[APP][Pro] Ultimate EMS - Intelligent energy management for solar, battery, EV and heat pump

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Ultimate EMS v2.5.4

New: price-based steering for heat pump/airco/heater
Room thermostats can now optionally react to the dynamic electricity price too, alongside the existing “follow solar surplus” behavior. Turn on “Also steer on price” per device, and the setpoint nudges up during cheap hours and down during expensive/peak hours — on top of the solar offset, within your comfort band. Off by default.

New: two Flow cards for the boiler’s cheap-hours schedule
A trigger fires whenever the schedule is recalculated (with the scheduled hours as a token), and a condition lets you check whether a boiler is inside its scheduled hours right now — hook your own relay, smart plug or notification into the same schedule the EMS uses internally. (Thanks Brian for the request!)

New: “Set active vehicle” Flow action
If you already have a Flow that detects which car is plugged in, you can now feed that straight into the EMS instead of switching vehicles manually in the EV widget. (Thanks Mantlet!)

Fix: stuck device links, now visible
A removed/swapped device (EV charger, heat pump, battery, grid or PV meter) could leave a setting stuck on an empty placeholder — silently. This is now checked and repaired automatically on every startup, and the EV widget shows a clear error instead of quietly looking like “no EV configured.”

Fix: planning a trip in the EV widget actually updates the plan now
Previously, saving a trip didn’t properly trigger a recalculation, so the widget kept showing the old plan until the next scheduled refresh. Now it updates immediately (today + tomorrow) and also pushes your target charge level to the car’s own onboard limit, so it won’t refuse to go past a lower limit it had stored.

Fix: less log noise from an offline device
A boiler or PV inverter that became unreachable used to get retried every single minute, forever. Now it backs off to once every 30 minutes after a few failed attempts, with a clear message when it happens and when it’s resolved.

Moved
“Peak hours” now lives under “Grid & connection” instead of “Electric car.”

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Hi Menno, a quick follow-up to my earlier request. My Homey Pro is now running Ultimate EMS 2.5.4. On 18 September at about 09:02 CEST, the Tibber Pulse reported measure_current.L1/L2/L3 = 1/1/0 A and measure_power = 233 W. At the same time the EMS Controller showed measure_power.grid = 233 W, but measure_power.grid_l1/l2/l3 = 0/0/0 W. So the per-phase current fallback still appears to be missing in 2.5.4.

The new boiler_schedule_updated trigger and boiler_scheduled_now condition are available here. Thanks for adding those cards. For reserving EV headroom before DHW heating, explicit next start/end times and the planning reason would still be useful as a future addition.

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v2.5.5 is out — full support for two EVs, smarter PV curtailment, and a couple of bug fixes

Hey all,

New test version is up. Highlights:

Two EVs, fully supported now
If you’ve got two electric cars each on their own charger, the app now treats them as equals everywhere:

  • Every EV-related Flow card (charging mode, postpone, force-charge, etc.) has an optional “EV” selector — existing Flows keep working unchanged and just default to EV 1.
  • The EV widget shows a tab per car when a second one is configured.
  • Trip planning (set a departure time + target battery %, and the app makes sure it’s charged in time) now works independently for both cars — including in the day-ahead charge plan, not just live control.

Smarter PV export curtailment

  • Curtailment now looks a bit ahead at the forecast instead of only reacting to the current grid reading, so it can start pulling back a few minutes before an export spike actually happens instead of chasing it afterwards.
  • It also now considers a dump load (like a boiler) that can still soak up extra power as additional export headroom, on top of what your battery/EV can already absorb.
  • For inverters that store the export limit in EEPROM (limited write cycles), curtailment updates to an already-active limit are now rate-limited to once per interval (5 min by default) — turning curtailment fully on or off is still instant either way.
  • A new fast safety loop can force all boiler slots off immediately if total grid import spikes, independent of the normal minimum-runtime protection.

Fixes

  • Tibber Pulse (and similar meters that only expose current, not power, per phase) always showed 0W/0W/0W on the per-phase dashboard tiles. They now show a directional-less estimate there instead. The app’s actual control decisions (export room, battery phase capacity, etc.) still only use real signed power data, so this is a display-only fix.
  • Adding a device when you already have an EMS Controller paired used to show an empty, unexplained pairing screen. It now shows a clear “already added” message pointing you to the existing device’s settings.

As always, let me know if anything looks off.

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Ultimate EMS 2.5.93 (public release) — what’s new since v2.4.9 (public release)

Hi,

A lot has changed in the Ultimate EMS app since v2.4.9 — here’s a summary of what’s new and improved if you haven’t updated in a while.

New features

  • Two EVs, two chargers: full support for two simultaneous EVs on separate chargers, each with independent trip planning, day-ahead charge plans, and its own tab in the EV widget.
  • Price-aware climate control: heat pumps/AC/heaters can now optionally follow the dynamic electricity price on top of solar surplus — nudging the setpoint up in cheap hours and down in expensive/peak hours, within your comfort band (off by default).
  • Smarter export curtailment: curtailment now looks ahead at the forecast instead of reacting only to the live reading, and can free up extra export room via a dump load (boiler), not just the battery/EV.
  • “Fixed power” chargers: on/off-only chargers (no adjustable current) can now be marked with a manual kW value so the EMS can plan around them properly.
  • New Flow cards: temporary EV charge boost (“charge to X% now” / cancel), boiler cheapest-hours schedule trigger/condition, and a “set active vehicle” action for external automations.
  • In-app FAQ on the settings page for the most common questions (EV “status unknown”, partial battery charge/discharge, “basic configuration incomplete”, etc.).
  • Daily self-consumption summary (“EMS Vandaag”) on the dashboard — kWh self-used, % of your own solar, and your effective average price per kWh.

Reliability fixes

  • Fixed a sign-reversal bug on Zonneplan Nexus/Powerplay batteries that made the dashboard show charging when the battery was actually discharging (and vice versa) — this also silently affected export/curtailment decisions.
  • Fixed a rare but real case where the EMS Controller device could get permanently stuck at “still starting up” from the very first boot, with nothing logged — caused by an unprotected call that could hang forever; it now times out and recovers on its own.
  • Fixed peak-power (solar) settings being usable with no sanity limit — a Watt/kWp mix-up could previously inflate the live solar estimate to absurd values and skew battery/EV/heat pump/curtailment decisions; values are now capped to what your grid connection can deliver, with an on-screen warning.
  • Fixed the pairing wizard failing to show the P1/smart meter on some integrations, blocking installation.
  • Fixed devices stuck endlessly retrying every minute when a boiler or PV inverter became unreachable, flooding the logs — now backs off after 5 failures and recovers cleanly when the device comes back.
  • Fixed settings changed via the Ultimate-EMS portal not actually being re-applied by the running EMS.
  • Fixed EV trip planning silently failing to recalculate the charge plan.
  • Fixed air conditioners occasionally being nudged the wrong way (heating vs. cooling) when their live mode didn’t match the app’s own forecast assumption.

EMS Controller device linking

  • If the EMS Controller device is missing or becomes unlinked (e.g. removed and re-added), the settings page now detects this on the spot: it automatically re-links an existing-but-unreported device, or shows a clear “EMS Controller device not found” notice with instructions if there truly isn’t one.
  • Fixed the EMS Controller tile freezing on its last readings when you switch the EMS off via its on/off toggle — it now keeps updating and clearly shows “EMS off — no control active”. Turning the EMS off now also fully stops the fast grid-overload safety loop from intervening, matching what “off” should mean.
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Hi @Menno_De_Braak,

We have a capacity-based tariff (kapasitetsledd), and I’m wondering if the app can be set to a target step — e.g. Step 3, specified in watts — so that it automatically reduces EV charger power, adjusts heat pumps, and switches off loads as needed to keep hourly consumption within that step.

Elvia’s power tariff steps (kapasitetsledd), based on the three hours with the highest power usage (kW) each month:

  • Step 1: 0–2 kW
  • Step 2: 2–5 kW
  • Step 3: 5–10 kW
  • Step 4: 10–15 kW
  • Step 5: 15–20 kW
  • Step 6: 20–25 kW
  • ++++++

And last but not least, how does it reduce power on the Easee chargers? I start charging via RFID (the charger is connected to Circle K because it’s a company car). If the charger is paused via the pause function rather than just having its amperage adjusted, I have to scan the RFID card again to resume charging.

Best regards, Fredrik

247

Hi Fredrik,

Thanks for the detailed question, two separate things here, let me take them one at a time.

Capacity-based tariff / target step (kapasitetsledd)

There isn’t a dedicated “target step in kW” feature right now. What exists today is a total-connection-capacity setting (based on your max_amps × phases) that two things use: a fast safety cutoff that pauses EV charging and forces the boiler off if you approach that limit, and a per-phase load-balancer for the EV charger with its own threshold percentage. Both are built to protect your fuse/connection from tripping, not specifically to optimize which capacity-tariff step you land in each month.

In practice, some people set that connection-capacity value lower than their actual fuse rating specifically to get this kind of ceiling effect but that’s a side-effect of a safety setting, not a purpose-built “stay under Step 3” feature, and it doesn’t currently pull in heat pump output the way you’re describing (heat pump steering in the app is solar/price-driven, not tied to your total import). So right now it would take a manual workaround rather than one setting that does exactly what you’re asking for.

I’ll flag this as a feature request, a real “target max import” mode that coordinates EV + heat pump + a dump load together (rather than each reacting to its own trigger) would genuinely be useful for tariff structures like Elvia’s. No promises on timing, but it’s a fair ask and matches how these capacity tariffs are becoming more common.

Easee: pause vs. current reduction

Good catch, and this matches something in how the app is built today: when the EMS is following solar surplus, it modulates your Easee’s charging current directly (down to a configurable minimum, e.g. 5A) — it never sends 0A. But when it needs to stop entirely (no surplus at all, a peak-hour block, or a load-balancing safety postpone), it uses the charger’s standard on/off capability to start/stop the session which, for Easee, is the same mechanism as the pause function. So yes: any time the app decides to fully stop rather than throttle down, it would trigger exactly the behavior you’re describing, and you’d need to re-scan your RFID card to resume.

There’s currently no alternate path that avoids that for Easee specifically. It’s a real limitation for an RFID/fleet-card setup like yours, I don’t have an immediate fix, but I’ll keep it in mind alongside the capacity-tariff request above, since a smarter “hold at minimum instead of stopping” behavior would help both cases.

Best,
Menno

248

Hoi Menno, wat een geweldige app. Heerlijk overzichtelijk en duidelijk qua informatie en grafieken. Ik zag alleen dat mijn thuisbatterij (Anker Solix MAX AC) niet volledig wordt ondersteund in de app/mogelijk wat functionaliteit mist omdat ie alleen data kan uitlezen.

Wat zijn in de praktijk de nadelen en ben je voornemens om deze op termijn wel volledig te ondersteunen binnen de app?

249

Dag Jhon,

Dank je wel! En toevallig vandaag nog aan gewerkt dus die komt er snel aan, je mag hem dan testen als je wilt! Vandaag of morgen staat ie klaar, ligt even aan het team van Homey om dit goed te keuren.

Nieuw: herkenning toegevoegd voor een aantal extra apparaattypes in de fleet (Anker SOLIX-accu/solarbank/meters/stekker via de officiële Anker-app, SmartEVSE via zowel de Sortedbits- als de rexm-community-app, NewMotion-laadpalen, extra Huawei FusionSolar EMMA-Modbus-modellen, iungo-watermeters, HomeWizard cloud P1), zodat deze voortaan correct gelabeld getoond worden in bug-rapporten en het portal in plaats van als onbekend apparaat — dit is alleen diagnostische labeling, geen nieuwe aansturing.

250

Top. Ik moet eerst even puzzelen met mijn Goodwe omvormer, want die wil sinds vandaag geen verbinding meer maken binnen Homey (net als een aantal anderen binnen de community zag ik) terwijl het voorheen prima werkte.
Zodra dat probleem is opgelost zal ik in je update duiken en kijken hoe het bevalt. Bedankt!

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nieuwe test versie staat klaar

252

I tested this froced charging today. At the desired time the charging started, and the amps where set to 16A. But after a couple of minutes it was set to 6A and there it stayed for the rest of the time where the charging was forced. It was not the case that these lower amps where necessary for the load balancing. So any idea why this would’ve been the case? The amps did change a little during that time, so EMS was telling my wallbox to do something. You can see the graph what happenden today. The last block of higher amps was a manual change from me in the wallbox app. The forced charging was from 11:00 till 16:00.

253

Found it, it’s not load balancing, it’s your “Min SoC” setting.

There’s a safety setting called Min SoC (minimum battery %). It’s meant for emergencies: if your EV’s battery is critically low, the EMS will force at least a little bit of charging current, even outside your normal charging rules — just enough to avoid getting stranded. It deliberately uses a low, conservative current for this (not full speed), because it doesn’t want to pull maximum power from the grid for both your home battery and your EV at the same time.

Your Min SoC is currently set to 60%. That’s quite high for what this setting is meant for — it’s designed for “emergency, almost empty,” not “not fully charged yet.” Your car’s actual battery level during the test was around 44-52%, which is below that 60% threshold. So even though you had “Extra charging” forced on, the Min SoC safety logic kicked in and took priority, dropping you to a low, conservative current (6-7A) instead of the full 16A you were expecting.

Fix: lower your Min SoC setting to something like 20-30%. That way it only kicks in when your battery is genuinely critically low, and it won’t interfere with your forced/full-speed charging anymore.

(One separate, real event also happened once during your test — a brief stop due to a phase safety limit around 13:48. That’s unrelated to this and would still happen occasionally as a normal safety check, regardless of your Min SoC setting.)

254

So, what’s the difference then between the 60% you can choose in the widget, and the Min SoC? I assumed you would set the Min SoC to the charge you would like your car to be charged to, whether there’s sun or not? The 60% I set this on is to not be stranded as my ride to work uses at least 35% charge, and being able to ride to a store also if needed, for example.

By the logic this Min SoC would be for emergencies, wouldn’t this be more logical to use a high current to get to this Min SoC quickly? And then charge slower after this?

255

Hi Arne,

Yeah no the min soc is there to charge your EV up to x% when you get home with an almost empty EV, let’s say some where in the morning or afternoon. So if you come home with a EV soc of 5% it will charge the car up to for example 20% (min soc) In order to have a bit more power in the battery for emergency rides or unplanned small trip to the gym or whatever. when the min soc is reached, then it will stop charging and the it follows the plan to charge in cheap hours or sun up to whatever you set with the buttons e.g. 60, 70, 80% etc. Because the min soc is a “always charge” method it uses the load balancer to make sure it does not interfere with your electrical heating or furnace for cooking etc.

So my advised setting for you would be min soc at 15 or 20% then if you need 35 + 35 = round trip then your default charge would need to be set to 80%. After this you have a long trip planned you can use the trip planner to set a departure time and the desired soc level and it wil make sure it reaches the desired soc before you leave.

256

But then, what’s supposed to be the difference between your charge goal and your solar goal?

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Hi Menno,

It would be nice if there was a min charging Amp parameter for the Solar+ mode, just like the max amps. My car cuts off the wallbox if charging goes below 6A. So now It continuously stops charging because UEMS sets Amps to 5.

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charge goal is the standard goal that the EMS charges your car. Solar goal is when the EV is at home and you have solar over production, it will charge the EV to this SOC in order not to waste free solar energy, I have set mine to 60% default and 70% solar

259

Hi Martijn,

Thanks for the detailed report. The app already uses a hardware-aware minimum current, 5A for confirmed Tesla hardware, 6A for everything else, but one internal function that sends the charge command was still hardcoded to 5A for all brands. A fallback path had no minimum at all either. Together that let a sub-6A value reach your charger.

Fixed both, so it now consistently respects the real 6A minimum for your setup, no separate min-Amp setting needed. Hoping to get this out by the weekend, will post here once it’s live. Let me know if it still dips below 6A after updating.

260

Testing the Growatt inverter dimmer right now… and it already works perfect to reach zero export. It reads the Homeward P1 meter and sends the data to you Growatt. Ultimate-EMS can tap into the dim level and knows how much the inverter is dimming to calculate the potential capacity that is left to power your EV or battery. Please let me know if you have a Growatt MIN or MIC and another P1 meter so I can test that one as well.

ultimate-ems-growatt-inverter-dimmer
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Hi Menno,

The latest updates did not prevent the charger from going to 5A. I also didn’t see any note about this in the change log. Is this already implemented?