Hubitat and Powerwalls

[niveknow]

Hello all.

I've been on a hunt for a monitoring and automation solution for the Powerwalls for sometime now. Researched various places, but couldn't find a definitive solution that works in 2023. There was the Darwin's Den solution for SmartThings that worked for a while, until SmartThings decided to change a major part of the product which stopped the plugin from working. Darwin's tool was said to still work under Hubitat, but I couldn't find any real discussions on it so things hit a wall as I wasn't ready to take the plunge and test. Well, I found the time and yes Darwin's Hubitat still works. I bought the new C-8.

Problem Statement: I wanted a simply monitoring and rules based automation solution that allows triggers and actions. These would be under the various large scale ecosystem such as SmartThings, Home Assistant, Hubitat etc.

Hubitat works!

Tesla Powerwall Manager app for SmartThings and Hubitat Hubs - DarwinsDen.com

Introducing the Powerwall Manager SmartApp for SmartThings and Hubitat Hubs Update 1-Jan-2023: This app is still fully operational on the Hubitat Hub platform, however due to recent changes on the SmartThings platform to eliminate the hosted Groovy application capability, this app is no longer...

darwinsden.com

Since I came from the SmartThings space, getting Hubitat up was fairly simple for me and I was able to get the entire thing running in about an hour. The actual work is probably 10 mins, but I spent the rest of the time exploring Hubitat as it was brand new for me. I stayed focus on the goal which was to connect up the Powerwall and add only 1 zwave light to serve as the proof-of-concept action. If it works, then I would commit and fully migrate over to Hubitat my 40+ zwave, zigbee and other devices.

The link above has the install steps for the plug-in so I won't go into that, but now I'm able to:

- I have grid charging enabled (YMMV), but this is available to me. So I'm able to top off my PWs in the evening under my free nights energy plan so I can start the next day with a full tank before the sun takes over.
- Turn various home devices OFF when my PW reserve goes below certain thresholds. Power hungry devices like AC, Pool, ...

The 1st one was my main automation that I was after and enough for me to switch platforms just for it. The "art of the possible" will continue from here, but I see myself doing:

- Getting more complex with the weather automations. There is a weather plug-in that forecast next day which could drive battery charge. May not need to top off PW if I'm expecting a bright clear sunny day since I'm not net-metering.
- Voice Announcements - "Grid is Down", "Power Reserve approaching 30%, powering devices down now"
- Enabling a light to be yellow then red according to power reserve.
- Dashboard - this is very cool, but also the most time consuming.


Will stop here. Just wanted to start a thread for others that may be interested in Hubitat. To discuss and various use cases for it. It still works! Thanks, Darwin! Now I'm off to migrate over all my devices and retire SmartThings. Bye bye STs.

 

[Bobthepome]

Good to know. I am using Home Assistant and have a couple of Powerwalls on order and hoping to be installed soon. Does anyone have experience with using HA with the Powerwalls?

 

[tomuo]

There are 2 main apps on the hubitat platform that work well with the Tesla APIs.
One is local network monitoring only (I use this), the other can issue mode changes as well via the cloud. Plenty of discussion on the hubitat forums.

I have it send me a notification when the battery is full, and also populate my dashboard of power metering.

 

[niveknow]

There are 2 main apps on the hubitat platform that work well with the Tesla APIs.
One is local network monitoring only (I use this), the other can issue mode changes as well via the cloud. Plenty of discussion on the hubitat forums.

I have it send me a notification when the battery is full, and also populate my dashboard of power metering.

Ahh awesome @tomuo found this thread. Tomuo's reference to the monitoring is below. I skimmed the code and it does expose a large number of attributes so likely a great place to see more of what's going and taking action. For me, I needed to issue configuration changes to the PW. Specifically raise the reserve to 100% to force my PW to charge. Then I lower it a few hours later after full.

Is there any way to get a notification from Tesla that the battery is fully charged?

Long time lurker and first post. I was curious if there is any way to get a notification on my phone via the Tesla app or a third party app that the battery is fully charged? Reason I ask is that I am on an export program with my utility that pays peanuts for exported power. I would like to...

teslamotorsclub.com

@Bobthepome I haven't been down the HA route, but I did see some very cool looking dashboards which Habitat has a horrible UI from what I've seen. I may add-on to this at some point to explore the dashboarding capabilities. Not sure if it's even possible to have both talk to the PWs. That's for another day. For now, Habitat seems to be the way at the moment.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

I’ve been considering moving to Hubitat since they killed WebCore..

 

[niveknow]

I’ve been considering moving to Hubitat since they killed WebCore..

I was on the fence myself because of my heavy investment in STs. Controlling the PW with a hub is a worthwhile effort if I knew it would work.

That and Zwave exclusion is spotty in the past which means migrating devices over would be time consuming if I had to troubleshoot uncooperative devices. I successfully moved over all my ST devices over to Hubitat last night. Ended up moving my ST hub around the house to the area I was excluding to help improve the range. zwave mesh or not. Successful evening getting everything over. The new Hubitat C-8 with external antennas may have helped me include all my Zwave without moving the hub. I did notice devices respond much faster, but then I was on Gen 1 ST. Things do seem to run better now because it feels faster. The Zwave seems to hit the devices directly or within 1 hop under the C-8 whereas I saw multiple hops with ST that sometimes really slowed things down.

I haven’t used WebCore, but the basic Rules builder seems to work fine. So far only about 5-8 Rules, but not sure how performance would be impacted if I keep going. I’m still on my high of seeing the Hubitat notification that it changed my Reserve to 100% and when it returns to back after a full battery. I had to do this manually for months when I saw incremental weather which made no sense considering the investment dollars. Now I can sit back and enjoy close to zero electric bills having this coordination with Free electricity in the evenings to charge PW and EV. I signed a 4 year Free Nights plan so I just need this thing to continue to work for next 4 years. =).

 

[CrazyRabbit]

Token is only good for 7 hours. Do we have ssh access to Hubitat to set up a toke refresh server? Seems like the app should request new token every four hours.
Set up dashboard, only battery charge shows up in tile. I used the Hubitat package manager to install powerwall app.

 

[niveknow]

Token is only good for 7 hours. Do we have ssh access to Hubitat to set up a toke refresh server? Seems like the app should request new token every four hours.
Set up dashboard, only battery charge shows up in tile. I used the Hubitat package manager to install powerwall app.

I'm only days into my Hubitat experience so wouldn't be the best assist in troubleshooting. I will say that my install does refresh tokens automatically as mine has been running for almost a week through a token expiration warning and without any intervention. It does refresh no need to SSH backdoor or anything. I set mine up via the manual way before I knew about the Hubitat Package Manager, but I'm sure they all source the same code so should be the same. I would head over to Darwin's page to read through the comments and maybe reach out for his response to troubleshoot.

 

[Tim-in-CA]

Token is only good for 7 hours. Do we have ssh access to Hubitat to set up a toke refresh server? Seems like the app should request new token every four hours.
Set up dashboard, only battery charge shows up in tile. I used the Hubitat package manager to install powerwall app.

My token never expires. It seems to auto update on its own. I haven't had to reauthenticate the Hubitat Powerwall Manager since I've installed it nearly a year ago.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

To access your data, it doesn’t expire. But to send commands to the Powerwall I believe the token I input only was good for 7hours. But looking at the app it says the token will refresh at around 9pm tonight.

Anyone know how to customize the tile to show power flows?

 

[VernonPW2]

I'm using Hubitat with 2 PW. I use Rule Machine to control the PWs. I cannot find documentation of the features/attributes available with Rule Machine device manager for PW, have to use guess work and trial and error. I would like to know how to determine Net Grid Usage (in a time period).

 

[tomuo]

Best to ask the creator of the hubitat driver:

[PROJECT] Driver for Connecting to Your Tesla Devices

Will this indicate if your grid is out and you are being powered off the Powerwall?

community.hubitat.com

 

[niveknow]

Anyone done any cool linking PW dashboards that you want to show off? I'm still trying to get the powerflow visual tiles to show. The legacy one that shows as a web page iframe. My iframe shows the login to the local PW, but stops there.

First try:

 

[VernonPW2]

I got some help from the Hubitat community and now expect zero to negative net Grid usage.

 

[FastAttack]

I know this an old thread but did anyone figure how to do the weather automations plus the powerwall settings using hubitat?

I am using powerwall manager (darwinsden) + Open weather + Hubitat v8

What I am trying to do is for the powerwalls not to switch to self-powered mode when I know the next day the weather is going to be crummy lets say cloud coverage is over 100% when there is an incoming cold front or long periods of cloud coverage in which you know your solar panels will not generate enough to charge the powerwall. Therefore, the powerwalls would be set to 100% backup only for that day. If the forecast for the next day is a favorable day switch back to self-powered mode with a 20% reserve and so on.

So far I created a virtual Device for Open weather

I am thinking of using these attributes:

for the powerwall:

Use the Set Backup Only Mode command or Self Powered mode where i would default to 20%

Issue:

I need a second set of eyes that can verify that these are the right attributes and commands to setup in Rules Machine. I am a total noob to hubitat so I am learning as I am going. Any experts that can chime in would be appreciated!