DemandShaper new device integration

agamos · 2020-06-12T20:52:50.637Z

Hi,

I’m a total NOOB to OpenEnergyMonitor having just set up a base installation of Emoncms on using the Pi SD image. My main use case is to leverage DemandShaper to allow me to make use of Octopus Agile rates to start/stop an immersion heater (later I will look into OpenEVSE and other use cases). I am using a Sonoff Pow R2 device flashed with Tasmota and have setup Node-RED for MQTT message routing/manipulation. Is there an MQTT or other API I can follow to allow the device to appear in DemandShaper?

I have read about the messages that will be sent from DemandShaper to the device but not the handshaking at device pairing etc…

The demand shaper process publishes the schedule configuration to a MQTT topic that the device subscribes to, e.g:
emon/smartplug1/in/ctrlmode On/Off/Timer
emon/smartplug1/in/timer 1300 1600

Any help would be appreciated.

borpin · 2020-06-13T09:39:37.452Z

agamos:

emon/

If you use a base topic of emon/, emoncms will read that topic back in (you will see it on the inputs page). It is better to publish on a different topic to the receipt topic.

agamos:

handshaking at device pairing

I don’t think there is such a thing - it is just the passing of MQTT messages.

However, I’m not familiar with DemandShaper itself.

agamos:

have setup Node-RED for MQTT message routing/manipulation.

If this was done on the same Pi, this may cause issues - just so you are aware.

You can use Tasmota rules to do some of the topic manipulation I believe.

You can manage your Tasmota devices through tdmgr.

agamos · 2020-06-13T09:48:49.021Z

Thanks, @borpin, that’s all clear. I’ve managed to publish the status from the Tasmota device in to Emoncms but it’s the DemandShaper application that appears to be a mystery to integrate with. The worst case would be for me to pull the code from GitHub and reverse engineer the API used - I was hoping it was clearly documented somewhere as it appears to be a great feature to leverage.

borpin · 2020-06-13T09:58:50.263Z

agamos:

I was hoping it was clearly documented somewhere

I think there may be a post here on DemandShaper. Emoncms Demand Shaper module

https://guide.openenergymonitor.org/integrations/demandshaper/

agamos · 2020-06-13T10:08:26.145Z

Thanks, I’ve read that post and would be good if I were to flash the device to the bespoke firmware but I was hoping to keep it setup as Tasmota and integrate it with software. It does give me an alternative option if there is no other way.

borpin · 2020-06-13T12:55:27.480Z

@TrystanLea - would be good to easily interface to Tasmota - shouldn’t be too hard the topic structure is pretty common.

@agamos, If you have NR setup, then just read the DemandShaper output topic and send appropriate commands to the Tasmota device.

agamos · 2020-06-13T13:03:54.281Z

@borpin, yes, I’ll take that approach. After re-reading that post I just noticed the UDP discovery packet sent out. I’ll check through the code, find the expected response and work progressively through. All being well I’ll have a NR flow that I can share later. Thanks for your advice.

TrystanLea · 2020-06-18T14:05:41.433Z

agamos:

After re-reading that post I just noticed the UDP discovery packet sent out. I’ll check through the code, find the expected response and work progressively through.

The UDP side of things is optional, it’s just there to simplify the initial setup with EmonESP, the OpenEVSE EV charger integration does not make use of / implement this so you can make it work without it.

This python based smartplug simulator might be useful to help with development:
demandshaper/tests/smartplug_sim.py at master · emoncms/demandshaper · GitHub

mjr · 2022-09-26T12:56:56.725Z

TrystanLea:

The UDP side of things is optional, it’s just there to simplify the initial setup with EmonESP, the OpenEVSE EV charger integration does not make use of / implement this so you can make it work without it.

How? DemandShaper just sits there waiting for something from the smart plug that never comes.

TrystanLea:

This python based smartplug simulator might be useful to help with development:
demandshaper/smartplug_sim.py at master · emoncms/demandshaper · GitHub

I think I must be too stupid to understand what of that is necessary and what is optional. I can’t see ip or temperature in the tasmota MQTT to convert its output into the format used, and I don’t understand what the simulator does with ctrlmode and timer messages: it looks like it just parrots them back in the next state message but surely that’s not a useful test?

TrystanLea · 2022-09-26T21:02:35.588Z

mjr:

How? DemandShaper just sits there waiting for something from the smart plug that never comes.

Im not sure I quite follow your question?

It’s been a while since I’ve worked on the code for this module as my focus has been elsewhere, I would like to get it working again with the latest EmonEVSE at some point as Im missing the functionality since I upgraded…

mjr · 2022-09-27T13:49:13.325Z

How can we make demandshaper start work with a device without sending a udp discovery packet?