Sense Show

Simple python script to visual Sense Energy consumption & solar generation on an LED matrix.

Uses a raspberry 3, leds, and python.

Running it locally, without LEDs

SENSE_TEST=True SENSE_USER="email" SENSE_PASSWD='5ecr!ts' sudo -E python3 src/main.py

Output

stdout will see progess bars showing usage

|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|-X-|   |
|-X-|-X-|-X-|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|-X-|   |
|   |-X-|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|-X-|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|-X-|
|-X-|-X-|-X-|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|-X-|-X-|-X-|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|-X-|
|   |-X-|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|-X-|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|
|   |-X-|   |   |   |   |   |-X-|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|-X-|   |   |   |   |-X-|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |-X-|
From Solar:  -0%|          | -7.00/8.00k [00:00<-1:59:59, -7.09kwatts/s]
Consumption:  12%|█▏        | 1.74k/15.0k [00:00<00:00, 1.40Mwatts/s]
From Grid:  12%|█▏        | 1.75k/15.0k [00:00<00:00, 1.67Mwatts/s]

Setup on pi

THis project includes the files needed to register this script as an always running daemon. THis will restart on crash or power loss.

1. git clone this repo to your pi, using /home/pi/sense-show as checkout dir will save editing files
2. Create a .env file in the checkout dir containing your SENSE_USER and SENSE_PASSWD.
3. Optionally comment out the git pull in start.sh if script should not auto update itself.
4. cd into raspberrypi directory, and confirm paths in senseshow.service, and run install.sh this will install python dependencies and register service with system daemon.
5. To test it run sudo systemctl start senseshow.service and then systemctl status senseshow.service and or tail -f /home/pi/sense-show/sense-debug.log to make sure everything works.
6. Unplug pi and plug it back in, wait ~30 seconds and confirm everythign started, if not, repeat last step.

Parts

Raspberry pi (zero is fine)

I assume you have one if you're here, but if you're even a little interested they are a great investment for learning/tinkering, and you can get a full 3B+ rig for < $50 or a zero wireless for $25.

Leds

If wired to an LED strip you'll also visualize it. I bought a cheap serial style one on amazon.

8x32 LED Panel - Individually Addressable

Energy Monitoring

I have Sense and love it, Schneider electric seems to be reselling as "Wiser Energy monitor" too

Sense Energy & Solar monitor

Pi OLED Screen

32x128 pixel monochrome screen

LED Panel

Objects

• Grid - depicted with tower on left
• Plug - depicted with electrical plug in center
• Panels - depicted by blue stripes on right
• Sun - Small yellow dot abov panels
• Energy Flow Green, Yellow or Red leds flow in the direction of energy, sized base on total watts.

Overproducing

Orange/Yellow LEDs will flow from panels, through house (reduced by usage) and back to grid. Shown here, these yellow LEDs are moving right (solar) to left (grid)

Consumption

Red LEDs will flow from grid to house, and feeding panels during shade/night. For instance here my idle house is using minimum electricity and feeding about 8 watts to panels at night. Lights are moving left (grid) to right( house and panels)

Debugging & Logs

• logging configured in the app writes to sense-debug.log
• stdout/stderr when running as a service can be obtained by journalctl -u senseshow.service --since today (or remove date filter)
• status, stop, start with sudo systemctl <action> senseshow.service

Printin queue and data stats

If things seem slow, stale you shouldn set LOGLEVEL=DEBUG in the .env and also send a SIGUSR1 (i.e. kill -USR1 <PID>)

pvoutput.org support.

I also added live updates from a related project to use sense data to send generation and consumption data to pvoutput.org .

set these values in .env

PVOUTPUT_KEY="yourkeyfrom pvoutput.org"
PVOUTPUT_ID="siteid"

and then set a cron to run the pvoutput.py

*/5 * * * *  python3 /home/pi/sense-show/src/pvoutput.py