Question concerning the hub and Hilo products

[accedic]

Hi All,
So i was interested in maybe using the hydro plan to replace all my thermostats and i'm all in about saving power. But i'm not so down having the hub performing outbound calls and feeding data to a company even if it is hydro quebec.
So my question is, Can all of this still run if i block all out bound traffic to Hilo/Hydro Quebec servers?

I looked in the FAQ and ect, and i dont have my hands on a device to run tests. You can see i'm a privacy advocate and have problems with anything that i cant run stand alone on my own infrastructure. We can save power without having the relay information to servers outside our control. Yes hydro already does have my personal information.. But i feel like them knowing my heating habits or when a light switch is on or off in my house is kind of invasive and i dont see the need for them to know, as they already know enough. Even if its just energy habits, its too much. We all know that Data is the new oil.... and i wont be giving any data up for free... if they want my data ... they need to pay me... and i feel that basic devices like this, even if free... are not worth a permanent feed of my data.

So is there anyway to run the hub in a standalone mode? Can i block outbound traffic and continue using all the available features?

Thanks in advance.

[fersingb]

Hello,

Technically you can control the thermostats locally using something like home assistant and a zigbee controller.

However, you might want to check the contract. I'm not sure anymore, but you might be required to keep your thermostats paired to the hub for the first year. Don't quote me on this though.

[ic-dev21]

You can put the thermostats on your own zigbee stick and only run the hub as it is needed for telemetry and receiving notifications for events.

I'm no lawyer so don't take what I'm writing here for granted.

Point 1.2.4 of the contract:

1.2.4 Have a high-speed Internet connection and a functional wireless network (such as Zigbee, WiFi or other wireless networks) covering all Connected Devices.

You comply to this with your own stick and an internet connection.

And here:

1.3.1 For the Smart Solution for Heating, the Dwelling must be equipped with electric heaters controlled by
functional connected thermostats that are compatible with the Smart Solution for Heating
(and displayed as such on the Website) throughout the entire Agreement.

I daresay putting them on your own zigbee hub does not render them incompatible, they could very well be paired again to the Hilo hub.

A lot of people I know put their thermostats on their own zibgee network as soon as the electrician walked out the door. The point of Hilo is to flatten the electricity demand, how you achieve that is largely irrelevant to HQ's goal.

Regarding communication from the hub, it's not all that talkative honestly, I've monitored it some. It basically only reports the necessary information for display in the app, namely the smart meter's current power, setpoints and current temperatures of all thermostats and their current power draw. Some of that information HQ already has regardless as your smart meter is monitored at all times anyway.

You do you.

With that said, I'm moving this over to discussions as this isn't an issue with the custom component per se. Cheers!

[accedic]

First off i want to thank you for taking the time to respond. And thanks @ic-dev21 for moving the conversations. I should of thought about discussions first, that's my bad. So for you guys that have these and the hub, this is only for telemetry purposes and they dont decide to bring down your heater remotely? I do want to help and save power, for the sake of saving power. But saving power so they can sell it cheaper to the US is pretty "meh" if i can put it this way. But that's a whole political conversation and has nothing to do with this. Do we know if it speaks with the mesh zigbee network they put in the smart electricity counters?

I know most of you probably reversed engineered this a bit for the sake of home assistant, but was wondering if more reversing was done on a broader level than just getting them to work with home assistant?

[ic-dev21]

First off i want to thank you for taking the time to respond. And thanks @ic-dev21 for moving the conversations. I should of thought about discussions first, that's my bad. So for you guys that have these and the hub, this is only for telemetry purposes and they dont decide to bring down your heater remotely? I do want to help and save power, for the sake of saving power. But saving power so they can sell it cheaper to the US is pretty "meh" if i can put it this way. But that's a whole political conversation and has nothing to do with this. Do we know if it speaks with the mesh zigbee network they put in the smart electricity counters?

I know most of you probably reversed engineered this a bit for the sake of home assistant, but was wondering if more reversing was done on a broader level than just getting them to work with home assistant?

I'm not overly sure I understand the question. Saving electricity is not for the sake of reselling it but for the sake of not buying it from Newfoundland and Ontario. HQ's network has a total nominal capacity of 37 200MW. Realistically, the whole production capacity isn't 100% available, 100% of the time. They'll call an event when they expect to reach or exceed that capacity. See below for the last event that occured yesterday morning:

The power meter's zigbee network is on a separate network, antenna and protocol (Zigbee SEP) and encrypted, so realistically you're not going to be able to get a reading in another manner than the Hilo hub.

The custom component actually mimics having the app open at all times, server side that's what Hilo sees. There is no reverse engineering of the hub going on.