Pre-release Glowmarkt Plugin

Glow-IHD-CAD-indigo-plugin

An Indigo Plugin that integrates with the Glowmarkt "Smarter Meter" service http://www.glowmarkt.com and specifically their combined "In Home Display" (IHD) and "Consumer Access Device" (CAD) available https://shop.glowmarkt.com/ from Hildebrand Technology Limited.

I have no affiliation with Glow, Glowmarkt or Hildebrand Technology Ltd, this plugin is not endorsed or supported by them, it does use their API's and MQTT service. It is provided on an as is basis as a community contribution.

The Glow combined IHD and CAD replaces the very limited IHD that was probably supplied when you had your smart meter installed. Even without Indigo integration, this is already a huge improvment providing real time "Bright app" based access to your energy usage (for Gas it is a little less real time due to the way the metering works, and the Gas meter being a battery operated slave to the powered smart electricity meter). The Glow CAD/IHD connects to the Smart Meter Personal Area Network (PAN) via Zigbee, but you cannot access this data locally or pair your own devices to the meter. Hildebrand can as they are licensed to access the DCC (the infrastructure than all energy suppliers must use to collect smart meter data, and to enable simple Smart Meter switching without losing "smartness" on the way). As a result with the latest generation SMETS2 meters (as all new ones must be) you can access your consumption data independenlty of your supplier, and gain access to all of it not just the limited information your supplier may share and in real time. You cannot access the Zigbee data directly, it has to go to Hildebrand's infrastructure (The Glow IHD/CAD connects to your wifi to enable this), but they provide the data back in the form of an API and an MQTT service. The first version of this plugin utilises the MQTT data, but will be enriched by also accessing the API.

The initial version of the plugin consumes the payload sent from the associated MQTT service and builds on the excellent work by one of the Indigo Communities most prolific contributors (flyingdiver). You do not need to learn anything about MQTT beyond downloading the MQTT Broker Plugin and configuring it (for which I will provide detailed instructions).

The UK Smart Meter implementation started with first generation "SMETS1" meters that were essentially tied to a specific energy supplier, and that in many cases reverted to being "dumb" if you changed energy suppiers. Hildebrand produce the "GlowStick" that interfaces with SMETS1, but I do not have access to a device to test, but I am happy to work with someone if they send me a copy of the relevant JSON payload from MQTT service (and I can explain how to do that in Indigo). These are being migrated to the DCC which should allow them to work, but I will need to work with users to test this.

The plugin appears as an energy monitoring device in Indigo that also shows the "real time" electricity consumption in Watts, which is updated every few seconds when a MQTT payload arrives. It also shows historical consumption for gas and electricity across various periods (Day/Month/Year) that are available in the MQTT data. (and potentially more via the API in the future). I have also integrated it with my Octopus energy plugin so that you can project an "hourly" electricity cost based on your actual current usage. All of these stages can be graphed, trigger on high usage/cost to shape demand and many more approaches I have not considered. It essentially allows you to control when you consume energy, to alert your family the best times to consume energy. This has broader benefit than cost optimisation, as the times of low rates also coincide with good availability of renewable energy.

Documentation is https://github.com/neilkplugins/Glow-IHD-CAD-indigo-plugin/wiki

And the release https://github.com/neilkplugins/Glow-IHD-CAD-indigo-plugin/releases/tag/0.0.1-alpha

The current versions are alpha, and by using it then you will experience errors, including on the interpretation of the data (that is done by the plugin) but you will help me test and validate this.

I broke it already... is that ok?

The MQTT Broker won’t let me login; do you need the CAD or just the App account?

Peter


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Peter,
This initial version requires MQTT so will require the CAD, the API is coming soon as the MQTT functionality is pretty stable (as Joe did the hard bits). I just got the Octopus API key as well, but will probably do this one first as it is more broadly usable, anyone with a Smart meter can get a free account and get "yesterdays data" from the DCC (the shared infrastructure that the smart meters send their data too). It should be pretty quick to do. Any specific requests ?

I also wonder if you think the approach of having 48 device states makes sense (one for each 30 minute consumption), combined with the weekly/monthly/yearly summation.

This gets even bigger if I take the same approach for the Octopus plugin as I would need 48 states for the current days rates, 48 for the consumption and 48 for the cost which starts to get unwieldy.

Any thoughts appreciated

Neil

I’ve got the free account and app is showing gas; they’ve not found my electric yet.

So MQTT is (directly/via cloud) from the CAD, but if you’re just on free then it’s the API?

I’d think for 3x48, possibly make it three different device types.


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Peter - I believe so as that is when the data is refreshed in the DCC (same as for Octoupus’ consumption data). To get real time you need a Consumer Access Device (CAD) and both of those appear to take the same approach of sending the zigbee registers back via MQTT or the API calls

When you get you electricity meter synced it would be interesting to see what you get, Gas is not real time as the meter is battery powered(so polls less frequently) and is connected to the electricity that is mains powered and has the cellular connection to the DCC.

I will try and make some progress today and add the API functions. This will be in the form of an action to call a refresh so you can schedule at a period that makes sense depending on if you have a CAD or not.

Neil

[url]https://github.com/neilkplugins/Glow-IHD-CAD-indigo-plugin/releases/tag/0.0.4-Alpha[/url This version makes MQTT support configurable (it is the most efficient way to get instantaneous electricity consumption) but also adds support for the API access to historical data.

A new "Daily Consumption Device" has 48 30 minute period states, as well as sum of consumption, they can be updated in 4 different configurations :-

Gas Cost
Gas Consumption
Electricity Cost
Electricity Consumption

And they can be refreshed for either todays data (which gives consumption to the last 30 min period) but which does require a Glowstick or an IHD/CAD device or for Yesterday which works with a free "Bright Account" if you have a UK smart meter and have registered.

At the moment the refresh is done via a device action, so they can be scheduled as required (and I am open to feedback on this).

Documentation to follow, and this has had limited testing and will be improved in terms of adapting to the units of cost/kWh/M3 between the different consumption types

More background https://github.com/neilkplugins/Glow-IHD-CAD-indigo-plugin and https://github.com/neilkplugins/Glow-IHD-CAD-indigo-plugin/wiki but the wiki needs to be updated to reflect this version.

I will also prepare a primer on the UK smart meter technology and terminology and how you can start using this stuff. This is still pretty experimental.

Neil

https://github.com/neilkplugins/Glow-IHD-CAD-indigo-plugin/releases/tag/0.0.5-Alpha

This version corrects for BST adjustment (the readings were 1 hour out) and adds appropriate formatting to the summary data. This version does need further testing and validation but should be good to use for anyone with a UK Smart Meter who wishes to use either the free Glowmarkt account that gives you access to the previous days data, or if you purchase the appropriate hardware real time electricity usage. It also includes the live Octopus Agile rates, so I know for example my cost of electricity from Midnight today has been -0.15p (resting load is about 800w).

I will continue testing and push to the plugin store when I am happy (I want to go through the api token refresh cycle at least once, and that will take seven days)

I am now going to add functionality to the Agile plugin so you can see the full day rates in the device states, and retrieve usage from their API (so Octopus Customers don't need to create a Glowmarkt account to get the same data).

https://github.com/neilkplugins/Glow-IHD-CAD-indigo-plugin/releases/tag/0.0.10-Alpha

This version is close to release, but requires final testing. It is very stable and now functionally complete. Documentation https://github.com/neilkplugins/Glow-IHD-CAD-indigo-plugin/wiki is reasonably up to date.

If you have a UK Smart Meter SMETS2 then this should work, I would need someone with a SMETS1 device to test but the rework should be minimal. Let me know if you would like to learn more but I am happy to help get people setup for this.