Default ‘off’ for ‘Allow control without a logged-in user’?

[quaint9]

Hi,

I suggest defaulting ‘Allow control without a logged-in user’ to off, if it’s not already. I experienced an automation-driven blackout due to a series of bugs in another app that resulted in errant aggressive load-management, that I think could have been avoided if I’d had this switch off (and I wasn’t aware of it’s existence prior to this event). For reference, here’s the set of bugs from that app that resulted in this happening; it was the Solar Energy Management app:

Thank you for the detailed report, that was three real bugs on my side, and all three are fixed in 2.1.0-beta.6:
#897, you did not turn it on. Load management was on by default at a 5 kW ceiling while the User Guide said off, and the arm switch was hidden behind Advanced. It is now off on a fresh install, with the toggle and the target limit side by side in the default Config view. Existing installs keep whatever value they have, so please check yours after updating.
#895, auto-discovered devices are supposed to be monitor-only until you say otherwise. That default reached the surplus side but not the shedder, so your Span circuits and the backup battery were fair game the moment they were discovered. One resolver answers it everywhere now.
#896, the shedder had no cap, no floor and no futility guard. It now sheds only what the overshoot needs, one load per pass, judged against the live meter; and before the first switch it checks whether shedding everything it may shed would even reach the target — if the peak belongs to a load SEM doesn’t control (your EV), it sheds nothing and files a Repair naming those kilowatts. Every shed episode also raises a notification now, and what SEM switched off it switches back on.
Nothing SEM controls should ever have included the circuit feeding HA itself, sorry about the manual recovery.

Eric

[cayossarian]

I took a quick look at that SEM app you referenced and I personally would not trust it. The user guide smells of AI-generated code mess. If the "dev" can't spend the time to edit a user guide I can only imagine the lack of oversight on the code/scripts, just my two cents. The app's goals are very ambitious and I'm not sure I'd want my house relays being triggered by a third-party app that I didn't test thoroughly. Normally such power configurations are done in a BESS like Tesla Powerwall or with SPAN's SpanDrive chargers.

On the default for the SpanPanel/Span config to disallow automations we could do that but then we would need to document why automations don't work out of the box. I'm glad you found that setting because we just added it in the last release. Once you turn it off it should disallow automations in the future.

[quaint9]

Thanks Bill - Completely agree with not wanting an HA app to do load management, especially since that function is native to Span with solar/storage integrations. I was looking for an app to do ‘excess solar following’ with additional TOU based thresholds, and didn’t realize it would/could grab control of the Span relays.

Just curious - what are you seeing other people doing with Span circuit switch automations? I’ve found many modern devices don’t take nicely to hard-switching their AC power as a control mechanism, and I’ve moved toward front-door integrations (HPWH, EV charging, VFD water pump controllers, etc) Example of my experience with Span’s DSGS program highlights this: https://www.ampmyhome.com/electricity/span-pg-e-save-program-first-impressions/

[cayossarian]

Yeah, you're spot-on with the AC compressor not being happy to be cycled, much better to manage the thermostat and a smart thermostat will have utility programs that cool down early before expected demand peaks. The AC shouldn't really be operated until it's been powered up for 24 hours to allow the heater to warm the compressor oil. You can see the heater cycling and consuming about 40 watts when the AC is not running. The power-up feature in SPAN's app manages my service level and I have other high power devices like EV chargers, dryers, spas, etc., before the AC gets dropped for that very reason.

SPAN makes it pretty clear they really don't intend for folks to be managing circuits with automation and I repeat their API warnings in our integration readme. That sort of argues your point about the default for that logged-in user option being off (I'll definitely consider it for new installs going forward).

I think most folks just want to monitor and I find the monitoring, configured via the integration's dashboard, to be the most helpful information for spikes, circuit overloads, and to get a sense of the overall demand. It works, I've received several notices about the garbage disposal and the AC spiking on startup which is to be expected and I could adjust the spike threshold.

[quaint9]

FYI, here’s my writeup of the automation-driven blackout I got myself into: https://www.ampmyhome.com/electricity/my-home-automation-left-me-in-the-dark-literally/