Need volunteers for Emporia Vue V2 local connection testing

I have developed a yaml configuration file and drivers (Built on the great work of @jonathanb!) to enable 100% local connection to Emporia Vue V2. I am looking for 2 or 3 people to help test and suggest improvements. You must have a Vue V2 to help.

This is an ALPHA version. This is not for the faint of heart. It requires reprogramming your Emporia Vue with ESPHome. The mere act of opening your Vue will void its warranty. I haven't experienced any irreversable issues, however you will be doing this at your own risk.

This will not work with Vue V3,...yet. I just purchased a V3, and I will be creating a yaml file for it too.

PM me if your interested.

Thanks,

Wayne.

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I can help with the V3.

Hi @wayne.pirtle ,
I have the emporia V2 (not yet connected but will be soon). I will be interested in this driver and willing to offer my help testing.
Is still still relevant?

Hi @amithalp,

Sorry for the slow response. We are moving right now.

Yes, it is still relevant. I’ll PM you more information.

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I have a main panel with V2 and 16 circuit CTs plus a subpanel and Solar edge panels solar; evse charger circuits on that panel with 8 CTs. I was not aware of the V3 until just looking and thank goodness they have ditched those 3.5MM plugs. I also have a couple of the original V1 units and expander. I've had these all open many times, not worried about warranty but am worried I don't brick anythings. It would be nice to have my C7 using the data from the V2. I'm game in Ohio.

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I’ll PM you.

May be interested in volunteering; hoping for a few clarifications:

  1. Emporia Vue V3 is the current model so would need to wait for that.

  2. Does anyone know if the CT clamps that come with this fit into any energy sensor (ie Vue V2, Iowatta, etc). The electrician I'm hiring to install only installs the Emporia; won't install any other brand. I'm thinking this is ok if the hub is installed outside of the panel (which he has agreed to) and if the barrell plugs are all the same size...

  3. Once the changes are made, can you still access the data via the Emporia website? I'd only want that for the short term until I could replicate their data viewing locally.

  4. If the barrell plugs are all the same, and thus the devices are interchangeable, I'd be interested in buying a V2 reprogrammed by others and joining the testing group. Electrician could install a new V3 and I would switch it out for a V2 that could be local...

Hi @calinatl !

Thanks for reaching out about the Emporia driver. Here are the answers to your questions.

  1. The Vue V3 has been available for some time now, There aren’t tremendous functional differences between V2 and V3. V3 adds a wired Ethernet port, customizable CT cables, and minor tweaks to the accuracy in a few less common configurations.
  2. While it is possible the CT are useable on various monitoring solutions, I don’t know of any one who has investigated that. It is best to use the CTs provided by the system manufacturer.
  3. No. This driver requires replacing the Emporia code with new code based on ESPhome. The new code does not know Emporia’s servers exist.
  4. The V2 and V3 use different connectors. The V3 uses a two position MSTB 2.5 phoenix connector. The V2 uses a 2.5 mm barrel connector.

Wayne

For what it may be worth, I’ve been using a pair of Emporia Vue 2 running Esphome with Hubitat for a couple years now. They don’t use the Esphome native API or the Hubitat Esphome drivers. Instead my Esphome config calls Hubitat using magic port 39501.

Initially they were running using the Esphome drivers for Hubitat and the Yaml config on the Emporia Esphome GitHub page but it used WAY too much CPU on Hubitat. I don’t need or want power updates every second for 30+ sensors, so my configs do a 5 minute average. As good as the Esphome native API drivers for Hubitat are, they are still way slower than just sending JSON to port 39501, especially if you put a few filters in the Esphome config to send things only every 5 minutes.

I’ve also experimented with a driver that uses the event stream on Esphome, which ended up using way too much CPU too. Driver for Hubitat here. Esphome config is on a private repo and pretty customized since it’s specific to my breaker box, but I can toss it in a gist or something if you’re interested.

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Thanks Daniel! That would be interesting to look over.

Here's a gist on it.

I've got the native API enabled because I have a Home Assistant install connected to that. Home Assistant sucks (IMO), but the one thing it does much better than Hubitat is log data and display graphs. So I have HA connected because I live in an old house and I still haven't figured out how everything is wired. There's at least 2 major electrical renovations done in the past too, so it's just a mess. But seeing graphs is sometimes helpful for figuring out what's on each circuit, and only once I figure out what's what do I bother ingesting that breaker's data into HE for automating things, since there's no point in wasting HE CPU time processing a bunch of sensors that I have zero idea what they're even connected to. So that's why there's a bunch of sensors for "circuit x" with no http_request actions attached to them.

Using HA as nothing more than a data logger gets around its instability and lack of reliability by simply just not needing to care about it. My HA could be down right now, and it could have gone down a week ago and I wouldn't even care. If it breaks I can just clean-install it and add my 2 Emporia Vue back in a matter of a few minutes. At some point I'll have all of the breakers identified and can just shut HA down entirely, but until then it's at least got some use. One of my snowy day projects is to walk around the house, plugging a space heater in each outlet, turning it on for a minute to see which circuit spikes, and labeling them.

If you have a newer house that doesn't have unlabeled and insane wiring... you probably don't need to bother with that.