A Janky Way to Add Your Electric Ireland Smart Meter to Home Assistant

freeze66

Hey everyone.

Yesterday, I came upon a thread here about Home Assistant and Smart Meters.

I really wanted to get mine in there with some additional data and came up with an extra jank solution to do so. Since I don't want to hoard it for myself, I felt it might be appropriate to share. The picture below is what it looks like in Lovelace.

I've made a basic sort of guide for it but please mind that you might need some sysadmin/python/scripting experience to fully get it right. Everything's available below. I hope you enjoy it and manage to get it working :). Here's the GitHub: https: [slash] [slash] github [dot] com/brunostjohn/electric-ireland-hassio

Sorry for the link format, it's not letting me post links.

ted1

i assume you are scrapping from Electric Ireland, you are better off scraping from ESBN as it’s only a day behind as oppose to 3. You’d need to enter your rates to get the cost

freeze66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166403#Comment_120166403

I've been downloading directly from Electric Ireland and getting data only from a day behind. I'll look into getting it from ESBN as maybe they have data that's more fun. Thanks!

Citizen Six

Do you need to have a smart tariff? I switched to a smart meter during the summer, but they went back on what was agreed, and have told me I can't access any of my data without switching to a smart tariff.

freeze66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166413#Comment_120166413

I'm like 99% sure you need a smart tariff because without it I'd assume you'd only be able to get your meter readings every month, not every day.

dam099

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166413#Comment_120166413

Send them a GDPR request every month, maybe if enough people do it they will get sick of it and sort out a proper method to access.

freeze66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166472#Comment_120166472

That's the right way with Electric Ireland.

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166417#Comment_120166417

You shouldn't need a smart tariff. The meter takes the separate readings and sends them to the supplier. They told me before installation that I didn't need to sign up to a tariff to access my usage online. Then when I tried to access them, they said no, and tried to make me sign up for a smart tariff.

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166472#Comment_120166472

If I ask for that, do they give me a breakdown? Or is it just as easy for me to look at my meter myself, and cycle through the different readings?

freeze66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166986#Comment_120166986

Try going on ESBNs website and checking whether you can get your hourly readings there. If you can, reconfiguring the selenium script to use ESBN's site shouldn't be that complicated.

Grassey

I've noticed irregularities with the ESBN data. As in when I graphed it some. Days are missing and the next days are the sum of all missing values.

Ie. Reads as 0 for 26/01, then 27/01 is 20 - where my typical usage is 10 a day.

(that's being simplistic - it's more 0 for each 30 min reading, and then the first record that registers is the sum of the missing values)

So many issues when I looked back to data from August last I've just resigned myself to needing CT clamps to have reliability.

bittihuduga

i am on boardgais for supplier. if this script can be used for ESBn website then probably i could try using this script in HA.

anyone with required skills planning to port this to ESBN or other supplier?

poker--addict

anyone got something running on this?

niallb

Yes.

The meter has an LED that flashes every time a Watt is consumed. There are several DIY devices which can read them.

I got a Frient Electricity Meter Interface which is battery operated and sends the information to Home Assistant via Zigbee. Just needed to stick the little reader over the flashing light.

dam099

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123146839#Comment_123146839

I have one of those too, over a year now and its still spot on to the meter readings.

WildCardDoW

Do they need batteries or how are they powered.

Can see they are €70 on Amazon.

dam099

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123149600#Comment_123149600

2 AA batteries. Home Assistant still reporting 45% battery after about 15 months.

Disgruntled_Goose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123146839#Comment_123146839

Is a Zigbee hub needed for that? Which one are you using?

niallb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123204206#Comment_123204206

Yes it is.

I'm using it with a USB dongle plugged in to Home Assistant.
It also works with Smart Things, Homey and a couple of others, but I've no direct experience.