Fox Cloud Refresh Frequency

[vmode]

Hi, my Fox Cloud app used to refresh every 5 minutes or so. However recently it seems to be around every 10 minutes. Any idea why this would have changed? I can't seem to find any setting to control it.

[Will]

There is no control over the poll rate but fox have said it will in the near future support near realtime updates.

[Bugs]

Did they give any time frame for real time data?

‘In the near future’ is a little vague.

[Will]

I believe, based on my notes, that it should be any week now but i'll follow up with fox to see if they have a better eta.

[MichaelA]

Hi
Any update if near realtime is available now?
Monitoring system performance with VPP is very difficult with the current 5 min delay

[slicksolar]

Hi

Is there any more news on the real time update?

[WyndStryke]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the cloud refresh period can be adjusted if you have a (very recent) -WL inverter (the ones with integrated wifi & built-in modbus), albeit with an installer-only setting rather than a use-configurable setting.

[slicksolar]

Yes I've heard the WL variant will have quicker refresh rates for sure but was hoping the older data loggers would get an update too. If not, then Modbus route it is. Just didn't want to spend on more hardware if Fox was planning to increase the refresh rate anyway by firmware update. I have a feeling this may not be the case. Hope I'm wrong though.

[slicksolar]

Great news regarding the 5 second refresh update.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfib0pAcO4Q

Will we as end users ever get the ability to update the firmware form initiate one ourselves?

[MichaelA]

Wow great news thanks

With my Inverter being a H3-Smart
Version_Master：1.33
Version_Slave：1.00
Version_ARM：1.20

So the video shows that you have to be at these firmware releases - see attached
When they say the H3 Smart Manager needing to be at version 1.21, are they referring to thte Master, Slave or Arm version

My Data Logger version is V2.06. Does that mean I need to upgrade the data logger firmware to 2.07?

[WyndStryke]

For some reason, sometimes Manager is called Manager, and other times it is called ARM. I don't know what the latter stands for, but it's the same thing.

Assuming you have an inverter where the datalogger is integrated rather than being a dongle, yes sounds like you need updated firmware for it.

[MichaelA]

Thanks
So I need to upgrade both

• my ARM (inverter manager) should be upgraded to version 1.21, and

• the Data Logger firmware to 2.07.

Is that correct?

[WyndStryke]

Yes

[MaterialBarracuda48]

Master/Manager/Slave here from Dave
viewtopic.php?p=12046#p12046

[slicksolar]

Had the update done. All working well, much happier with refresh rate. Do we know if the API limit will be increased so we can get this update rate into things like Homeassistant?

[MaterialBarracuda48]

Had the update done. All working well, much happier with refresh rate. Do we know if the API limit will be increased so we can get this update rate into things like Homeassistant?

My HA already gets very rapid updates on the main ticket items? There are some sensors that need less update speed, and some that need quicker date, and that works fine as is for me.

[WyndStryke]

We can already get 10s updates on everything via modbus, and my understanding is that the 5s update in the app is only for a handful of sensors (so the majority of sensors are still on 5 minutes).

I presume they're doing it by keeping an open socket connection rather than initiating and closing down requests every 5 seconds. If that's correct, if this were to be extended to the API, they'd want to change the design rather than simply increasing the limit.

[MaterialBarracuda48]

We can already get 10s updates on everything via modbus, and my understanding is that the 5s update in the app is only for a handful of sensors (so the majority of sensors are still on 5 minutes).

This is my understand of the new FW changes, locally the data is shown in 5secs intervals and then every 5mins they push data snapshots to the servers for long term logs (power graphs in App/and websites)

[Dave Foster]

We can already get 10s updates on everything via modbus, and my understanding is that the 5s update in the app is only for a handful of sensors (so the majority of sensors are still on 5 minutes).

I presume they're doing it by keeping an open socket connection rather than initiating and closing down requests every 5 seconds. If that's correct, if this were to be extended to the API, they'd want to change the design rather than simply increasing the limit.

Yes absolutely correct, the OpenApi wouldn't be able to cope with the extra demand - modbus connection is the way to go for near real time.

[WyndStryke]

... - modbus connection is the way to go for near real time.

There's probably even scope for increasing the refresh rate on modbus in a similar way - polling a few key sensors more frequently, and the majority of sensors at a slower rate. There's little advantage in checking SOH% frequently, for example. On the other hand, the HA database probably wouldn't appreciate a bunch of extra data for the people on RPis with SD cards & similar.

[Dave Foster]

... - modbus connection is the way to go for near real time.

There's probably even scope for increasing the refresh rate on modbus in a similar way - polling a few key sensors more frequently, and the majority of sensors at a slower rate. There's little advantage in checking SOH% frequently, for example. On the other hand, the HA database probably wouldn't appreciate a bunch of extra data for the people on RPis with SD cards & similar.

The older modbus used to have variable polling speeds (which I liked), the current integration polls everything together which seems counter productive, but having done some modbus message timing, the extra overhead to read a bank of registers vs individual sensors is surprisingly small.
As it stands a good adaptor or LAN would probably get you down to 5 seconds polling, and tbh some of the sensors don't make much sense at that speed as you are seeing the artefacts from the inverters load balancing. For the database there is a 'sticky' option in the advanced options of the integration that allows you to slug the speed of response of update so they only report more significant changes in value.
Don't get me wrong, if someone did the work to allow user configurable polling speeds per sensor - i'd take it.