Windows Desktop Fox Monitor

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ants
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2022 12:09 pm

I have attached the application I made to monitor Fox inverters. It makes use of the foxcloud data so it has positives and negatives. Obviously if you can connect directly to the hardware its going to be better if you use something like Home Assistant. Some people find that the setup for these products is quite complicated and really don't need a real-time monitor of the system so this should be an option, assuming you run Windows.

So to install do the following:

Download the attachment.
Extract the contents, you end up with a Windows installation.
Run the installation, it should install everything and make a shortcut on your desktop.
When you first run the system you will have to enter your Foxesscloud credentials. These are:

username
password
device id

The device id can be seen in the url when you are connected to the foxcloud website. So you will see something like this:

https://www.foxesscloud.com/bus/device/ ... ttery=true

the id is the long number after the ?id= section of the url so in this case its:

12345678-1234-1234-1234-1234567890123

each system has a different ID which will match to your username and password.

Once you have entered these values there is a Token button. Press that and it should tell you its been successful, assuming you have put in the correct info. If the system is unable to authenticate it gives a 41807 error, make sure the username and password is correct. If you are successful then press the Address button, it will populate the Plant tab with all the information associated with your system.

Press the Accept button to complete the configuration and you will see an entry in the list. The system runs with any number of inverters, most will only use one.

Close the configuration list window and press the button at the bottom right of the main window. This will allow you to select a configuration, highlight the one you have created and press the Select button. If all goes well that should be it.

The Live tab, which is the default shows the 5 blocks, which are really all I am interested in. You can click on any of these and you will see the chart will change to reflect the daily logs of that item. You can play about with the chart, right click and you can set different types.The data in this tab will update automatically every few minutes so you don't have to press any refresh buttons. The system has this, you will see a menu option saying Last Refresh and showing a couple of times, pressing this will force a refresh. The 2 times are the time it last checked and the time it last got new information, they will be slightly different because although the program will refresh every 3 minutes or so the data from fox is only changed every 5 minutes.

The Summary tab shows a daily total of the solar, net battery, load and grid. The current day entry will update automatically when the live data is refreshed but you are able to set a start and end date and the system will then collect historical data for this period and build the list. You are able to export (print) the list either by pressing the little icon at the top right corner or right clicking on the list. There are various options available.

There is some other stuff in the system you should just play around and hopefully it will become apparent.

I have given this to a number of folk and all but one worked fine. In one case the authentication did not work and currently they are experiencing issues with the live data. All the other users had no issues.

A point that was raised was one of security. The fact that you enter your fox data into the system means that I could potentially get the system to send me your information. This is the same risk you face with all the systems that work the same way and if you have any concerns then I would advise you not to use the program. I wrote this for my exclusive use and only really thought it may be useful when I saw that there are a lot of people that do not have the expertise to setup things like HA, which is a really nice product. Also some people seemed to want to see summaries of solar, load and grid usage and my system does this automatically so I though it might serve a purpose.

Another thing, I have not "signed" this application, which means that it might complain that its of an unknown origin when you install. I would do this if I decided to actually sell the system but have not done it here. Again if you are uncomfortable with this then don't download/install.

Anyway let me know how you get on.
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Fox_Install.zip
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JohnP
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2022 7:44 pm

Unfortunately it does not work for me.
I have an installer and agent account and both are refused a token
ants
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2022 12:09 pm

I have seen this issue with another users password. The foxesscloud system uses an encryption system and there has been another user where the encryption did not work. I made a specific version for him so he could encrypt the password themselves, its pretty simple, and use that rather than let the program do it. If you like I can make this version available so you can do the same. There has only been a single other person that had this issue so I assumed they were using some non-standard characters in the password that the software was not encrypting correctly but obviously I do not have access to that.
Dave Foster
Posts: 1256
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:21 pm

I tried it myself and had the same problem, I do have an elaborate password and wondered if that were the case - be happy to try that.
ants
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2022 12:09 pm

Okay I will upload another version with an option so either enter your password or an encrypted one. I will post a message once I have uploaded.
JameseHide
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2023 9:47 pm

Hi

I have just tried to connect also and I get the same error.

It seems the website logon for username is case sensitive, I have a special character in my password.

I am happy to give another version a try.

Regards,

James.
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Will
Site Admin
Posts: 250
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2022 5:56 pm

I love the idea, might be better to link to your GitHub so people can download from there, raise issues and contribute.
You're very welcome to post and announce your tool and link to GitHub.
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Grey.Forums
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This appears to be a very useful tool. Is there any update on the "Strong Password" version? Is it on GitHub ?
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