the app stable and once that has been achieved additional features will be added.
PLEASE NOTE…. It is important to follow the installation guide step by step for this App to work properly.
So version 1.2.0 have been submitted for approval and are now available as Test version.
Development went faster than I thought, several new features/functions in this release and also added several Action Flow Cards.
As long as you follow the steps needed during installation and write in your user credentials in the App Settings before adding a HALO device to you Homey this App should run stable and without any major issues.
Several improvements to the Charge Amps API communication.
There are some issues that are difficult to handle with the Charge Amps API, sometimes it just takes really long time to respond. Trying to handle this in the code but difficult to do without affecting the “user”.From time to time the App can get really slow in responding to actions, but hope that the corrections now implemented will make it a little beter.
Shows Charging power used during charging (not power that the HALO itself consumes)
Removed FW Version capability (not especially useful… )
Added “Now Charged kWh” capability
- This will always show 0 until a charging session is started, then it will show how much that is charged during that charging session.
Added four new Condition Flow Cards
- Car is connected
- Car is charging
- Ground light is on
- 220V Outlet is on
Will this only support Charge Amps HALO or could it be used more generic for Charge Amps Chargers? I just got a Dawn installed and would like to get some functionality into Homey.
Unfortunately I only have access to a HALO device so have no possibility to test how it works with other Charge Amps chargers.
I had an earlier request to support AURA which is more challenging to implement as it has two charging connectors.
There are also a bit of a difference between how communication is done between different ChargeAmps products.
As the Dawn is a 1 port charger just as Halo basic functionality could work, but it can also be so that Aura requires totally different type of commands and then it will not work.
You could test and see what works, it will definitely not break the product.