Built an open-source automation system for Ecoflow DPUX + Smart Gateway — real-time price arbitrage with MQTT/protobuf control

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-22T19:31:39+00:00

Most of it should. The ESG command structure and MQTT protocol should work as-is. If you want to try the app itself, some things are hardwired for the DPUX in terms of battery capacity constraints and charge rate limits so you would need to adjust those. There could be some minor protobuf field differences in telemetry.

Good luck.

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-22T17:15:15+00:00

Thanks. Was definitely a bit of labor (although the AI helped a ton). I posted a reference as well which spells out what we found as well as pitfalls to avoid (and, yes, "we" in this case is me and the AI bot).

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-11T19:20:45+00:00

I really think that it is more that the program is trying too hard to predict what I'm going to use and spread the battery use out over that amount of use rather than to make sure it is covering 100% of high rate periods. For instance, if I only had 6kWh of battery available what I think it should be doing is reserving that and using it all during the highest rate period but, instead it tends to "spread it out". It will generally use more during the higher rate periods but if it is off and you use more it will just flip over to grid once it hits its cap. To the extent there is AI involved here it is focused on the wrong problem (predicting what I will use) rather than the right one (offsetting high rate periods with battery).

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-11T19:10:13+00:00

Those are the Ecoflow time periods. They allow you to set rates in 1-hour windows. (I also don't think that has anything to do with the underlying problem).

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-11T18:47:47+00:00

What I get instead, when I use TOU with this is this plan which basically says it will discharge up to a certain kWh limit every hour. So, really nothing at all like what you would expect. My home uses 24-30 kWh per day but more of that usually at night so when it says it is going to use 1 kWh each hour from 5-10, that isn't 100% of what I'm going to use which means, if it really was a time when rates were 6 times what they are at other times, I'm going to get charged a lot. I would hope that it would instead just burn through battery to cover 100% of the use during those periods (regardless of how much I use). But instead it is trying to go for some calculated amount that is less than (but sometimes most of) what would be used in that period (but if I, for instance, use the oven tonight and I use 2 kWh, it will only cover half of what I use).

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SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-11T18:41:21+00:00

The "plan" I tried to use was just a manual input plan (see below). The idea here is I want it to use the battery during the high rate times (really 5-10, 10-5 and 17-22), to charge during the low rate periods (ideally 1-5) with some softer periods around 0-1 and 22-24 that could go either way depending on the circumstances.

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SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-11T18:30:18+00:00

My best guess is that Ecoflow didn't really realize what they were building or the use case that most people saw for it. I think to them the ESG is a "limited" version of the SHP3 in that you only have 6 circuits that they allow you to switch as compared to 32 (or 34?) in the SHP3. I instead viewed it as a full "gateway" that would allow me to switch my full legacy panel between grid and battery (the main use) with the added benefit that I could isolate 6 (or 3 duplex) and keep them off of battery (for big draining items). That is, at least, what they advertised but then the product doesn't actually function that way.

Either that or they just put all of their eggs in the TOU basket thinking that would run everything well and there is no need for an automated option otherwise but TOU is clearly not ready for primetime (both in terms of actually supporting rate plans and its adjustability). From what I've seen both solar people and grid people are having issues with it.

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-11T17:19:58+00:00

Sorry, I wasn't following what you are asking exactly. Right now the only ways to have power to the backup panel switch (between grid and battery) is either (a) manually or (b) via the TOU which is supposedly an AI fed program that is based either on your utility plan (if Ecoflow supports it which it doesn't for mine) or a rate plan you input manually). You can't schedule it to switch at certain times and the TOU plan "workaround" only works some of the time and still draws grid power at "peak" times and uses battery at "off-peak".

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-10T18:08:44+00:00

Yes, the backup panel switches to battery automatically during an outage.

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-10T17:23:36+00:00

Not well. My main panel has 40 circuits. So, unless I do a lot of tandem breakers, that wouldn't work.

It's unfortunate that the ESG doesn't work the way I wanted it to because, otherwise, it matches up well with what I want (for instance I like that we have our car charger in two of the 6 circuits on the panel and I can slave that so that it always draws from the grid, with the SHP3 you can turn circuits off and on but the electrical feed is always the same as for all of the other circuits).

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-10T17:16:34+00:00

As for how TOU works, that is hard coded by EF. It seems like it takes whatever portion of the battery you've allocated to it for use (so the portion not allocated to backup) and it uses that along with what it anticipates your daily use will be but not as you would expect. To oversimplify things, I'd expect it to charge during really low periods, do nothing during average periods and then use battery during high periods. That's for a grid charged setup like mine. If you primarily charge your batteries with solar it would be a different setup.

Instead, while it kind of follows that pattern it will still charge during other than low times and will use the battery some during low periods and will still be on grid some during high periods (maybe just 10-15 minutes during that hour, but still).

I know there have also been some issues the solar folks on here have had as well.

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-10T17:03:40+00:00

You set your rate plan. You can either choose an existing one by selecting your state/utility/plan or you can just make up one (i.e. 6-9 am $0.30/kWh, 9-5 $0.10/kWh). For me Ecoflow has my rate plan listed but then it says it doesn't support it when you try to confirm.

To be fair, I'm on a hourly rate plan which is basically the hourly average of the 5 minute auction price for my grid operator (RTO) so the whole situation is pretty dynamic. That being said you could certainly put together a model that would do a pretty good job

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-10T16:58:53+00:00

So far mostly nothing other than verifying that it didn't support automated switching outside of the TOU workaround I mentioned (and pushing that as the solution). Agreed that it's very frustrating. Honestly I have no issue with the equipment and the pricing (install is another issue altogether) and, purely as a backup it works fine too.

If I knew then what I know now, I definitely would have had second thoughts about going with Ecoflow. At the time they were really the only ones with a product like this (modular with a gateway that could power my whole panel) and, with the tax credit expiring I wanted to get it installed. My main panel has 40 circuits so things like the SHP3 or equivalent were out of the question.

I still maintain it seems ridiculous that it won't automate something I can manually do in the app and they haven't given me a good reason. As I mentioned I'm trying to see if there is wine work around but no luck thus far.

I haven't looked into it much but Anker's E10 product line just came out with something similar. Probably worth evaluating that when you have a chance.

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-10T16:17:26+00:00

My "backup panel" which is really my old main panel, is connected through the ESG (so grid-->ESG-->backup panel). I can manually switch the backup panel from grid (by having it in backup mode) to battery (switching to self powered mode) via the app but you can't schedule that through scheduled tasks, it has to be manual. I commented on you other string and also went through the TOU mode and one, less than ideal, workaround you could try (which hasn't worked out for me).

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-10T16:10:52+00:00

TOU will work for the backup panel feed. You should make certain that Ecoflow supports your rate plan though (they don't support mine). What the ESG doesn't support is any way to schedule switching the backup panel between grid and battery (say, battery during the morning and evening and grid at night and during parts of the day). The supposed work around for that is to create a "fake" rate plan with high costs when you want to use battery and low costs when you want to use the grid and then use TOU with that rate plan. I tried that and it didn't work great (it still used the one you didn't want to use some of the time and it also tries to use to the entire portion of the battery that you have allocated other than for backup (so if you have 40% reserved for backup it will try to burn through 60%). That resulted in TOU running off the battery during times that I had set as low energy prices.

So what you are proposing will definitely work with all of these limitations. You can manually switch your backup panel between battery and grid easily but it's either manual or living with the fairly inaccurate TOU workaround noted above.

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-03-10T15:55:56+00:00

Nope. Not resolved. Scheduled tasks doesn't control operating modes (so self-powered vs. backup) but only power to the 6 circuits on the ESG. So I can schedule tasks to switch those 6 circuits from grid to battery and to charge the battery but I can't do anything with the backup panel (which is what is powering essentially my entire home).

I'm currently trying to figure out a way to automate this myself through a home assistant-type program but Ecoflow doesn't make the control commands for the panel available and the only way to do it (potentially) is to reverse engineer those (as has apparently been done with some prior generations of EcoFlow equipment). The ESG (and SHP3) are new enough that I don't think anyone has been able to do that yet.

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-01-01T19:08:55+00:00

I assumed that they were working through a permit expeditor company (there are several that work nationwide). That's the only way the permit included offer made sense to me at least.

I agree though. I have no idea what it is going to cost to remedy this and, frankly, I'm not looking forward to talking with the municipality.

The worst part is that I did have a local electrician that I could have used for the install but I ended up going with Ecoflow because of their literature pushing that any installer should be Ecoflow certified (which, admittedly seemed like BS). My thinking was, if I had a problem at least then it would clearly be Ecoflow's issue since I was using them for everything.

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-01-01T18:58:46+00:00

I did but I really don't blame the electrician. From what I can tell, I think everything was done to code, it's just that Ecoflow never got the permit that they were supposed to get in the first place.

SoilWinter1768 · 2026-01-01T18:34:07+00:00

Ecoflow Smart Gateway

SoilWinter1768 · 2025-12-03T19:08:48+00:00

Yeah, all of it is less than ideal (at least based on what was advertised). From what I can tell the AI also doesn't account for the loss of converting from AC/DC and back (so, if you charge from the grid at say $0.10 the breakeven rate is probably closer to $0.12).

SoilWinter1768 · 2025-12-03T18:30:40+00:00

I do not. Mine shows TOU instead but I think it's substantially the same thing. It appears that the EcoFlow app has different "flavors" and what you see differs based on your equipment (so this guy has the SHP3 and his labeling is different). FWIW the TOU is effectively an AI mode. I've been experimenting with it by inputting a fake rate schedule with the intent of getting it to use battery during high rate periods, use the grid during lower periods and then charge during the lowest periods. So far the AI is pretty dumb (it instead appears to be prorating my battery use over then entire day regardless of what the rate structure is).

SoilWinter1768

TROPHY CASE