Update document to clarify API behaviour

[tropas2001]

Checklist

• I have filled out the template to the best of my ability.
• This only contains 1 feature request (if you have multiple feature requests, open one feature request for each feature request).
• This issue is not a duplicate feature request of previous feature requests.

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Please could you update the README to indicate the behaviour of the ecoflow API (not your app) so that users can expect certain datasets not to update. Essentially there are some data items that only appear to refresh values/update when the webapp is open or the mobile app is open. For instance mppPwr and sysGridPwr.

Describe the solution you'd like

update documentation

Describe alternatives you've considered

none

Additional context

none

[niltrip]

But for that, everyone has to help. I don't conduct such experiments in my setup anymore. My system has been delivering reliable values for 2 years (although I also have a PowerInsights running). Everything is okay for me. Anyone who has a new setup can gladly run it for a day without the app or web and report which values are missing.

[windmark]

(disclaimer: I have only recently gotten my Ecoflow PowerOcean Plus setup, so I'm only getting into this)

From my own initial testing, this does seem to be the case for the whole RE307_ENERGY_STREAM_REPORT (could be for other sections too). That reports an updateTime and I can see it stop refreshing when I close the web portal. Looking at the network traffic of the web portal, I can see it's sending various pings both over HTTP and MQTT (this is binary though so harder to inspect).

I thus have a feeling that the /provider-service/user/device/detail API that we're using isn't meant for a headless service like the home assistant integration. I just applied for my IoT account on the Ecoflow developer page, https://developer-eu.ecoflow.com/us/document/powerocean. I will see if that solves it and if so, one alternative could be to integrate the MQTT work by @infraspread infraspread@51db7fa

[tropas2001]

But for that, everyone has to help. I don't conduct such experiments in my setup anymore. My system has been delivering reliable values for 2 years (although I also have a PowerInsights running). Everything is okay for me. Anyone who has a new setup can gladly run it for a day without the app or web and report which values are missing.

Hey - I'm not complaining at all, I'm very grateful for your work - just suggesting a documentation update. happy to write it.

[tropas2001]

(disclaimer: I have only recently gotten my Ecoflow PowerOcean Plus setup, so I'm only getting into this)

From my own initial testing, this does seem to be the case for the whole RE307_ENERGY_STREAM_REPORT (could be for other sections too). That reports an updateTime and I can see it stop refreshing when I close the web portal. Looking at the network traffic of the web portal, I can see it's sending various pings both over HTTP and MQTT (this is binary though so harder to inspect).

I thus have a feeling that the /provider-service/user/device/detail API that we're using isn't meant for a headless service like the home assistant integration. I just applied for my IoT account on the Ecoflow developer page, https://developer-eu.ecoflow.com/us/document/powerocean. I will see if that solves it and if so, one alternative could be to integrate the MQTT work by @infraspread infraspread@51db7fa

when I played with the restapi, i found the same behaviour with the quota/all service. I wonder if people get different behaviour depending on their region, or a different powerocean device type.

[windmark]

when I played with the restapi, i found the same behaviour with the quota/all service. I wonder if people get different behaviour depending on their region, or a different powerocean device type.

That's so unfortunate :/ I got into Ecoflow knowing the drawback of a lack of local access, but thought at least we could rely on the cloud connection. I'm still waiting for API approval and will try it out as soon as I get access.

I wonder if Ecoflow cloud/app sends an MQTT message to the Inverter that activates the local->cloud sending. The rest API is then only retrieving the latest received value in the cloud. That sounds plausible to me, just annoying that Ecoflow hasn't documented this at all.

[niltrip]

(disclaimer: I have only recently gotten my Ecoflow PowerOcean Plus setup, so I'm only getting into this)

From my own initial testing, this does seem to be the case for the whole RE307_ENERGY_STREAM_REPORT (could be for other sections too). That reports an updateTime and I can see it stop refreshing when I close the web portal. Looking at the network traffic of the web portal, I can see it's sending various pings both over HTTP and MQTT (this is binary though so harder to inspect).

I thus have a feeling that the /provider-service/user/device/detail API that we're using isn't meant for a headless service like the home assistant integration. I just applied for my IoT account on the Ecoflow developer page, https://developer-eu.ecoflow.com/us/document/powerocean. I will see if that solves it and if so, one alternative could be to integrate the MQTT work by @infraspread infraspread@51db7fa

Did that work? I see he did something with protobuf. I didn't understand that back then or it was too complicated for me to break down the binary data.

[niltrip]

I have reactivated my approach for the ecoflow_cloud project once again. If anyone wants to try it out....https://github.com/niltrip/hassio-ecoflow-cloud

[n0n4m3d]

I downloaded it once. I was able to link my system via cloud. But the entities lack the memory charge and memory discharge.

For this purpose, grid reference and grid feeding are only updated once.

The solar production is updated more often but unfortunately not in the 5 seconds even though this is entered in the cycle.

[chrfritsch]

Hi,
I've a DC-Fit and I also only receive updates when I open the mobile app.
Today I tried to use the offical MQTT endpoint with this example https://github.com/Mark-Hicks/ecoflow-api-examples/blob/main/ef_api_mqtt_example.py and it looks like with MQTT I receive regular updates, not only when I open the App.

[DerHonigdealer]

I've also noticed this problem for a while.
sysGridPwr and sysLoadPwr, as well as a few other data, are only updated when I open the app. As soon as I close the app, nothing happens.

The system is a PO Plus.

[niltrip]

#6 (comment)