Flick and Fibaro for controlling load

Forums › Home Workshop DIY › Flick and Fibaro for controlling load

pchs

145 posts

Master Geek

#198051 23-Jun-2016 21:12

Hi,

I have a Fibaro setup controlling many items around the house, 2 larger items I have hooked up is a 6 zone in-slab heating, Spa pool and HWC which i turn on at my utilitys off peak time (11pm-7am) however I would rather make that decision based on the Spot price rather than the fixed utility price.

Has anyone had had a go or have any ideas on creating a Fibaro Scene to pickup the current spot?

I'd like to have the top elements on the HWC (normally on Day rates) come on at say anything under $0.20 / KWh and certain zones in the underfloor + the bottom HWC element at $0.10, but of course run some bypasses so that the HWC at least gets heated if prices are high.

You could also take it to an extreme and have a Fibaro RGBW controller change light colour depending on the power price :)

Thanks.

mclean

475 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#1579352 24-Jun-2016 08:34

Great idea, but where are you going to get a real-time data feed?

McLean

t0ny

306 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1579374 24-Jun-2016 08:57

I set this up the other day. Unfortunately there doesnt appear to be a public API to get this information but the unofficial way is to do a GET to https://api.flick.energy/customer/mobile_provider/price. You will need 'Authorization' key in your header to be able to call this API. I pulled the value for this off the Flick mobile app.

You will get the following info back:

{ "kind": "mobile_provider_price", "customer_state": "active", "needle": { "position": 2, "commentary": "Your price right now is limbo low.", "price": 11.610999999999999 }, "worm": { "data": { "start_date": "2016-06-23T12:30:00+12:00", "now": "2016-06-24T08:56:41+12:00", "values": [ 125.66, 134.96, 123.89, 133.48, 123.39, 117.9, 123.72, 89.35, 91.67, 124.42, 157.02, 136.33, 130.15, 129.68, 113.15, 112.58, 91.56, 79.73, 89, 97.49, 86.36, 81.8, 79.7, 88.15, 90.39, 88.48, 88.87, 79.65, 79.65, 79.65, 79.65, 86.04, 90.36, 93.33, 133.31, 128.22, 139.31, 116.99, 135.42, 123.64, 116.11, 115.51, 129.89, 135.77, 134.46, 133.53, 133.52, 135.74 ], "tariff_type": { "id": 436, "value": "UN" }, "axis": [ 108.13, 162.13, 216.13 ] }, "price_description": "Your price right now is limbo low.", "mobile_data": { "start_date": "2016-06-24T04:30:00+12:00", "now": "2016-06-24T08:56:41+12:00", "values": [ 90.36, 93.33, 133.31, 128.22, 139.31, 116.99, 135.42, 123.64, 116.11, 115.51, 129.89, 135.77, 134.46, 133.53, 133.52, 135.74 ], "tariff_type": { "id": 436, "value": "UN" }, "axis": [ 108.13, 162.13, 216.13 ] } } }

mclean

475 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#1579434 24-Jun-2016 10:37

Well given that, there's HTTP support in the LuaSocket extension library. Could be an interesting exercise.

McLean

olivernz

220 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1579446 24-Jun-2016 11:17

At the moment I scrape it off these guys "http://www.em6live.co.nz/" but I will now try the Flick one (being a customer) because that's what I originally wanted.

michaelmurfy

/dev/null
9636 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1579465 24-Jun-2016 11:58

Bare in mind that Flick only offers a forecast price. I used to control a bunch of appliances with a Raspberry Pi, Scrapy and EM6 however lost everything when the cheap SD card I was using failed (too many writes IIRC) - that'll learn me for not using GIT... https://murfy.nz/2015/12/consuming-electricity-like-a-baus/ - If you're using it for controlling appliances then EM6 is your best bet, otherwise Flick pricing will offer you a forecast however can't account for IRL pricing spikes without manual intervention.

pchs

145 posts

Master Geek

#1579498 24-Jun-2016 12:49

t0ny:

I set this up the other day. Unfortunately there doesnt appear to be a public API to get this information but the unofficial way is to do a GET to https://api.flick.energy/customer/mobile_provider/price. You will need 'Authorization' key in your header to be able to call this API. I pulled the value for this off the Flick mobile app.

You will get the following info back:

{ "kind": "mobile_provider_price", "customer_state": "active", "needle": { "position": 2, "commentary": "Your price right now is limbo low.", "price": 11.610999999999999 }, "worm": { "data": { "start_date": "2016-06-23T12:30:00+12:00", "now": "2016-06-24T08:56:41+12:00", "values": [ 125.66, 134.96, 123.89, 133.48, 123.39, 117.9, 123.72, 89.35, 91.67, 124.42, 157.02, 136.33, 130.15, 129.68, 113.15, 112.58, 91.56, 79.73, 89, 97.49, 86.36, 81.8, 79.7, 88.15, 90.39, 88.48, 88.87, 79.65, 79.65, 79.65, 79.65, 86.04, 90.36, 93.33, 133.31, 128.22, 139.31, 116.99, 135.42, 123.64, 116.11, 115.51, 129.89, 135.77, 134.46, 133.53, 133.52, 135.74 ], "tariff_type": { "id": 436, "value": "UN" }, "axis": [ 108.13, 162.13, 216.13 ] }, "price_description": "Your price right now is limbo low.", "mobile_data": { "start_date": "2016-06-24T04:30:00+12:00", "now": "2016-06-24T08:56:41+12:00", "values": [ 90.36, 93.33, 133.31, 128.22, 139.31, 116.99, 135.42, 123.64, 116.11, 115.51, 129.89, 135.77, 134.46, 133.53, 133.52, 135.74 ], "tariff_type": { "id": 436, "value": "UN" }, "axis": [ 108.13, 162.13, 216.13 ] } } }

Thanks very much, I'll see if I can build this into a Fibaro scene, the estimated price in most cases will be fine as I'm really just after when the price is low - so I can combine in any additional boost to storage/underfloor heating. Will also combine it with some logic so that it will take data off the Fibaro magic eyes (just to see if people are around) and potentially combined with the weather forecasting info (so you can lower the threshold if there bad weather coming for the underfloor) I'm currently using the weather feature to limit the lawn sprinklers if there is rain predicted.