EcoFlow has an official app which adds support for their PowerOcean products but will soon also support their plug-in offerings. An official Anker Solix app is also being worked on by their team.
Next to that Jackery, Sunpura and Marstek are working on apps and we already have apps for brands like Zinvolt, Sessy and a lot more through community apps.
Thank you very much for the insights. In particular, I was not aware that EcoFlow plans to integrate its Stream series. That is good news.
I have one final question. I do not want to take this forum thread too far off topic, so if necessary I would also post this as a separate topic.
For me personally, it has become very important that these devices can operate locally. My experience with Zendure taught me that very clearly. As far as I know, Anker only supports this via MQTT with the new Anker SOLIX Solarbank 4 PRO E5000. EcoFlow will support it with the Stream 5000/3000, which is expected to be released at the end of the year. Hoymiles already supports this with its HiBattery 4020X, also using MQTT, as Anker does with this new device.
Would it also be possible to integrate devices that use MQTT for local communication or ist there going to be a Hoymiles App für the HiBattery? Will Homey eventually offer a local HEMS that performs actual control locally? As I understand it, I can currently retrieve the data, but the actual control remains with the devices themselves. I would find it much more interesting if Homey could take over the actual LOCAL control without requiring me to create a complex Flow, if that is even possible.
PS: Zendure also offers an MQTT integration
Ultimately, how a device is integrated is up to the manufacturer, but we do provide recommendations and guidance to our partners.
In general, we recommend using local APIs for Homey Pro wherever possible, while OAuth-based cloud APIs are typically the preferred approach for Homey Cloud. Philips Hue is a good example of this.
For batteries, we recommend that partners implement the target_power capability for setting a desired charge/discharge power, together with target_power_mode to determine who is currently in control of the battery or which operating mode it should follow. We use the same approach for EV chargers, PV inverters with curtailment support, and similar energy devices.
We’ve recently added these capabilities to the SDK specifically to make it easier for Homey to increasingly act as a fully automated HEMS.
For EcoFlow, we’ve also suggested adding Modbus TCP support to their devices for local control, and our development agency has since received the Modbus registers. The Anker SOLIX integration will similarly be based on Modbus TCP, much like their Home Assistant integration.
For Jackery, I actually built the MQTT driver myself and shared the code with them so they can add Homey Cloud support.
So, in short: it really depends on the manufacturer, the device, and the APIs available. We do, however, actively encourage local control whenever possible.
I’ll also give Zendure a nudge about MQTT support.
You’re absolutely right!! Anker uses Modbus TCP for local communication. I mixed that up with MQTT; thanks for clarifying. Thank you for actively encouraging manufacturers to support local control and for giving Zendure a nudge about MQTT support.
@mike4president, I bought the Zendure SolarFlow 800 Pro in March of this year and am very happy with it. About two weeks ago, I bought another Zendure AB2000L additional battery because everything is working so smoothly.
However, since I can’t integrate the SolarFlow into Homey using the official Homey Zendure app, I set it up via Home Assistant as a workaround. That’s not really necessary for my purposes, though, since the SolarFlow handles everything on its own, but cloud-based.
As far as I know, the Ultimate EMS app already offers fully local HEMS control.
Thanks for the app recommendation. I’ll definitely check it out. If you ever decide to implement local control for Zendure, there’s also a Zendure HACS integration available. It allows everything to run locally including a “a power manager feature that can help balance energy usage across multiple devices when a P1/IR meter entity is supplied.”
After my experience with Zendure didn’t go very well, I decided to give the Hoymiles HiBattery 4020 X a try and I’m extremely happy with it.
It works exactly as expected, and I’m particularly impressed by the build quality. Overall, the whole system feels very professional, stable and well engineered
There is, however, another P1/IR meter that I would really like to see supported in the future. It would be great if you @Doekse could consider adding support for it.
https://www.hoymiles.com/products/hmeter-p1-w.html
https://www.hoymiles.com/products/hmeter-ir-w.html
I already wrote a feature request for the Microstorage:
