Welcome to the homebattery project.
Homebattery is an embedded controller for your home battery storage. Its working principle is very simple:
- devices are connected to homebattery via their respective interfaces
- homebattery switches the mode of operation (charge, discharge, ...) when a corresponding command is received via MQTT
- homebattery controls the power of your inverter to minimize feeding electricity into the grid
- if an operational parameter of any connected device is not okay, homebattery automatically switches off affected devices for safety
- operational data of the system and its connected devices is published via MQTT for further usage
Homebattery comes with:
- open source hardware built around the Raspberry Pi Pico W
- some simple setups even work with a bare Raspberry Pi Pico W
- the homebattery firmware written in microPython
- extensive documentation: http://homebattery.readthedocs.io
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Home battery storage charged by solar. Homebattery monitors the system and disables the inverter if the battery SOC gets too low.
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Home battery storage in combination with dynamic energy pricing. Dending on rules programmed in a home automation system, homebattery switches between charging, discharging and idling the battery depending on the current energy price.
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Getting "incompatible" devices to talk to each other. Since homebattery supports a wide range of devices, protocols and connection methods, it can be used to combine devices with no direct communication possible, e.g. Pylontech batteries and Victron MPPT solar chargers.
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Connecting single devices to a home automation system. Homebattery can give different devices a common interface via MQTT for further usage.
Homebattery was not the first and will not be the last solution for controlling your home battery storage, but it has some nice features you might be interested in:
- reliability is achieved by usage of an embedded system with a watchdog timer, so homebattery is much more reliable than a home automation solution running on a regular PC or Raspberry Pi
- safety checks ensure that all device parameters are in the green range. If not, homebattery reacts accordingly to prevent damage from any device.
- simplicity is achieved by only caring about device communication and safety. The logic when to switch the mode of operation is implemented in your home automation solution.
- modularity was the design principle for both the hard- and the software. A wide variety of devices and physical interfaces (Bluetooth, ethernet, RS485, Modbus, VE.Direct, ...) is supported thanks to the usage of add-on boards and drivers. And even more will be suported in the future.
- MQTT is used to communicate with homebattery. So everything with MQTT support can be used to control homebattery (Home Assistant, ioBroker, etc.). The MQTT interface is well documented.
- select compatible devices. See the list below.
- get some homebattery hardware. The hardware selection guide of the documentation helps you to find the right setup for your needs.
- get the homebattery firmware from the latest release here on github
- select a a smart home solution like Home Assistant or ioBroker, if you want implement some logic when to switch mode of operation. You can use any software that is capable of MQTT.
Detailed information can be found in the documentation of this project.
| Group | Device family | Tested devices | Connection method | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| battery | Daly H-Series Smart BMS | Daly H-Series Smart BMS 8S 60A | Bluetooth | - |
| JK BMS BD-Series | BD4A17S4P BD6A17S6P |
Bluetooth | - | |
| LLT Power BMS | Accurat Traction T60 LFP BT 24V | Bluetooth | many China LiFePo4 batteries use this BMS | |
| Pylontech US series | Pylontech US5000 | RS485 | - | |
| solar charger | Victron BlueSolar MPPT | - | VE.Direct | configuration is still done via Victron USB interface |
| Victron SmartSolar MPPT | 75/15 250/100-MC4 VE.Can |
VE.Direct | - | |
| grid charger | Shelly smart switch | Shelly Plus2PM Shelly Plug S |
network | - |
| inverter | Growatt xx00-S series | 1000-S | RS485 / modbus | - |
| Growatt MIC xxTL-X series | MIC 1500TL-X | RS485 / modbus | - | |
| Hoymiles HM-Series Hoymiles HMT-Series |
HM-300 HMT-2000-4T |
network | requires a OpenDTU or AhoyDTU device | |
| heater | Shelly smart switch | Shelly Plus2PM Shelly Plug S |
network | - |
| sensor | Tasmota Smart Meter Interface | Volkszähler | network | - |
| Tibber Pulse | Tibber Pulse | network | requires tibber2mqtt |
While homebattery was designed with high operational safety in mind and has already some installations deployed, there is no warranty for anything. Please keep in mind that a home battery storage comes with stuff that can cause a fire or explosion if done wrong:
- high currents
- chemicals storing a high amount of energy
The quality of the electical setup is crucial. So please ensure that it is done by someone knowing what he or she is doing and, maybe even more important, care about maintenance.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.