Thanks Pete, I will monitor the situation when adding cards. I’m trying to understand what went wrong.
Concerning the graphs of Octopus tariffs they don’t appear to tally up with what the rates are for current and the previous half-hour.
Peter
Actually, they do tally up now. Perhaps you noticed this and changed it. Or has it got to do with refreshing the browser??
Hi Peter, it’s possible the “Current” and “Next” rate entities don’t update as regularly as the full data, we’ll keep testing and try to get to the bottom of that!
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@peter But, what does the line on the graph actually show? It’s going down, but prices are not going down over the next few hours.
Thanks a lot - I will look at it in more details later today.
These sensor graphs are showing the historic rate over the last while, not the upcoming rates.
Thanks Pete, but I think they need to have some form of time scale on the graph to be of any use.
Peter
Hi Peter, the History graph is built in to Home Assistant but there are multiple ways to display the “Next Rate” data. When adding a card, if you search “By Entity” you can then choose how you want to display that piece of information:
I hope that’s helpful
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Can you explain how best to set this up? Are you going to add a specific automation whereby you set a threshold which say “if Agile elec is below Xpence then turn ON device, if rises above Xpence then turn OFF device”?
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To be honest Dom we haven’t quite figured this out yet - the plan was to push out the sensors as quick as we could and hopefully some of you would come up with some interesting use cases and share them.
You can setup automations yourself by going to Configuration -> Automations.
A good tip when developing and testing automations is to set the system to send a notification rather than actually turning on/off the device - that way you won’t accidentally turn your devices on at the most expensive time. Once are confident it is working correctly then you can swap the notification for the device.
I use the Home Assistant android companion app for notifications, which seems to work well.
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Thanks @Jess_Fairbairn . I’ve now been able to modify the Gauge Card Configuration of the Octopus Agile tariff by defining the severity Red when prices are high green when low and Amber in between. Also I defined the range from -15 to 35 which could cover the whole range of the Agile half hour tariffs. the lowest it has been is just over -10 pence per kWh and the highest will be 35 pence per kWh (It is capped at 35p). See Peter’s HEMS > Home
@Peter Have you been able to create a Card for Octopus Outgoing yet. When you have I can use the Gauge Card Configuration to do create a graph similar as above.
@mattfranklin How is it possible at add an image to the text in this Forum? Also is there a way of click on a video within a forum comment so that is is larger to see and also possible to pulse it. Like the video that @Jess_Fairbairn sent earlier. It was initally very difficult to see, although I manged to increase the size of the text that did make it easier to see the video.
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As a first stage from my perspective, I would want to be able to switch on my EV charger or immersion heater at the cheapest rates before a certain price. The EV charger could just “fill up” until full. But, for the Immersion heater some sort of feedback device/sensor/method would be required to say “switch off at a certain temperature”.
Hi Peter! When you create a reply there should be a few different settings and options in the bar above the box you can upload a file or image. I have circled it in red in the screenshot below.
Then when you have selected an image file and uploaded it, it will look like this and display the image in the preview and your post.
Also this blog gives a bit more information about a few ways you can upload images.
This is a bit more tricky, since I think what @Jess_Fairbairn uploaded earlier was a gif rather than a video, and the resolution is quite low hence the size. It might be possible to view it larger by right clicking on it and pressing ‘view image’ which should open it separately from there using CTRL and your scroll wheel you should be able to zoom in. For the future, it might be helpful if these instructional gifs were uploaded in a larger resolution!
@mattfranklin Concerning right clicking on a video
I’ve tried using “Open image in new tab” and “Open image in new window” but it does not make the image any larger.
On my Mac I previously had to use Command & + to get larger text and image.
This is what I have created with the gauge confirmation card. Ideally I want to show the time and date on it. Anyone any ideas?
And this is what it shows later in the evening,
OK I’ve set up an automation for tonight - if Agile tariff goes below 7.5p then my Sunamp HW storage will boost. In theory there will be 1no 1/2hr slot during the night where this condition applies. So hopefully that is what I will see. I haven’t tried it earlier because Agile rates have been a little to high for comfort.
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Great @zapaman can you share the automation details so I can try it with my immersion heater and eventually on my EV. I assume you have integrated the Octopus Agile API?
Re: automation details - Is there a way of sharing automation cards within HA? Or does this have to be done at admin level?
@zapaman - I would be interested to know the context in which you are using your Sunamp HW Storage system. I’m interested in exploring the possibility of using it in my home - particularly if I stop using my gas boiler to top up the hot water - when I’m not getting enough solar thermal hot water
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OK it worked fine;
This is the automation I used to turn ON the Sunamp relay
I used a similar “opposite” automation to make sure the Sunamp turned OFF when price went above 7.6p!
I will adjust the price threshold to something like 6.5p for a more long term setting. It would also potentially be good to have the threshold set dynamically based on the mean unit price experienced over the last (say) 3days such that you can take advantage of relatively low prices after a period of higher prices if that makes sense.
Assuming you are using solar thermal into a suitable HW cylinder/tank then you may have the possibility of just adding an immersion coil and a relay control to that in order to use the Home Assistant / Agile tariff automation (see below). Alternatively you could add a Sunamp in series with your existing HW cylinder and do something similar to what I am currently doing. Do you also have solar PV?