FoxESS Community - Owners & Installers Forum

Greetings,
i have a problem connecting my H3-12.0-E to HomeAssistant.
Following this ...



... video, found here in the forum. Choosing the "LAN" option gives me an integration but no values. That brings me to the IP and LAN connection. Here my inverter is a bit different from the H1 in the clip, I got some dongle, "Smart W", that is labeled "USB / WiFi / GPRS / LAN". Seems to be a Wifi Adapter, that is connected to my local wifi. The data is read and avaliable via the focesscloud.com interface.

My question to the swarm is:
- can I integrate my H3-12.0-E with this Dongle in Homeassistant?
- is the tutorial above valid for me?
- since my Inverter says "IP 000.000 ..." and the Inverters MAC does not appear in my wifi connection list, the Dongle seems to be unnamed. Is the Dongle my target IP?
- .. and has anyone an idea what I am doing wrong?

Thanks!
Helge

Update:
I found out, that the Dongle is named ANATEL WiFi Stick 3.0 Fox ESS and appears under the name "espressif" in my router connection list. I am not a pro, but even I would consider this thing a security risk: I just walked by, connected to the stick's wifi, used a default password from google. Then I could re-route the sticky to my portable network and upload some evil firmware.
At least it is easy to drive your neighbours crazy - if they have this Fox Stick in use.

However, the stick's IP in my LAN does not respond to Modbustester GModbus or modpoll. So still no modbus and therefore no HomeAssistant.

The dongle hasn't (yet) been cracked for direct access, I have used port forwarding and a bit of code to watch the messages which seem to be a basic encapsulated modbus message.

If you are using Home Assistant I believe you can use the Foxcloud version of integration as it should be agnostic of inverter type as it reads the variables from the Foxcloud webserver, it's a simple installation and reveals the majority of the sensors albeit with a 5 minute update interval.

https://github.com/macxq/foxess-ha

Hey,
I made it, but another way. I finally got my H3 connected to Home Assistant (Raspi3b) by doing this, hope that it will help others:

- skip playing around with the wifi dongle and focus on rs485 / modbus instead. Your Raspi will be connected by a cable instead wireless.
- see this integration: https://github.com/BluetriX/HA-FoxESS-H3-Modbus
- the mentioned RS485-USB dongle is fine. I also tested another one: Chip CH340C and CH340 (no "c") are both working.
- Shut down the system and unscrew the cable that is named "J: Meter/RS485" in the printed manual. There is probably already a cable connected that leads to the smart meter. Should be enough space to get another cable in there.
- I used a CAT5 Ethernet cable and cut the jacks. connect two cables to the H3's Jack (pin 1 & 2, tbc, see manual) and to the usb dongle. "A to A", "B to B" ... not so difficult.
- plug everything in, start everything, follow the instructions of the integration mentioned above.

- but -

Please make sure your source for the USB dongle is ... good.
I spent 1,5 days with installing HA, reinstalling, asking a friend for help, manual installing HA, up/downgrading python, modifying packet managers, linux blablabla, I didn't understand a shit, finding out that the manual HA installation does not include the "Add Ons", ... 12 hours of pure fun. Then I found out, that 1 of my 2 USB dongles I bought from Amazon was damaged (but only a little bit, linux found the vendor but not the model, therefore no driver even thogh it's a linux default included driver, blabla).
Swaped the dongle, edged a new image of HA, reboot, done. Total time: 15 minutes.

So, if you know how to hold a screwdriver you should be able to connect your HA to your H3 in about 20 minutes.

For me that was a breakthrough. Now I can actually use my solar power perfectly (almost perfectly).

If I did something terribly wrong or if someone has suggestions - please let me know.