iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 5h

That is what I’m exploring. I’m highly technical, but I know what it’s like trying to set complicated stuff up. You just want something that’s as plug and play as possible.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 7h

My HEMS is now tracking how much of the power in my battery is self-generated vs imported. I'm hoping this will make any power costs more accurate to assess.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 13h

I can now see my heat pump cycling. Its minimum seems to be 3.4kW when the outside is 14 degrees. If I understand this all correctly, it's minimum output will be lower the colder it gets.

A line chart, showing Watts on the Y-Axis and time on the X-Axis

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

My heat pump is on, and my Matter adapter has flagged it. It now shows as Heating. Nice.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Some difference in temperature readings. My Ecowitt says 18°C. My Kronoterm says almost 20°C. My Tesla says 20°C. Weather app says 19°C. Is this radiant air temperature based on the sensor location?

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

My Matter tariff provider is finally working. My adding this to my Energy Manager, it can give me an approximate cost of grid power. This is pretty powerful stuff!

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I had an issue with a Shelly plug and my fridge. It should have turned back on after a power interruption, but muggins here didn’t set it up correctly. Could have ended badly.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Or buy two IKEA sockets with power monitoring 🫣 Mind you, I think I’d prefer something that can’t be switched off. Shelly EM Gen4 mini.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

My hob/fridge and oven/freezer share a fuse (there is a socket on the each fuse). This explains why I see power usage in the middle of the night. Another quirk I need to handle in my design!

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Sunday dinner being cooked with solar power :)

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Needs to show the breakdown between grid and self- powered. Once Tariff is working, it will show the cost too.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

This is starting to come along nicely too. Shows where the power is going.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I managed a few hours this week and connected my Solax Inverter and Kronoterm Heat Pump to my energy manager. I also figured out my Shelly EM. A few tweaks to my topology and I have a good representation of power flow! Tariff doesn't work yet :(

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

From my Energy Manager to my Heating Monitor with a pairing code. Matter really is a little bit magic sometimes!

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

My ESP32 ModBus Adapter is successfully talking to my Kronoterm Heat Pump! It's pulling back some basic information, which is current being exposed via the Matter protocol. Took a few tweaks of Baud and Address, but it's working!

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

It's so weird. The power is relative to the node, so the node's purpose then dictates what's happening.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I still find this one of the most confusing diagrams in the Matter specification!

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Based on the new Octopus Go figures, my heat pump has to average 360% efficiency to break even.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The power flow arrows are wrong, but my ModBus adapter is working! It has successfully exposed my inverter over the Matter protocol. Sweet.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

going to attempt to connect to my Kronoterm Adapt this weekend. I've got the ModBus Adapter all set up, so hopefully it's just a case of connecting wires....

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I have improvised a connector for my Solax inverter. This will connect into the COM port and communicate using ModBus. The ESP32 firmware will then expose the inverters basic information using Matter! That’s the plan anyway.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Once the weather is colder it probably won’t make a difference as the heat pump will be supplying heat and keeping the ground warm. Interesting little quirk. I wonder how OEM compensates for these?

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Made up two more ModBus Adapters. One for my solar inverter, one for my heat pump. Hopefully I can test them over the weekend.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Ohhh, I think know! The water in the tank was still hot from yesterday! The water in the return pipe would have flowed through the plate exchanger and been warmed up. Bloody hell.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

When my heat pump fired up this morning for a hot water run, the heat meter reported a massive jump in return temp and a dip in flow. The dip in flow I understand as the colder water in the pipes outside starts to move through it, but how did the return jump to 40?

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Trying out a breakdown in my history UI. It will show the make of the daily energy usage. This is all powered by Matter devices #matter

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Just when I think I’m getting the hang of mounting these ESP32 modules, I spend an hour flow and reflowing. Damn chip won’t appear as a USB port.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

So Ive discovered that the IKEA TIMMERFLOTE sensors are not ICD. They have short interval of about 15 seconds! This really surprises me.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The other 9 sensors are reporting a-okay.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Not a clue 😂 I'm at a loss as to what the sensor is doing. I think it might be stuck. I'm looking into a "last seen" mechanism.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Almost all my rooms and rads are logging. The living room sensor doesn't seem to be playing ball for some reason. My code is managing 24 devices and it's really struggling.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

IKEA’s power monitoring plug is only £7. Amazing.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The takeaway might remind me of my bachelor days, but the movie is good!

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It’s a classic. I enjoy watching it with a takeaway byraini 🤣

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I’ve realised that I need a reset button at 90 degrees to the body, so the device could be woken/reset without removing the radiator cover.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

But some progress with the layout. As planned, it sits inside the frame of the radiator. All that sticks out is the antenna. The antenna is horrible, but it’s better than the sensor sitting atop the radiator.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A lot of lovely battery powered sensors! My sensors still need work. The reset button isn’t behaving :(

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

These are replacing 11 Aqara sensors. I didn’t have any automations based on temp, but I don’t recall big gaps in the history data.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Took a little rework, but my controller is now handling a fair amount of devices. I have five more rad sensors to complete the complement! The subscription loop was getting stuck (poisoned) on ICD devices

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

So on the larger radiator, I can remove the top and hide the sensor cables inside! This is really tidy. A nicer antenna would be helpful, but good enough! This is really neat and tidy.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

That’s a good question. So far I see records being reported. Matter needs to update on a certain schedule. I’ll check the history being recorded.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

All my TIMMERFLOTES are in place. Five radiator sensors to make tomorrow and then I'm in business. I'd like to sort OTA too, so I'm not having to run around updating the sensors manually :)

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I had Claude make me up an Apple style video for one of my PCBs. It's actually quite good!

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

That’s 11 in total. IKEA, you’ve made a lovely product!

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Last TIMMERFLOTE is in position. Radiators sensors are next.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

What do people call their temp/humidity sensors? I’ve started using environment, but it feels clunky.

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Tomas McGuinness @tomasmcguinness.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I'm putting this adapter up for sale. Just waiting on approval from Tindie.

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