To test more the correct behaviour of the emoncms home assistant add-on, I’ve created another add-on to retrieve radio packets from emontx
Right now, it works only with old RFM69 devices such as emonpi or RFM69PI using ttyAMA0
The repo is here : GitHub - Open-Building-Management/emontx_sniffer: home-assistant addon sniffer for devices like openergymonitor emontx
To install it in home-assistant, just add the repo path to the add-on store and install the tool
Everything is explained in the doc of the addon, but if you are running a SD card written with Raspberry Pi - Home Assistant or with Raspberry Pi - Home Assistant, you will have to deactivate the bluetooth
The configuration is very easy, you only give the username/password of the broker running on the emoncms add-on…
Critics and feedback are welcome. It is actually just a proof of concept, in order to see how to run in container a tool like emonhub without being in privileged mode…for ttyAMA0, things are simple, it will be a little more complicated with ttyUSB* as you can connect/reconnect the device many times…but it is possible using cgroups with docker, so why not in home-assistant…
The container is build for 3 archs with the github actions : amd64/armv7/aarch64
It can work as a standalone docker container and is available on my docker profile :
https://hub.docker.com/r/alexjunk/emontx_sniffer
Best
Alex
3 Likes
borpin
(Brian Orpin)
2
Not something I’ll use or can test, but looks really interesting 
Ok understood, thanks @borpin
I was just wondering, what is the most common setup for energy monitoring around here ?
maybe emonpi and old RFM69 are devices from the past time and right now most of you are using the new usb key, with the Low Power Labs firmware ?
It seems to be nice indeed
1 Like
borpin
(Brian Orpin)
4
My RFM setup is a really old RFM69 & TX 3.2 (I think) on fairly original firmware. I do also have a later TX3 connected by serial to a Pi (as a test setup) and an EmonPi (also a testbed). I’ve not tried any of the different RFM firmware options.
It needs tidying up, but I’ll probably end up with just the TX with serial/WiFi connection feeding to MQTT and my PVE emoncms.
The HA emoncms though is really interesting especially as the Wi-Fi TX4 would be my preferred setup if I was going for it from scratch. A TX4, Wi-Fi, and emoncms on HA is extremely simple and relatively cheap (compared to other options).
Yes, wifi tx4 is a nice option
would any of you be interested in an emonhub docker image ?
Someone asked for here :
Just to know if this could be usefull ?
just pushed a new version tagged alpine3.18.1
added the ability to use USB dongle like JeeLink RFM69CW to USB Transceiver 433Mhz - Shop | OpenEnergyMonitor
for standalone usage, docker images are here :
https://hub.docker.com/r/alexjunk/emontx_sniffer
ToeJamm
(Alexander)
7
does this mean i can free up the Rpi that was using to running EmonPi?
Its recieving data from an EmonTX
borpin
(Brian Orpin)
9
Yes and no. You need the additional dongle and the add-on is a bit experimental so if you are willing to fiddle and risk data loss, yes. If the data is important to you, then I’d leave alone (ain’t broke, don’t fix).
Possibly also depends on what you are running HA on as well.
The emoncms addon is not so experimental but the emontx_sniffer yes…datas streamed through MQTT are not really organized in the emonhub way, it is something more raw…
Anyway, there is a emonhub docker container which could be a drop in replacement but it is not packaged as a addon in home assistant…but for docker compose users, it can be something interesting…
1 Like
