Multi sites

[cyon30]

Hello

Please can you help? How can I add more sites? We are a company and 4 branches on the same wam. we have at every site victron system. I have the head office on HA with a big tv. we want to add all the other sites to the HA to monitor the sites.

[gris74]

+1 good question, I have the same questionning about our Microgrid installations (Multi GerboGX = multi system = multi site).

But I am also asking myself if this repo is still active or not ?

[sfstar]

The Repo is still active, but due to live events I'm expected to continue working on the integration by the end of march. Multi site is an improvement I can look into then. My question for visitors of this issue would be to upvote this request if it is something you would like to see implemented.

[gris74]

Firstable thanks you for your work and shares 👍 so nice to here you !.. your work is so great and time saving ! Sure take care in real life, and lets us comments and test :)

look forward, and have good life ☮️

[sfstar]

So in the last weeks I've thought of 2 possible methods to introduce multi-site support. The first would be to use the serial number in the entity-id (if an user selects multi site support in setup menu to preserve backwards compatibility with current entity naming).

This would have the benefit of keeping the configuration simple, clean and locked to an GX device. The downside however is that in case of the GX device failing and needing to be replaced all entities will be renamed upon the integration connecting or being reconfigured after the GX device swap. Thereby, losing the connection between historical data. The advantage would be that in case of registers (that don't usually reset their value) having seperate entities would prevent would statistics behaviour in home assistant. Resulting in no weird data behaviour.

The second option would be to allow the user to specify an unique string for the "site" that get's put into the entity id string. This would require users (upon selecting multi site support) to manually specify the sites name and would make it more difficult / prone to accidental misconfigurations upon reconfiguring the integration. The upside would be that upon GX device failure / swapping entities that reset their value with be able to continue on the history of the previous GX device. The downside would be that entities that (for example track: total KWH discharged) would experience weird behaviour like showing the entire discharged amount recorded by the previous GX device to be discharged in a single hour due to the registers data being reset and HA's statistics not being able to handle this change.

I would like to get a feeling from the community as to which solution most people (looking for multi-site support) would like to see implemented. (React with an heart if you prefer solution 1 or an thumbs up if you prefer solution 2). Or perhaps you have another idea on how to differentiate entities between sites. If so, please comment the suggestion.

[ondrom111]

♥️

[cyon30]

♥️ I like it. will help me. We have 5 sites with Cerbo GX installed but at head office, we have an 80" screen, and I would love to see the site's info.

[cyon30]

Do you happen to have any updates on this?

[Rcscomp67]

Hello, and thank you for your work. I would really support this extension. By the way, I would prefer the user to assign a name to the serial number. Thank you!

[Rcscomp67]

Is it perhaps possible to add the IP address to the device name "victron"? Does replacing a GX device then have an impact on the HA data history? The new device would appear with the same IP address and nothing would change on the Modbus side.

[sfstar]

Hello @Rcscomp67,

Using the IP address is an less desireable way to name entities and or create the entities unique id. Because some users might have an dynamic IP assigned to venus OS device. This would cause history to be non-continous when there is any change to the venus OS IP adres.

For now option 2 in this comment https://github.com/sfstar/hass-victron/issues/162#issuecomment-1963002045 seems the best solution to allow for multi-sites while also reducing impact on history.

[Rcscomp67]

hello sfstar, That's right, but I think if someone doesn't assign a fixed IP then it's hopeless anyway because the data retrieval via Modbus uses the IP address anyway. If the user assigns a desired name then the set IP is used. The IP is certainly not visually attractive but the user immediately recognizes if he is causing chaos when he reconfigures something. But no matter what solution, I'm looking forward to it.

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