Home Assistant API and IFTTT

Home Energy Systems
1

As part of the PowerShaper Flex programme, (with PV but not in possession of any battery or EV switching), I have got a lot of benefit from Home Assistant, mainly increased visibility of import/export rate in real time. I have explored the integrations which can be enabled via the user interface. There are a few more things I’d like to try:

  1. I have a smart switch which integrates with IFTTT - but to enable HA to IFTTT comms, I think I need to edit configuration.yaml - and I get the impression I can’t do that under the Powershaper Flex setup? I just need to add 2 lines of YAML to declare my IFTTT key (see IFTTT - Home Assistant). Is there anything I can do?

  2. If I could access the Home Assistant Rest API (REST API | Home Assistant Developer Docs), I could integrate other programmable devices. I have another Raspberry Pi (in addition to the Cofybox) and a BBC Microbit and it may be possible to integrate information from HA on it. Again, I think enabling the Home Assistant API requires me to edit configuration.yaml

Thanks in advance!

2

I still haven’t got config access to Home Assistant yet, but I’ve actually used my microbit to achieve (1) above! The penny-dropping moment was realising that there’s an MQTT broker on the cofybox and that I can access it on port 1883 of the cofybox’s IP address if I connect to the cofybox wifi. I have 2 solutions now:

(a) the microbit picks up the Shelly clamp readings from the MQTT broker, then sets the smart switch via IFTTT, bypassing Home Assistant altogether
(b) the microbit acts as a proxy for the switch, by registering a switch device on Home Assistant using MQTT discovery, still controlling the switch via IFTTT, then using Home Assistant automations to control the switch.