EmonCMS names blank, and custom MQTT topics

emonHub
1

Hi,

I have my emonpi running and logging and uploading to EmonCMS, but have a couple of issues -

Firstly I cannot see any names for any of the Inputs in EmonCMS, just IDs. EG if I connect to EmonPi locally, the inputs are emonpi/power1 etc but in EmonCMS they’re just Node #5, Key #1, and a blank name. The logging all works fine, I can create feeds etc, but the lack of names is difficult.

The other problem is that I am providing values for custom topics to the MQTT server, and while they appear in my emonpi, they are not appearing in EmonCMS. The topic names are all prefixed with emon/ (for example emon/kitchen_jk/boiler_flow) which according to [1] should be uploaded. The values are floating point.

What have I done wrong? :slight_smile:

[1] MQTT - Guide | OpenEnergyMonitor

Thanks
John

2

Can I check - when you say EmonCMS do you mean emoncms.org?

EmonCMS is the software that runs on the EmonPi, emoncms.org, and any other machine you like to install it on.

You can only input data to emoncms.org via the HTTP API not MQTT.

image

You can see from the diagram on that link that the remote emoncms.org is accessible via HTTP from emonhub.

You could also use the Node-Red emoncms node to take the MQTT data and publish it to emoncms.org (again using the HTTP API).

@TrystanLea as I wrote this, I wondered if it was possible to use emonhub as an interface MQTT → HTTP; i.e. pick up an MQTT base topic say to_emoncm_org and publish on the HTTP interface to emoncms.org?

3

Ah, I thought that the emonHUB was on the emonPi, and EmonCMS was emoncms.org. I hadn’t quite cottoned on that there is a local EmonCMS (makes perfect sense now though …)

So just to be clear, my problem is just that the values are not being published to Remote emoncms.org, and that the node names are not going either.

It would be really useful to automatically publish all the emon/# values to emoncms.org, I was doing a rough tally this morning and I think I’ll have around 30-40 separate inputs.

I’m surprised that the inputs at emoncms.org don’t have any labels though - these at least seem to be standard node ID & input ID combinations.

If I publish using nodered and the HTTP API, will I be able to specify node names and not just numbers?

4

Yes it is. It is a subsystem (python script) that acts as an interface between (primarily) the serial interface and ‘emoncms’ (of whatever flavour).

Two completely unrelated issues;

That is because MQTT is a local mechanism only.

I’m not clear on how the HTTP interface is setup for emoncms.org. I’ll check later.

5

In the past, that might’ve been a good idea, but some time ago (the exact time frame escapes me at the moment) emoncms.org became a “pay-for” service. Given that, it’s understandable that some users may choose to not use the service. (although the fees are quite reasonable and a user is given credit for purchases made in the OEM Shop)

6

@littlejohn

It’s also possible to log remotely to other than emoncms.org

For example - could be a Raspberry Pi your local network running the emonSD card image.

7

@johnbanks, that is what @littlejohn has - i.e. an EmonPi which is working for all data but the MQTT data is only available locally.

8

In emoncms.org you will only see the numbers not the names - that is just how it is!

For the other data, if you have node-red installed somewhere on your network I could possibly assist in setting up a node to send the data to emoncms.org.

However, I don’t use node-red on a Pi so I’d not be able to help installing that although the node-red community are pretty good an there is a fair bit of information out there.