FoxESS cloud status Energy Stats, Home Assistant Cloud

[timsdrew]

Mine is working, but I have heard a few people saying there were issues earlier and that again some maintenance was being done - interestingly the battery stats are stored separately from the main database and so i'd wait 24 hours and see if the problem persists.

Thanks, it's still showing as 0% - have contacted support and hopefully they can sort it soon.

[Malcolm_(User)]

Hi
I am not sure if this is the best place to start talking about the data that can be downloaded vis the Fox version 2 app or not. So please suggest if we need a new topic thread to seperate just the discussion on the stats

So, I am just starting to get my head around the data available... It will be a little while before I can ask specific questions I think (when I have finally got to grips with it... anyhow.. Please advise

I see 5 sources of data sets, as follows:
Data Set Named Set Data Available Parameters Duplicate Headers
1 Standard Yes 114 0
2 Grid Device Yes 174 ?
3 Energy Storage Device Yes 218 6
4 Micro Device No
5 Charger No
(hopefully the formatting remains) no it doesn't , blow it

The duplicates parameters (data keys) I see are as follows In the Energy Storage Device Set:
Header duplicate: Col: 3, and Col: 121, Header Name: masterState
Header duplicate: Col: 7, and Col: 137, Header Name: meterPowerR
Header duplicate: Col: 8, and Col: 138, Header Name: meterPowerS
Header duplicate: Col: 9, and Col: 139, Header Name: meterPowerT
Header duplicate: Col: 101, and Col: 143, Header Name: dspTemprature
Header duplicate: Col: 133, and Col: 147, Header Name: powerFactory

Question 1) why the heck are there duplicate headers being used?

Question 2) The Grid Device data appears to be a subset of the Energy Storage Device data. I assume from looking at the difference is that :
The Grid Device data is for a non battery system, and the Energy Storage Device data is applicable to systems with a battery stack
Further, I assume that the data provided by the Grid set is exactly the same as contained in the Energy Storage set
Is that true? (that is I can forget using the Grid data, I will not miss anything)

Question 3) relating to the Energy Storage Device
The 'input' parameter data from my point of view has switched to the 'invinput' data fileld. This occured 21/2/2024 @ 1:35:13. This appears to be a cumlative field. If you redownload the data the readings stay in the seperate fields... I have assumed this is the same data, and I have copied the earlier 'input' parameter data into the earlier part of the inninput field data
Why on earth have Fox not just moved the data for all downloads into the new field? This is not great for a field that accumulates, assuming I am right

I am writing a perl script to filter out the parameters that have null entries, or that have duplicate values in all date times. I then am going to try to get a script to analyse the changing data... I might then be in a position to ask more questions on what the data actually is
Many thanks for any feedback
Malcolm

[Malcolm_(User)]

PS
Another question
The 'loads' parameter, appears to be a number that is cumulatinve, however shortly after the initial data it started having 'E8' at the end of the number
Starts as : 0
A time later goes to : 0.9
The next entry is: 3.201761325E8
Following data appears to increase
What is this parameter? and how is the data actually presented?

Cheers
Malcolm

[Dave Foster]

I'm not sure how you are importing the file it produces, I use Excel and it pulls it straight into the spreadsheet with no warnings of separate datasets, duplicated columns or bad date - you might want to try changing the file import program you are using.

[ivanhoew]

hi dave ,my app is working now

[Malcolm_(User)]

David,

That is well confusing then about the data

I use the FoxESS Cloud app version 2
Step 1) Go to the inverter page, click on the serial number, when a data window opens
Step 2) I click on the 'SN' field and the serial number is copied, then I close the data window
Step 3) I click on the 'me' icon, then click on the 'Data' option
Step 4) I paste the inverter serial number into the serial number field

Then you have report selections,
you set a custom date from to, or just use todays date
Then you select the data set, either 'Standard', Or 'Custom', where you have four dataset options, then you can select all, or specific data.
The custom selection is saved against a name you can enter

When you have all thew fields defined, and click the submit button at the bottom, the report (as a CSV file) is downloaded to your phone
I then copy the file to OneDrive, where I can get at it via my desktop PC

It would be great to be able to download the data directly from the web app, but I have not discovered a way to do that as yet

I will try and add a screenshot

Please could you advise how you are gathering the data?

Regards
Malcolm

[Dave Foster]

hi dave ,my app is working now

great, glad it's settled down

[Dave Foster]

Please could you advise how you are gathering the data?

Regards
Malcolm
20240314_153319000_iOS.png

Hi Malcolm, i'm doing what you are doing with the app, choosing download and using i-cloud to copy it to my desktop computer - when I get there I simply double click on the filename (Excel is the default app for .csv's) it then opens it, works out the format and then I can save it in .xlsw format later.

If you go into Excel and open it that way, it's much more difficult as you have to specify the delimiters etc.. - much easier just to browse to it, double click on the filename and it does the rest automatically.

The website does let you download the data but you need agent access, but once the app v2.0 has finished it's development cycle the website V2 is next so hopefully you won't have to go through such a laborious way to get it.

It ends up looking like this -

[Malcolm_(User)]

Hi Dave,
Thanks for your reply

I see that you are downloading the 'Standard' data set
As i am new to this, I have downloaded, not only the 'Standard' data set, I have also downloaded the 'Custom' 'Energy Storage Device' Data set (using 'All' data)
So I am dealing with two data sets, until I know what I am interested in

I basically gather a months data or each data set type, which I have as a set of CSV files
I then run my PERL script on the data, which analyses the data set parameters, which creates an excel file that shows what the parameters contain and whether they are numeric etc. The script then automatically creates a csv file with just the fields that are worth looking at (that is, are not null, don't have the same content in each entry etc)
The issues I have are with the larger data set from the 'Energy Storage Device logs

I will try and attach the analysis files here to show...
This is the analysis for the 'Standard' logs (which you use)

This is the analysis for the 'Energy Storage Device' logs

After my perl script filters the data, I am left with the following data...
Standard Logs...

Energy Storage Logs...

As you can see, it reduces the data set somewhat ready for analysis


Here is the top of my filtered Excel file (of the Energy Storage Device Stats)

You can see one of the points I made in the 'loads' columb, where there is a number with 'E8' at the end of it

I am currently working on the next part of my script, where I want to extract data by using a csv specification - so for instance it would create an excel spreadsheet with average power created in each hour... either between two dates, or for all data
I am slowly getting there

However on the way, I am finding these quirks
... and that's before I ask what the data actually means (where it is not obvioous - for instance as follows...

This is entered in my debug file
Step 5: Run Spec file
=====================
Field: pv1Power, Low: 0, High: 0.073

So the high value is the highest in the data set, so is this value in kW?

Anyhow, if you don't use the Energy storage device logs, I guess I am on my own?

Any comments?

Cheers
Malcolm

[Dave Foster]

In all honesty i've never used the custom data set, the website (as an agent) allows you to download the complete data set in it's entirety - however I use home assistant which gives me near real time data from all the sensors so I build my stats based on that.

Sadly I suspect at this stage you may be on the bleeding edge of this, the V2 app is relatively new and most technical users tend to move to the home assistant solution. But I can answer a couple of things, as the data is derived from the inverter registers and so scaling and precision are defined in the documents and from that pv1Power is reporting as kW to 3 decimal places.

I wonder if the E8 you are seeing is being mis-interpreted by the filters - I would expect this to have a sign such as 3.21076E+08 or 3.21076E-08 - From intercepting the cloud load power variable I can say this would be a negative exponent (i.e. a very small number) - I often see this in the cloud data stream as the Fox cloud appears to perform a float conversion on it which sees it return 3.19999999999999 instead of 3.2, and 3.21076E-08 instead of zero (0) - all of these data values I pass through a validator which rounds to the specified precision from the protocol document.

In the case of the load power the unit is 1W (and reports in kW) and so I would round it to 3 decimal places hence 3.21076E-08 would become zero.

[Malcolm_(User)]

Thanks again Dave

You refer to some documentation which describes the parameters, is this the 'Open API' webpage
I have copied this to a local word doc, but didn't originally find anything useful for me at this point
However looking again, I don't see any precision definitions?
Is there another online doc I should be looking at?

Thanks for the thoughts about the 'loads' field, I will take that on board
Not sure if you meant my filter in changing the exponant , so this is from the source data using a text editor: 3.201769068E8
I will somehow have to manipulate that, alsways assuming it s of any use at all

As for Home assistant... At this stage, i am not sure if I need to go that far
However, if I did, I think the route I would take would be to:
1) Get a Raspberry Pi 5
2) Use the internal network to communicate with the Inverter
I did see your post from some time ago that prefered the serial method of connection, as using Ethernet could cause the inverter to lock up (the last thing I want). I did ask FoxESS whether this had been fixed, but got no reply
So at the moment, even if I were keen, I am put off
Especially as I don't want to void the installers gurantee

Any info welcome
Many thanks for your contiued support!!!

Regards
Malcolm

[Dave Foster]

You’ve got 2 routes for home assistant, one involves the cloud which will give you access to all of the 5 minute data samples, that will allow you to build a very good data set but sadly no control of charge times is available without some serious coding and your still reliant on the Fox cloud.

The second route is using an RS485 adaptor which connects into the meter port, you get all the data and local control of the inverter for charge times, minsoc, maxsoc, work modes etc.. and absolutely no reliance on the Fox cloud - it does involve some small amounts of wiring but there are guides and lots of people to help and Fox grudgingly accept that people connect this way.

Sadly the LAN method is no longer supported by Fox as it caused a lot of inverter problems.

This link will take you to the repository for the various protocol documents, the AIO.H1 at the bottom is probably the best at providing registers and their ‘units’ https://github.com/nathanmarlor/foxess ... -Documents

But that link will also link you to lots of information in the wiki including wiring guides and tips.

Raspberry Pi4B with 2GB ram and SSD drive is your minimum benchmark, I now use the Pi5 and it’s much faster but a lots of users run on windows mini pc’s

[Malcolm_(User)]

Yet again thanks Dave... a mine of information

I think you have given me a few hours (days?) of follow up work. But all good

That is apart from the removed support for local LAN access, which is very disappointing, as that would have been easiest for me
Anyhow, something to think about in the future I feel

Laters
Cheers
Malcolm