Wattsonic and Loxone config examples

In the previous post I shared the Modbus registers that we can use to communicate with Wattsonic Hybrid Inverters. Now let’s show a few Loxone config examples to illustrate how the data can be visualized within the Loxone app.

Again, please bear in mind that what is/isn’t available and works or does not work today, must not be the truth for tomorrow. Things evolve pretty quickly so be prepared for changes.

The prerequisites are that you have Loxone Modbus extension up and running, and all HW wiring done properly to allow the communication between Loxone and the photovoltaic inverter.

The aim of this exercise is to show which Wattsonic Inverter modbus registers should be connected where to the inputs of Loxone blocks in order to get the data you might need. To make things a bit easier for you, I have a LoxPlan template that creates all inputs for you just with a simple import.

Once you download this template and unpack the ZIP, you can import the XML file into your Loxone config directly. To do so click on the Loxone Modbus extension in the left config tree, and in the ribbon click Device templates and Import template.

This will give you all the Modbus sensors from that device into the device tree. Now you can work with these as you want. The description and values that can be expected are listed in the Wattsonic Modbus protocol.

New Energy Flow Monitor block

With the recent update of the energy block, now called Energy Flow Monitor, things are a bit more complicated to set up, but the end result look gorgeous and provides much more value than the former Energy Monitor block. But let me show you both.

This block requires multiple structured sub-blocks to be configured, and then it uses the values to provide complete overview about the energy flow. For each item you need to have added specific meter. Typically, unidirectional meter for the energy coming from the PV system (solar), Meter for Storage to measure the battery status and bi-directional meter for the Grid (export or import of the energy). So the end result in Loxone config will look like this:

Which modbus registers do you need for these blocks?

• {Name of the register} {Address} - {Input LoxoneBlock}
• PV Input total power [11028] - Pf Solar Meter
• Battery_Power [30258] - Pf Battery Meter for storage
• SOC [33000] - Slvl Battery Meter for storage
• Total Power on Energy Meter [11000] - Pf Grid Meter BD
• Total Energy Purchased [31104] - Mrc Grid Meter BD
• Total Energy Injected [31102] - Mrd Grid Meter BD

All the values in this example are being provided by the Wattsonic Inverter via modbus interface. You could have additional meters in your setup for devices that do consume energy, like Wallbox, heater, etc. to get more granular visualization. Once you have that, Loxone Energy Flow Monitor block is where all these can be put together. Double-clicking on this block you can define the sources and select which block represents what type of device.

Once done, you will see the energy flow including detailed charts in the app.

Energy Monitor

If you want to use the older Energy monitor block (you can use both simultaneously, in case you have devices that do not support the newer block for visualization – like my old iPad), here are the key registers to be used. Again, the number in square brackets is the modbus register address:

• Total PV Generated Energy [31112] - Ptot
• PV Input Total Power [11028] - Ppwr
• Total Energy Purchased from Grid from Meter [31104] - Gi
• Total Power on Energy Meter [11000] (this needs to be converted to negative value) - Gpwr
• Battery_Power [30258] - Spwr
• SOC [33000] - SoC

Then the end result looks a bit simpler, but this block works on much older versions of Loxone Config and it is still present recently, so you can actually feed both of these and have the same data visualized both ways.

So this is just a basis tutorial how to visualize the basic info from your PV setup in Loxone. There are much more values you can work with, but most of you would want to see this I guess.

Sending commands to the Wattsonic inverter

The Modbus communication is bidirectional. So not only you can read values from the inverter (sensors) but you can also change some of the settings (actors). Again, i fully encourage to read the user manual to understand the meaning of the features that you can modify. The actors you have to create yourself based on the register you want to be able modify remotely.

The registers that can be changed are these marked as Read-Write (RW) and the list is here. Now to show an example about the usage let’s do a quick Loxone config allowing to change the Inverter modes.

For that I am going to use the radio-button block, which is a simple UI element that allows the user to choose from multiple options. I am going to list all the options there and associate each with the numerical value for the given register. Again, this is based on the protocol details for inverter working modes described in this table.

Wattsonic inverter operating mode - Modbus register 50000

The values for the given mode are:

257 General Mode
258 Economic Mode
259 UPS Mode

In the Loxone config in the Radiobutton block add these three modes. Based on the selection it will return values 1, 2 or 3. Select Rermanence there as well as Skip 0. The output N connects to input of a Status block.

If you want to be super finicky, you can also bring Working mode value from the inverter on another input of the Status bloc. This will help you visualize the actual Inverter status and the transitions.

The status block should be set like this. The first three lines are there for visualizing transitions between the statuses, the other three then to show the actual status of the inverter. The output value of the Status block defined in the last column is then being sent into AQ with the following settings:

This is the actor you need to create in under the Modbus tree / Wattsonic / Actors. Please make sure it is not Digital actor, this must be analog to be able to supply the given value, otherwise everything above zero will be represented as 1 which the Inverter won’t understand.

Now if you have this loaded into Loxone, you should be able to change the Inverter working mode via Loxone app, or if you do some more complex programming, by some additional logic. Please note: You won’t be seeing this propagated back in the Wattsonic Cloud app. This is where I spend half a day of investigating why the changes are doing nothing, until I physically came to the inverter with my laptop and saw that Inverter works fine and follows these changes, just the Cloud App does not. The mobile app still keeps the last known setting, as it was probably never designed to propagate changes from the inverter back to the cloud for these settings.

Logging status

One of the valuable things I have done myself is also to see some history of what has happened with the Inverter. So I have created a Tracker, and there I am putting changes that do happen on the register 10105 (Inverter Running status). I am parsing the value using Status block to make it more human understandable what is actually going on.

I do have tracker set on the Status block, so I am able to see what was going on and when. That is it for now, I will add few mode interesting examples probably later. If you have any comments of questions, please let me know below.