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Ask HN: Am I the only one who does not want IoT in their solar panel setup?

• pGuitar 4y ago
  not sure why it would need internet but I would DIY with an ESP8266 if it does (no cloud involved)
  • naikrovek 4y ago
    being able to DIY a high-wattage inverter would mean that this person already has everything they need to avoid asking this question in the first place,
    • HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
      '8266 is an MCU with built-in Wi-Fi. They're not talking about DIY'ing an entire inverter, just the web interface to it.
      • naikrovek 4y ago
        web interface to what? the inverter, right? and to monitor voltage and current of the input(s) and output (s) of an inverter you need to know how to connect up the sensors, keep them protected in whatever environment, and make sure they're reading correctly. a person that knows how to "DIY" these things correctly already knows how to use a microcontroller to log the data and either present it or send it somewhere that can present it.
• anm89 4y ago
  Absolutely not. I would not want any of that to be connected in my personal setup
• chunk_waffle 4y ago
  What features do you need? You must be looking at a different range of devices than what I use but I am entirely off grid and have no internet connected devices in my solar system. I have even avoided Bluetooth enabled things without much fuss.
• rufius 4y ago
  Most systems that are connected to the grid require it by local code from what I've read. When the city did the inspection on my system after the contractor finished up installation, one of the things they checked is that it was on an approved list of inverters. It's not clear to me that the approved list required that those inverters be internet-connected, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a requirement about "off site upgradeable/diagnosable" and so on. If you're off grid, you can easily get away with not having that sort of thing.
• cronix 4y ago
  > I'm afraid the software might even have some kind of countdown where the system will stop working when it hasn't been connected to the internet after a certain amount of time. Or, just an automatic firmware "update." Most are made in a country that we are not currently on very good terms with. No, I don't trust any that require internet access, or an "account" of some sort to activate it.
• dvko 4y ago
  No. More specifically, I am not interested in IoT for many or even most of the things in my home.
• edent 4y ago
  I have a Fronius inverter which has both WiFi and Ethernet - but works perfectly well without it. My installer said that they need access to the inverter during set-up in order to configure it properly, but after that it could be disconnected. Personally, I use it to get firmware updates and to use the API in order to monitor it. Although, that said, I'm not sure what sort of security issues you're imagining. There's no privacy issue - the inverter only has data on what you've generated.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    One obvious one is if the panels can see the load to the house, they can determine occupancy. There are devices that can monitor your breaker box and tell you when appliances have turned on. You could perhaps prevent this by having it dump everything between the meter and the house so it can't tell if it's going to the grid or not. I don't know enough about it to say if that's reasonable.
  • ASalazarMX 4y ago
    I guess they're more worried about what degree of control their cloud has over the device, and since it upgrades trough the Internet, I guess they have potentially absolute control. The idea is minimizing the risk a device like this would become if compromised.
    • edent 4y ago
      Sure. But that also has to be weighed up against the risk that the device has a firmware bug which will render it inoperable. Or that a potential fault won't be identified and the owner won't be alerted. There are risks on both sides. But, in the UK at least, there are several inverters which don't require an IP address.
    • tpxl 4y ago
      My parents have an internet controlled heat pump. It works fine without, but you basically can't change the settings locally. A couple of years ago they bricked it, charged us 400€ for 'repairs' which did jack squat, then it magically started working a few weeks later. Don't buy internet connected appliances.
• yamtaddle 4y ago
  We just got a rooftop system from a very hands-off GC-type company and I'm so pissed off about it. If I'd known in advance it'd have multiple Internet of Shit crapware devices attached that'll probably stop working in 5 years and require expensive replacement and renovation to keep working past that, and that it can't produce power at all unless those pieces of near-future landfill rubbish are happy, I'd 1000% never have gotten it. Mea culpa—I guess I should have asked, but it just never occurred to me—but I'm fucking never getting another solar system unless I install it myself. There are other problems (that have solidified my usual preference not to let someone else GC a project for me, because they usually just skim money and do a terrible job—they fucked up our roof bad, for one thing, many thousands of dollars of damage so now we get to sort that out too, the hassle's not worth a few hundred in savings per year assuming all else goes well which at this point I'm sure it will not) but IoT shitware would have been a deal-breaker on its own if I'd known it required that to function, not just for monitoring or whatever.
  • Dig1t 4y ago
    I totally feel your pain and would feel exactly the same way in your shoes. This also ties into the broader problem of contractors treating their clients horribly because their services are so in-demand. Basically, contractors can show up, do a horrible job, and they will completely disappear on you as soon as they get their money. There's so much demand in their industry that all the best people are working on high paying corporate job sites (like building hospitals and new FAANG campuses), that the average homeowner is left dealing with garbage companies who treat their clients like shit. Hopefully rising mortgage rates and falling house prices can cool demand a little and we can get some decently competent contractors again. WRT solar, I was super impressed with jerryrigeverything's solar installation that he did himself. Basically you can get a kit that you install yourself and it's much cheaper than having a garbage contractor rip you off and ruin your roof in the process. His video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSa1tvrrFZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSa1tvrrFZg
    • bombcar 4y ago
      If you can find a contractor you can trust, even if they're not versed in the installation of solar, you can work with them. I'd much rather have an electrician and roofer that I trust work on a kit like that than depend on some random contractor I don't know.
• anilr 4y ago
  My system is connected to the internet - but it only transmits small amounts of data out for reporting. It shouldn't be hard to harden their code to prevent hacks. If the local software is just making outbound connections and talking (no inbound connections or listening) it would be a pretty tricky entry point for a hacker. You could also connect it to a guest wifi network. The data it provides is rather useful as you can see the efficiency of each panel - useful to know when they need a cleaning :) btw, my panel disconnected from wifi for a month and nobody said anything.
• don-code 4y ago
  > the manufacturer states that not having it connected to the internet voids their warranty I was aware that my inverter could connect to the Internet, and probably would be connected to the Internet during setup, but my full intention was to disconnect it following the install. I was pretty happy that the one that the vendor gave me was poll-able from an internal Web server, so I could scrape the metrics myself. It turns out, none of this was to be. I found out about the Internet connectivity requirement for the warranty _after_ it was on my wall and producing power - and when you've spent five figures on a system with a 25-year warranty, unfortunately I had to suck up my pride and let it phone home to the manufacturer's cloud. It now sits on a separate VLAN for "untrusted" devices. What's more, I also found out that the manufacturer had intentionally removed the local web server feature, instead making it totally reliant on the cloud service for metrics. It has a laughable rate limit of 300 calls per day, which gives me roughly 5-minute granularity (I could get better granularity if I made my metrics-gathering scripts poll differently overnight, but still), and I really dislike having to reach out to a vendor for data that's produced in my own home.
  • IanNorris 4y ago
    I see you also have a Solar Edge inverter. I had no idea about the warranty, I didn't read the ToS because I wasn't asked to agree to one.
  • luxuryballs 4y ago
    How does this even make sense, if the power goes out or the internet goes down your warranty can be voided? At least I know what question to ask when I go shopping for these…
  • oliv3r 4y ago
    This would obviously not fly in Europe. I have setup my SolarEdge system 4 years ago, (HDWave with an LCD) and never did I sign anything that stated 'must be connected to internet, or else', again not even possible with European warranty laws anyway, as the vendor has to prove that the malfunction occurred due to not being connected to the internet. When I was doing research on inverters and the control units, I looked into a few systems. Back then, you had either string based (Sunny boy, GoodWe was what was standard offered) or per panel inverters/optimizers. Some vendors of those setups even wanted to place an (additional) router! Maybe to ensure the wifi signal from the inverter was close, though they wanted to place it in the meetering cabinet. No way of course. Are you crazy? The Enphase control boxes where the worst, that still stick with me today. They actually setup a VPN to their mothership, and use that to be always connected, completely unacceptable of course. Just think about it, joe schmoe gets a solar setup, happily lets it connect to the internet, and then exposes his entire home network to Enphase. SolarEdge was the least worry some, as (after research) showed they have a USB/RS-232 and RS-485 internal port that can be used (https://github.com/jbuehl/solaredge https://github.com/jbuehl/solaredge) and I've been using that to scrap the data for years. I do know that with the newer HDWave (without LCD) things are a bit trickier, but should still have those RS-485 connectors, as those are needed for other purposes. Of course, I don't know what software updates broke over the years. My system has _never_ connected to the internet, and is happily humming along :) All in all, this is completely unacceptable behavior, and I'm surprised that they keep on getting away with this. Installers think its great, they show up to give you an offer, and show how great some of their customer setups are functioning, because yes, they also keep having 'full admin' access. Insane.
• sergiotapia 4y ago
  I've skipped out on products _specifically_ because they have an app. I see apps as a liability, not a feature. Give me dumb products please. My air purifier doesn't need a god damn app, just an on/off switch with some LEDs, please!!!
  • jjav 4y ago
    Agreed. Anything with an app is a liability I want to steer away from. Not only due to the obvious security, privacy and availability problems, but because the lifetime of apps is very short in the grand scheme of things. I'll bet there is zero chance a phone app for a solar install today is still going to be working in the 25 year lifetime of that solar panel system.
  • bavila 4y ago
    When I got my security system in my home installed, I asked the sales representative about getting a key fob to arm/disarm the system. Her response was basically, "Oh, haha, you're too young to be asking for one of those. You can just use the app!" Right, because I really want to have to take out my phone, unlock it, click an app icon, wait for it to load and authenticate my credentials (assuming I'm not forced to sign in -- again), find the arm/disarm button in some cluttered UI, and then click the button. As opposed to just pulling out the key fob and clicking the arm/disarm button? No apps, please.
    • Nextgrid 4y ago
      Not to mention that the whole app thing will rely on a server and a functional internet connection, so you can forget about interacting with your alarm system if there's a cloud or network outage. I feel like modern-day developers have effectively forgotten how to do local network communication. I know about NAT traversal and similar problems, but you can still architect your system in such a way that your cloud backend is a dumb NAT traversal helper/proxy, which then makes it trivial for your client to offer a cloud-less, local connection option for those users that know how to forward ports/have IPv6/etc (or when you go out of business and your cloud service goes offline).
    • 4y ago
• SoftTalker 4y ago
• duxup 4y ago
  I don't blame you for being disappointed in the situation. I would be too. I've replaced a bunch of various appliances and etc, furnace, hot water heater, washer and etc. All have various internet connectivity options but they're all OPTIONAL. They are there at least from the start as an option for the owner to participate in, in exchange for some level of convince. That seems like a premise I would also expect from a solar panel setup ...
• karaterobot 4y ago
  Thanks for posting this, because it would not even have been on my list of questions to ask. I am considering a solar conversion, but an IoT connection is a complete deal-breaker for me. Now I know that, not only do I have to ask about it, I have to ask a lot of follow-up questions.
• HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  It's a "me too" situation. One company releases appliance X with IoT features and all the competitors panic because it's something they don't have that consumers will see as missing, so they rush to throw something together. This kind of herd mentality drives a hell of a lot of feature bloat. Problem is that consumers really do see "internet/mobile connected" as a desirable feature even if they're just going to use it once for the novelty and then forget about it.
  • don-code 4y ago
    Some of these features probably lead actual usage. If you'd asked in 2009 how many people wanted to adjust their air conditioner temperature remotely, command their vacuum to clean, or see video of their front door when the delivery driver drops off a package, I'd bet those numbers would be low, but we today have IoT poster children like Nest, Roomba, and Ring making those desirable features.
    • nitwit005 4y ago
      Perhaps if you asked people randomly. If you'd asked the people who were already setting up home security cameras if they'd like phone alerts, I'm sure they'd have said yes.
    • HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
      > Some of these features probably lead actual usage This is an interesting comment and from my experience I'm sure it's often true. Around 2008 or thereabouts I was the lead engineer on my company's first foray into what is now called IIoT: Industrial Internet of Things. At the time we just called it Remote Monitoring. There was (is?) even an magazine by that name. We built large, complex medical instruments that required periodic servicing both by the customer and by our Field Engineers. Engineering's value proposition for the project to the Technical Support/Field Service group was that we could reduce the frequency of expensive and unscheduled field service callouts and provide considerably more debug information from an instrument when a customer called in with a problem. We should be able to reduce diagnosing an instrument failure from hours to minutes. And in the future, we'd probably be able to tell when a consumable part was due for replacement and schedule it ahead of time. It was a freaking battle uphill both ways in the snow to get them to accept that. All they wanted was a slightly faster version of the tool they already had which was already inadequate for the task. They couldn't actually stop us from implementing this, but there a a strong reluctance to the point of "well it sounds nice but I don't see how it would be helpful to us." Postmortem: Fast forward two years. The system is in the field. Tech support keeps telling us how they can't imagine that they were able to get along without it and keep asking for new features!
• chrismorgan 4y ago
  > the manufacturer states that not having it connected to the internet voids their warranty I dunno about much of the rest of the world, but in Australian Consumer Law such a declaration would certainly be unlawful.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    They're very tricky about wording it, they'll say things (like the car companies do) such as "not being connected to the monitoring service MAY void your warranty" (if a fault happens and you don't detect or correct it - just like changing your own oil and replacing it with baby oil will void your warranty). And you can be hella sure they'll default to any excuse not to honor their warranty, because they know that you'll probably not bother fighting them in small claims court.
  • SyneRyder 4y ago
    In South Australia at least, it's a legal requirement that the inverter remain connected to the internet. South Australia Power Networks requires the internet connection so they can remotely shutdown your solar system. They are added as an additional remote user to the system during installation: [PDF] https://www.fronius.com/~/downloads/Solar%20Energy/Quick%20Guides/SE_QG_SA_Gov_Smarter_Homes_SAPN_Fronius_Remote%20Disconnect%20Setup_EN_AU.pdf https://www.fronius.com/~/downloads/Solar%20Energy/Quick%20G...
    • chrismorgan 4y ago
      Huh, weird. I’d have expected any signalling like that to come through the power lines that the solar system is connecting to. Using an internet connection for it seems like adding unnecessary complexity, procedural fragility, and another point of failure—and it’s not like your internet connection is more reliable than your power supply, most have no effective battery backup and go down immediately if they lose power. And not everyone even has a persistent internet connection—living out in rural western Victoria, I use a cell phone for my internet supply (it’s the best non-business service I’ve experienced, actually, though NBN fibre should be better now: clear line of sight to an Optus tower 400m away that serves under a hundred people; the only alternative is satellite—under half the speed, over twice the price, and 600ms latency). (Mind you, I would still expect this to be completely distinct from anything about voiding a manufacturer’s warranty even if it was a grid-connected system which is probably but not necessarily the case.)
• neilv 4y ago
  https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/aloi5v/programmers_know_the_risks_involved/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/aloi5v/pro...
• fy20 4y ago
  I have a Huawei SUN2000 inverter and the network dongle is an optional extra, which is not required once the initial setup is completed. During setup you need it to provide a WiFi connection to the mobile app, but the installer could use their own dongle. When I had my solar installed I had no internet connection at the property, so the installer gave me instructions of how to pair the inverter when I did. I had a smart meter which gave hourly data, so there wasn't really much need in connecting the inverter up. It has indicator lights to tell you when something goes wrong.
  • randyrand 4y ago
    Mobile apps only work for a few years. Apple requires that apps are updated at least every 3 years. i.e. after a few years, you will not be able to re-setup your inverter again.
    • bmacho 4y ago
      He can run an android emulator on pc/mac.
    • bouke 4y ago
      Being delisted is not the same as unable to install. You can still download previous purchases, even when the app was delisted.
      • randyrand 4y ago
        That a good distinction. Thanks. New home owners would not have the app previously installed, so it would still suck for them.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• alkonaut 4y ago
  Completely agree. That said we shouldn’t reserve the “IoT” moniker for crappy cloud based things requiring constant internet connections to work. That’s the internet of shit (as popularized by https://mobile.twitter.com/internetofshit https://mobile.twitter.com/internetofshit) I definitely want some connectivity in a solar panel setup. But in the case of a solar panel array there is no point for that connectivity to use be more than local, or offer more than simple monitoring. A local polling api that offers a simple json blob with stats? Does that qualify as “IoT”?
  • justizin 4y ago
    no.
    • alkonaut 4y ago
      No as in… you think “IoT” means gadgets with cloud connections?
  • bombcar 4y ago
    Internet of Turds seems to involve some worthless "cloud service" that they try to charge you for. It is sometimes accompanied by a local API that works without internet (Apple HomeKit stuff seems to somewhat work sometimes in an internet outage, and the Hue buttons keep working). It can be quite hard to distinguish the two.
    • alkonaut 4y ago
      The HomeAssistant project has pretty good docs on which devices use what class of communication e.g “local polling” should be the minimum for any device I get (regardless of whether I want to use it with HomeAssistant)
      • jacereda 4y ago
        I'm considering a GoodWe inverter supported by HomeAssistant, it would be good to know if those can be functional without internet connectivity. Anyone knows the answer?
• Cupertino95014 4y ago
  No, you're not the only one. It's ironic to see on this same HN front page a story about police & face recognition. We should oppose all forms of social credit / new world order / cashless / corporate fascism. It shouldn't just be "the police are bad, so let's deny them this tool," it's "the police will just enlist private companies to do their dirty work for them, so let's deny everyone this tool."
  • colechristensen 4y ago
    You can deny the police the tool even though third parties. Example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/trump-twitter-first-amendment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/trump-twitter... Twitter is a third party but a court ruled that Trump blocking critics violated their first amendment rights. It is simple enough to ban the government from using AI in the process of law enforcement and that ban would extend to whomever they enlisted to help them. If you worded the statute correctly.
    • Cupertino95014 4y ago
      You're right about facial recognition, but I was extending that same concept to other domains. For example, the police can go to the solar company and get them to make your panels stop working. Or something.
• jawns 4y ago
  I bought a house with solar panels 6 years ago. There was an ethernet cable plugged into the inverter panel, which ran to a Comcast box. We switched to FIOS after a couple of months, and never switched the connectivity of the solar panels. Everything worked fine, but ... A few months later, I received a strongly worded email from an organization I had never heard of, saying that I needed to get the solar panels back online, because it was a requirement of the contract the previous owner had entered into to sell the SRECs generated by the panels. Failing to connect the panels to the Internet could lead them to pursue action related to a lien they had on our property. Wait, what contract? And what lien? This was the first I'd heard of either, and the lien hadn't come up during the title-insurance process. It turns out the previous owner of the house had entered into a contract with an organization in our state that pays you a lump sum, if you sign away the rights to the SRECs your system generates. The owner had used that lump sum to help pay for the panels. But then he sold the house to my wife and me, without ever disclosing the existence of the contract. So basically he sold the SRECs to both of us. He sold them to the organization by virtue of their contract, and he sold them to us, by virtue of the ownership of the panels transferring to us when we bought the house. And the lien never came up because it was not against the real estate itself; rather, it was against the SRECs -- the Solar Renewable Energy Credits that are generated by the panels. They're not physical assets, but they do have substantial value. It took the retention of a lawyer and a whole bunch of back-and-forth between us, the seller, our buyer and seller's agents, the lawyer who handled our settlement, and the SREC-buying organization to get the whole mess sorted out. In the end, we got the lien and contract dissolved ... and then we hooked the panels up to FIOS, and I get handy little charts of all the SRECs we're generating :)
  • don-code 4y ago
    Are you still able to sell your SRECs with the system disconnected, or are you foregoing that as a cost of being offline? I'd probably lose out on $500 per year from my system if I didn't sell them. At this point, though, it might _actually_ be asking the question of how much I value my privacy.
    • tinco 4y ago
• qqqwerty 4y ago
  > Maybe I'm too paranoid. Thoughts? Yes. They aren't using these features to serve you ads. They aren't using them to lock you in to their platform. They added these features because the vast majority of users are not particularly technical and they want some dashboard they can login to to see some cute metrics about their system. They added these features because downtime alerts are genuinely useful but it is difficult to implement without some sort of remote connectivity. And if your local utility needs the data for some reason, or needs the ability to coordinate power delivery to the grid, either now or in the future, there is a mechanism in which they can do so. The number of users who consider this an anti-feature is such a small minority of users that it isn't really worth their time to accommodate. IOT certainly has its issues. TVs absolutely don't need it. For other appliances it can be a toss up. But there are also genuine use cases for it.
  • Nextgrid 4y ago
    > They aren't using these features to serve you ads. Yet. Experience tells me that everything will eventually turn into an ad or data collection platform. Furthermore, even if there is indeed no nefarious intent from the third-party collecting & storing your system's telemetry, if you don't get any benefit from it, why give it to them? It's still a risk they (or a some malicious attacker, or the government) use this data in the future in a way you didn't expect.
    • don-code 4y ago
      This. I'd not expect to become advertisement fodder for a product that I pay regularly for. The inverter, on the other hand, is something I paid for once, so for years two through 25 (the expected lifetime), I'm essentially a cost to them as they operate whatever service that it talks back to. There's an incentive there to try and recover that cost, and they can't do it by increasing my monthly bill.
      • Nextgrid 4y ago
        > I'd not expect to become advertisement fodder for a product that I pay regularly for It's not always advertisements. Sometimes, the company will hire some oxygen waster that wants to boost "engagement" in order to justify their job and salary, so now your system is using your telemetry data to find ways to waste your time (as well as track whether they've indeed managed to waste it) even though advertisements themselves aren't (yet) involved. Not to mention, advertisements don't have to be served over the same device that collects the data. The inverter company can very well collect the data, sell it to a data broker where other ad companies will use this data.
• Faaak 4y ago
  SMA inverters (at least) do not need an internet connection to be configured. They of course support ethernet but it's not mandatory at all. Everything is self hosted and they can be run air-gapped
• MayeulC 4y ago
  I had no idea. I'd be okay with that if the firmware was open source, but I can dream. On the other hand, if something bad happens (virus, remote bricking, disabling some functionality that was in the contract in un update), you can probably sue them. Granted, if they face massive service disruption, you may not be able to gain much from it.
• whycombinetor 4y ago
  Are we talking about powering a whole 4 bedroom home? Or just a few panels, a small charge controller, small battery, and like 2000w inverter? Renogy (etc.) sells all of the latter on Amazon that AFAIK don't require any connectivity. But you can't put it in circuit with your house's existing wiring and still be up to code.
  • Froedlich 4y ago
    Depends on where you are. My local Code Gestapo is only concerned about AC systems connected to the grid. DC and PV wiring aren't part of their remit, and they're not in the least interested in being tasked to cover those, as it would mean more work for them.
• mcbishop 4y ago
  I'm slowly working to start a solar-install company — your post helps confirm my belief that offering a private no-internet option... is a worthwhile differentiator. I have a lot to learn, but the Sol-Ark inverter or Outback (Radian) inverter might be the way to go. Otherwise, it might have to be some obscure inverter without reliable warranty. Here's a related forum thread: https://diysolarforum.com/threads/sol-ark-needs-a-serious-change.27144 https://diysolarforum.com/threads/sol-ark-needs-a-serious-ch...
  • boringg 4y ago
    I don't think thats enough of a differentiator for people to head to your product, no offense. Solar price, payback terms, incentives, green ambition and neighborhood also putting up solar are probably the biggest drivers. The amount of people who would want no internet connection is incredibly niche.
    • mcbishop 4y ago
      I'll be installing in East Bay, California. And I'm only planning to install one or two systems a month. ...I think I can find my little tribe of privacy people. But, yeah, I'll have some other differentiators.
  • LexGray 4y ago
    I would bring up all the things in this post in your advertising. Installation suitability reports about roof types. Functions without external configuration, off site monitoring, and shortened lifespan due to outdated software. The purchaser owns the equipment so not a permanent lease against the property. Just creating awareness should drive a lot of business. I think some variety of IOT is valuable, but it should have a web server backup that provides both html interface and raw data which does not require dedicated apps. There should definitely be a disconnect from the grid option for the extended wind related power outages of the Northern California.
  • KennyBlanken 4y ago
    That thread has more bullshit than a farm...internet connections back to China = EMPs? Those people are out of their minds.
• sorisos 4y ago
  I once worked with developing PV-inverter software. The web "features" always made be uncomfortable given the projected lifespan of >10 years.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• toss1 4y ago
  Completely agree — thank you for the heads-up! Right up front, I wouldn't have expected this to be another sh*tware connectivity thing unless I was doing net-metering (it kinda does have to talk to the elec utility for that). My general expectation is to do a small circuit for things that don't need to be connected at first (like electricity for the workshed), then get fully off-grid if I do a full system. No way do I want to be off-grid and relying on some of the components calling their mothership. I'm also deeply suspicious of all of these schemes where solar is "free", whether they are fronting the cost to reap the solar credits for themselves or installing to charge you a fixed-rate electrical bill. Far too many opportunities for things to go sideways.
• boringg 4y ago
  As someone who works in renewable energy and has a dose of skepticism on most IoT devices. I very much want to have a read on how much energy my solar assets are creating therefore I am very comfortable with an inverter shipping out production values. That way I can resolve them when it isn't producing due to soilage or any other issue. I would chalk it up to being overly paranoid. However if you are in a foreign country and have a system that is connected via payments that is a different matter all together (i.e. that you don't own the asset and you are paying for the electricity produced).
• YeBanKo 4y ago
  This is why I don’t want 5G. It is not going to make my cellular service better or cheaper, but it is going to enable every internet-of-shit device manufacturer to buy bandwidth from telcos and a new generation of “smart” devices will be able to call home without asking you for wifi password.
  • api 4y ago
    I think low speed protocols like LoRA or relatives of it are more likely to be used for this. They're very low power, low overhead, and hard to block. That's exactly the privacy endgame though: stuff a chip with cellular capability into everything you can and stream data to data brokers for double-dip profit whether the customer likes it (or even knows it) or not. The market for data about people seems to be almost infinite and bottomless. This can only be fixed with legislation. I predict it will become a major battle in the future.
    • YeBanKo 4y ago
      If I understand correctly, LoRA is more suited when you want to have a fluid decentralized networks, when nodes come in and out all the time and you aren’t concerned by latency. This is the opposite if what telcos want. They want to have a low latency connection to every device in the house. Imagine your toaster and your tv stream in real time to an ad server what your are doing. You put a piece of bread in the toaster, while you wait you walk to your TV, start using the remote and you have a peanut butter commercial on Hulu. And this link inside the consumers homes is handled by 3 US cellphone carriers, not much competition. Or maybe it is just me being paranoid.
  • strangattractor 4y ago
    What does 5G have to do with that? There have been devices using 3G for years. It is very cheap and the infrastructure is pretty much everywhere.
    • YeBanKo 4y ago
      A fully deployed 5G network will be able to support a much higher device density. Up to a million devices per sq km. Basically an antenna on every block and they will be able to connect every IoS device and scatter around a bunch of sensor, and still have some bandwidth left.
• brk 4y ago
  Where do you live, and what products are you looking at? I have an 11.6Kw solar system with a SolarEdge inverter. It does not need an internet connection to function. I currently have it connected to use the app that reports performance data, but it's not a requirement for functionality.
• ok_dad 4y ago
  I work in the industry on the commercial side. Access to that data and the ability to sell a homeowner's power generation and storage out from under them to the utility (double-dipping, because often the homeowner pays for the systems) is a big thing right now. If you buy solar or batteries and the company wants you to constantly be connected to their network, then they are somehow making money off of you, much like Sony will charge you for a TV then put ads on it.
  • matheusmoreira 4y ago
    > Access to that data and the ability to sell a homeowner's power generation and storage out from under them to the utility (double-dipping, because often the homeowner pays for the systems) Can you elaborate on this? How does this work?
    • ok_dad 4y ago
      First, the data is helpful in aggregate to learn about homeowner power usage and sell and stuff. Second, these companies are often selling some sort of contract or carbon token, or some sort of virtual aggregation of power to a utility. For example, Tesla is famously paying huge amounts to sell their customer's power to SCE right now in a pilot program. I can tell you from experience, the prices they're paying their customers per kilowatt-hour are way higher than the market rate for that sort of thing, so it's not going to last. Eventually, these Tesla customers will be stuck in some contract, probably, selling Tesla their power for pennies on the dollar. None of the VPP software running in the cloud cannot be run locally. What we should have is a small computer optimizing homeowner's devices (solar, batteries) on-site, but instead all that crap is in the cloud. It's "Generation as a Service" at this point, and it's bullshit. What we need is an open-source building energy management supervision software with a diverse driver and plugin ecosystem. I want to write it, but I have a family to feed.
      • matheusmoreira 4y ago
        > It's "Generation as a Service" at this point, and it's bullshit. Wow that really is bullshit! Is this a US thing? My solar equiment is german... I think. Vendor is Fronius. There is a locally hosted monitoring web app, it can even create a wifi access point if necessary. It apparently works fine even without the network. There is a cloud service too. It's meant for me as an end user but the solar company that I contracted took over the account I created in order to "provide remote support". I really have no clue what they're doing with it but I can't figure out if they're selling anything I'm generating. Where I live (Brazil) the solar energy I generate gets converted by the power company itself into kWh "credits" which will offset energy consumed from other sources. These credits expire if unused so I have zero incentive to generate more than I consume. Not sure if this is the same as the carbon token you mentioned.
• turtlebits 4y ago
  I have several off-grid inverters, solar charge controllers and AIO systems, none of them have any IoT or any connectivity requirements.
• outworlder 4y ago
  <network> Of Things is great. <Internet> of things isn't.
• egeek 4y ago
  I have a Solis inverter [0], while it has WiFi built in, and we have the data logging dongle, it doesn't need to be connected to the internet to function, and you can configure the dongle to talk to MQTT locally (but I haven't done this). It doesn't need to be connected to the internet during configuration either, we set it up and got it going before connecting the data logger to it. That said, I do use their portal to see my generation and consumption. It's pretty handy. But I also do scrape their data and store it locally as well. [0] https://www.ginlong.com/rhi_3pinverter1/29118.html https://www.ginlong.com/rhi_3pinverter1/29118.html * I'm not affiliated with them in any way, it's just the one we have
• LAC-Tech 4y ago
  IoT does not make sense for residential applications, except as a kind of gimmick. As for other domains like, industrial, manufacturing, agriculture... that ship has already sailed. HN would do well to remember there's more to IoT than WiFi lightbulbs.
  • outworlder 4y ago
    Networked devices make a lot of sense even in the home - my Home Assistant is pretty damn useful. The problem is the 'internet' part. I'm moving everything to the local network, but it's getting increasingly more difficult. To the point that I'm avoiding wifi devices (in favor of zigbee and possibly bluetooth).
  • m00x 4y ago
    It absolutely makes sense. Knowing how much capacity you have, monitoring intake, output, charge rate, battery temp, etc. are very important things to know and keep track.
    • Hizonner 4y ago
      Geeks who pay attention to that sort of thing are also the sort of people who could do it locally...
    • LAC-Tech 4y ago
      an LCD display panel isn't enough for that? I'm on mains electricity, but off grid for gas and water. If I want to check my water levels I.. tap the water tank. or if I am feeling adventurous I get the ladder out and unscrew the top. If I want to check gas levels, I see if the little mechanical indicator has rotated to the red plastic section yet. I'd hate for any of them to be reliant on some hobby/residential grade IoT set up since they're so simple to check the old fashioned way.
• IYasha 4y ago
  No, you're a totally sane person. People often mistake "smart" with "automated". I'm all for automaiton, but not for devices that think, decide and do things without me. And also the main question is "who's in control". So, you're not alone.
• ericdfournier 4y ago
  From an academic research scientist that works on energy system analysis: In addition to outputting telemetry data about a solar array's production - whether that is meant to be used for the homeowner to monitor their system's performance or a third party to use for SRECs verification - the IoT modules on modern PV inverters are increasingly being designed/included for the purpose of receiving external input signals. These would either come from the local utility, distribution system operator, or regional balancing authority - and would communicate the need to change the inverter module's mode of operation to ensure the stability of the distribution circuit that it was interconnected to. Small scale utility customers are typically only billed for the "real power" that they consume (real power is metered in kilowatt hours, kWh). This billing can come in different incarnations - i.e. volumetric tariffs, time-of-use tariffs, net-metering tariffs (as with bi-directional solar metering). However, in order to operate a reliable AC power distribution system you need to also be concerned with the supply of "reactive power" (metered in kilovolts-amps reactive, kVA). Reactive power is consumed by inductive loads (like electric motors) in large volumes particularly when starting up. Moreover, reactive power cannot easily be transmitted over long distances in the same way that real power can. The consumption of reactive power can cause the voltage and current curves of an AC power flow to shift out of phase with respect to one another. This effectively reduces the apparent power delivered by the system. This can also cause other problems with maintaining the system's nominal frequency and voltage. Large AC generator units, that are essentially comprised of a large spinning mass ( such as a natural gas turbine for example) naturally output a more even balance of real and reactive power components. However, when you try to replace these units with lots of small DC generators, like solar panels, whose AC power characteristics are determined by the design of the inverter modules, what you end up finding is that there is a deficit of reactive power supply. Inverter modules can technically be setup to produce reactive power - but they generally are not tuned to do so. This is because it detracts from the amount of real power that they produce. And remember, that real power is the only thing that you get paid for under a net-metering tariff. There are currently no markets which would compensate you as a homeowner for the production of reactive power. So, with the knowledge that many of these inverter systems will have 10-15 year lifespans once installed - and that grid operators will likely need to call upon them in the future to dynamically control the supply of reactive power at certain locations (particularly as more renewables come online) regulators are increasingly requiring that all new inverters have networked communications capability so that they will be ready once such a command-and-control protocol is eventually developed and implemented.
• savrajsingh 4y ago
  Will Prowse has DETAILED answers and breakdowns for you: https://www.youtube.com/c/WillProwse https://www.youtube.com/c/WillProwse
  • luxuryballs 4y ago
    I don’t even know where to begin.
• tb_technical 4y ago
  You're correct, this seems like a terrible idea. Why not just make a cheap, repairable device? It would be better for everyone.
• gz5 4y ago
  Definitely not paranoid. This is the time to get ahead of this. For distributed energy scenarios in which various sites operated by different administrators (my_neighborhood_solar, big utility, your_personal_site) may exchange energy, then how do we securely design the communication between the smart meters? For example, perhaps dedicated SIMs would get the traffic off our home networks, but the resultant network would need security.
• fest 4y ago
  When I set up my Fronius inverters, I did connect them to Ethernet, but disabled any cloud features and set up a simple script that fetches the stats I'm interested in and stores them to a local influx database. I didn't go as far as isolating them from internet/rest of my network- I am mainly concerned about them losing my data/going bankrupt/trying to charge for "cloud" features.
• sbierwagen 4y ago
  I read the "warranty" part, thought "no way", but sure enough Enphase says in section 5 of their warranty: https://enphase.com/download/2022-04-30-enphaseenergy-microinverterlimitedwarrantyuscanada https://enphase.com/download/2022-04-30-enphaseenergy-microi... >The Covered Products should be continuously connected to the internet during the warranty period, except where interrupted by causes outside of the Covered Owner’s reasonable control. This will help ensure that potential defects in the Product can be diagnosed remotely and that the Product can receive over-the-air firmware updates. Interesting use of "should".
• gwbas1c 4y ago
  My solar panels report the amount of electricity generated so I get my SREC credits. These are direct payments for generating clean energy. What frustrated me was that the company used a meter that reported over 3G, and then wanted me to pay $500 to upgrade my meter even though it was under warranty. They eventually found an ethernet port in my current meter, but they still charged me to run the cable. Fortunately, they got the cost low enough that it wasn't worth arguing.
• askvictor 4y ago
  Some places have a legal requirement to do this; I think in order to be able to protect the grid (not quite sure why the smart meter can't handle this though; maybe to do with frequency matching or diagnostics) But the main reason they do this is pretty mundane - LCD panels often fail after a few years in the kinds of environments inverters are often installed in (hot, sunny). So they move the display to be an app instead, and you need an internet connection.
• freedude 4y ago
  An old-timer I used to work with once told me, "A warranty is only as good as the company selling it." There is more truth to the saying then I want to believe. Many of you have proved this by your comments. In many states the "contract" is invalid if it wasn't presented as a requirement in the sale or when it was agreed upon. It doesn't matter if it is in the TOS if the TOS isn't signed and dated by the person paying for the Internet access. Legally you have a leg to stand on. You would need to get a lawyer and possibly go to court. Then trust them to honor the warranty later. That sounds like fun doesn't it. Good luck.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    These solar companies are gonna pop up, do a bunch of installs, and then disappear or go bankrupt. And the manufacturers will say you have to deal with the installer, and the installer will be gone.
• the_third_wave 4y ago
  Nope, you're not. I solved the problem of nosy IoT-things by creating a VLAN specifically for these things where they get to spy on each other without being able to phone home. The inverter connects to the VLAN through an untagged port on an access point using an Ethernet cable (no WiFi for this type of application, please) which makes it possible to access the web features for those who have access to this VLAN. I proxy the management interface to the outside world through a reverse proxy, this way I can access all features on the device without it being able to phone home or auto-update or do whatever else it could do if it had internet access. I'm using a Fronius inverter which is an Austrian brand, I specifically did not want to have a Chinese device for this application. Updates can be manually uploaded when required, configuration can be done through the wired Ethernet connection, it is not necessary to use any specific "app" (which, of course, is available and pushed but it is not necessary). I installed everything myself - built the barn on which the panels are mounted as well - so I know what is where. The only net-connected part of the solar installation is the inverter, once I hook up battery that'll probably have a network connection as well so it can join the fray on the IoT-VLAN. This solution with a separate network - VLAN or physically separated is up to you - which is reverse proxied onto the wide world gives the best of both worlds in that you remain in control while you still can use the networked functions of whatever it is you're dealing with. You won't be surprised by updates, the equipment does not get to phone home, nobody gets to data mine you.
• offsky 4y ago
  I read a story about a solar installer that blew my mind. The customer posted a negative Yelp review about the installer. In retaliation, the installer remotely deactivated the customers internet connected solar panels and held them ransom until the negative review was removed. If the installer can do that, so can the analytics company and probably any competent hacker. I don’t think security is top of mind for this industry. So, no internet connected solar panels for me.
• DavideNL 4y ago
  I'm not 100% sure, but I think i read it was mandatory/required by law to connect your inverter to the internet in The Netherlands, because they need to be able to "turn off" the inverter in case of emergencies when the power grid becomes overloaded. The part i'm not sure about, is whether this system depends on the internet connection, or whether there's some other wireless system build into these things.
• patrakov 4y ago
  No, you are not alone. In Cebu City, Philippines, if you buy, from a cheap vendor (https://web.facebook.com/solarcompanyEST2018/?_rdc=1&_rdr https://web.facebook.com/solarcompanyEST2018/?_rdc=1&_rdr), a solar panel set, a controller, an inverter, and a battery, you only can get dumb offline equipment. IoT (connected) is not even an option.
• rcarmo 4y ago
  Depends. If it’s SMA, the stuff I’ve seen only sends metrics out to a server so you can see the output in a mobile app, and has little to no local management capabilities: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2022/08/04/0800#solar https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2022/08/04/0800#solar
• _8j50 4y ago
  Wait, so is this because you want to feed back the generated power to the grid? How are all those rural places too remote for the internet working?
  • voakbasda 4y ago
    Given this discussion (and as someone that lives in a very rural area), I am planning to go entirely off-grid with solar and batteries. I am no longer interested in a grid-tied system in any way, shape, or form. Under no circumstances would I install a system that could be remotely powered down to save the grid, when the grid itself is the source of the problem. It’s like the power companies want their cake and to eat it too.
    • yencabulator 4y ago
      Yeah. If I put in enough solar & batteries to fully serve this largish house, the local utility will still make me pay about half of my current electric bill. It'd make more sense to go off-grid and buy a generator for backup.
      • voakbasda 4y ago
        My electricity provider’s unreliability already forced me to buy a generator. As far as I understand, that also brings up the true farce about grid-tied solar: you are still at the utility company’s mercy to keep the grid working, because the solar system only works when there is grid power. Insane.
• suprjami 4y ago
  I got solar at the start of 2020 with a Growatt inverter. Internet completely optional.