FoxESS Community - Owners & Installers Forum

Hello everyone,

I currently have a H1-3.7-E inverter with 4x ECS4100-2 batteries with a W2 data logger (software V3.18) installed at my home for my solar panels system.
I use the Fox-Cloud app on iPhone and the V2 dashboard on the website to view the system however I would love to find away to monitor the system via a dedicated setup I can put next to my CCTV display monitor (I have a 2nd spare monitor) something that will display the Dashboard live at all times without having to use my phone of computer.

I'm not very techy but can follow instructions and I'm not afraid to learn something new or get my hands dirty, LOL. I have looked on the forum but I'm starting to get confused so thought it was best to ask for help/advice now. I do keep seeing people refer to HomeAssit but seems overkill just to monitor my system plus the API issue I keep reading about seem like a headache I don't need, LOL.

My signal strength to my Data Logger is good as its close to one of my Wi-Fi AP but I can run an external Ethernet cable from my TP-Link switch to the inverter if that would be better.

I'm UK based so any URL links on new hardware I should get need to be UK companies or needs to ship to the UK. Also what hardware/software should I use to monitor my system which I can connect to my spare monitor?

Thank you all for least taking a moment to read this and I look forward to read all the advice, help and support to allow me to move forward.

Ricky

There is an app called Energy Stats (by Al Priest) available for boith iOs and Android which uses the OpenApi and I know a few users that have ‘monitors’ based on this.

The Home Assistant option is a good one, you can do it via OpenApi (cloud) or modbus connection, the cloud is read only so you get all the stats and near real time display, whereas the modbus connection is real-time and provides local control allowing you to do away with Fox schedules etc.. and gives you much more granular control of the inverter.

The easiest to setup is Fox cloud via OpenApi, Will has done a video https://youtu.be/kE_6HtzcyXg?is=h9PS8eorRQ1T_X65 but it may be a few versions behind as home assistant stuff changes fairly regularly.

Your inverter is the older gen1 class which doesn’t support modbus over wifi or ethernet (the latest WL inverters do) - and so you would need to install an adaptor and connect this over RS485 to your inverters data connector this wiki covers the wiring and readily available adaptors https://github.com/nathanmarlor/foxess ... ring-Guide.

Easiest would be to start with the cloud (OpenApi) home assistant first which doesn’t require anything other than a home assistant and your apikey and get up to speed that way.

Hi David,

Thank you for the reply, I'm currently looking and reading all the information on the modbus and on OpenAI. I have been playing around with Home Assist using the FoxESS cloud which I installed via HACS as the HA option is Modbus.

A lot of learning to do but I wanted to pop on and say Thank you, you pointed out some great links and info.

Dave Foster wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2026 4:53 pm ...can do it via OpenApi (cloud) or modbus connection, the cloud is read only so you get all the stats and near real time display, ...

Trevor who does the predbat/batpred project in home assistant has a cloud interface which can actually control the inverters via the cloud, it appears to work similarly to Axle etc, by creating custom schedules in the mode scheduler.

I *suspect* it is using a different API to the stand-alone fox cloud integration.

The source code is in python in the predbat github. It was written at the request of the 'predbat cloud' people I believe, since they're running the predbat instance on cloud servers instead of locally, and therefore modbus isn't an option for them.


It's still better to control the system via modbus of course.