I’m at the final stage of developing a custom, MQTT-based virtual energy meter Edge driver, and I’m stuck on the last step. I would appreciate your help. My goal is to display consumption data from Home Assistant in the SmartThings Energy interface.
The driver has been running for a day now. The device is created, and in the app, I can see both the instantaneous (W) and total (kWh) consumption data. According to logcat, the powerConsumptionReport events are also being sent regularly without any errors. Despite all this, the device still doesn’t appear in the Energy service.
Based on the community forums and analysis of other drivers, I believe I have followed all the best practices:
Correct Architecture: I’m using a “Manager/Creator” logic that creates the virtual meter as a standalone, type = "LAN" device, deliberately avoiding the EDGE_CHILD model and its pitfalls.
Compatible Device Profile: The device’s profile (profile.yml) includes the mandatory powerMeter and energyMeter capabilities. Most importantly, I’ve also set the categories: - name: SmartPlug entry, which, based on research, is the critical “entry ticket” into the service.
Precise Logical Implementation: The driver’s logic (init.lua) also handles the units with precision:
I am sending Watt (W) values for the powerMeter.
I am sending kilowatt-hour (kWh) values for the energyMeter, using the {value = ..., unit = ...} format.
I am sending the historical powerConsumptionReport event in the background with Watt-hour (Wh) based data, following the expected logic.
I feel like I’ve met every technical requirement reverse-engineered by the community, and the regular data reporting is working, yet the device is not being added to the Energy panel.
I think you are quite reasonably assuming that the Energy app will automatically work with devices meeting certain technical criteria. It has been suggested that there is a tad more to it than that. What that tad more involves isn’t known, but we can speculate it is an approval process of some form or something else along those lines.
Thank you, that’s an incredibly insightful observation, and it perfectly aligns with what I’m experiencing as well. It confirms my suspicion that a non-technical filter is at play. This raises a crucial follow-up question: To your knowledge, has any community-developed, non-certified Edge driver ever successfully integrated a virtual device into the SmartThings Energy service?
Unfortunately, No.
All devices that using MC drivers that report energy and meet the SmartThings Energy requirements can be seen as compatible devices in the app.
Only the The Aeotec gen5 energy meter, which I use with my Z-Wave Electric Meter MC driver, can be seen and used in SmartThings Energy.
This indicates that the device needs approval from SmartThings to appear as a compatible device.
This approval will have been issued by Aeotec for his device. I think.
However, if you use an Aeotec Gen5 with the official SmartThings driver, Zwave electric meter, you will not be able to see it and use it as compatible with SmartThings energy because the official driver does not have the necessary code to inform to SmartThings Energy.
In my case i use Aeotec gen5 to monitor the surplus instantaneously solar production sent to grig instead the energy consumption in home and can choose with app rules use the surplus to refrigeration, heat water, heat home or charge my car battery.
I only use the information I get from SmartThings Energy to easily check the € and kW of the solar surpluses that my electric company pays me monthly.
I’m going to say no, but the app was particularly crap when I had it installed and I lost any curiosity about it a long time ago so It is quite possible I wouldn’t have noticed. It was pretty much the first of the Samsung ‘service’ apps and I haven’t the slightest interest in any of them or their friends like the map and home insights. I like to pretend they don’t exist.
Thank you all so much for the help and for clarifying that the error isn’t in the driver.
1 Like
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
11
Check the profile you’re using. I’ve found that the profile has a bigger impact on how devices are selected for use by SmartThings plugins rather than capabilities. What exactly i can’t say but compare it to the aeotec energy meter profile
