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Connecting your house battery

Duracell, Dura-i account (recommended): sign in with your inverter serial number and Dura-i password; nothing to install at home, and IonVolt can change the work mode, grid charging, the charge and discharge times, battery limits, export and the backup output, reading every change back. No Dura-i account? Create a free one in the Dura-i app (Register); if it asks for a password for an existing account, ask your installer or call Duracell Energy support on 0808 281 2855. Duracell Energy app: sign in with your Duracell Energy app email and password; IonVolt shows live data, history and alerts and can change Power Cut Mode and the charge and discharge schedules. Everything else needs Dura-i, and you can switch at any time in Settings, House battery, where IonVolt adds your house battery to your Dura-i account for you. FoxESS account: paste the API key from your FoxESS account (foxesscloud.com, User Profile, API Management, or API Keys on the Open Platform site); nothing to install at home, and IonVolt can change the work mode, battery limits, grid charging and the schedule, reading every change back. The key is shown in full only once, so copy it straight away; generating a new one cancels the old one. Raspberry Pi at home: a small program called IonVolt Bridge runs on a Raspberry Pi on your Wi-Fi and talks to a Duracell battery directly, so every setting is available.

GivEnergy account: make an API token at givenergy.cloud (account settings, API Tokens) and paste it in the app. GivEnergy's API needs its Premium subscription; without it the app says so. IonVolt can change the work mode, grid charging, the charge and discharge windows and the battery reserve, reading every change back. EV chargers: Hypervolt (sign in with your Hypervolt account) or a myenergi Zappi (hub serial number and the API key from myaccount.myenergi.com, Products, your hub, Advanced). With a charger linked IonVolt knows exactly when the car is charging; with a Zappi it can also change the mode, boost and the minimum green level.

AlphaESS account: register at open.alphaess.com, bind your system with its serial number and check code, and enter the App ID and App Secret in the app; IonVolt can change grid charging (two windows and a stop level) and discharging (two windows and a floor). SolaX Cloud: the token from solaxcloud.com's API page plus the Wi-Fi dongle's registration number; SolaX Cloud is read-only, so IonVolt shows everything and changes nothing. For full control, use IonVolt Bridge with your SolaX. More chargers: Ohme, Wallbox, Pod Point and Easee sign in with the maker's app account on your phone (the password goes only to the maker); IonVolt follows the car, can stop and start a charge, set Ohme's smart/max mode or Pod Point's charge now, and set Wallbox's or Easee's current limit. These makers have no public API, so IonVolt uses the same calls as their own apps, which can change without notice.

FoxESS allows 1,440 calls a day per inverter. IonVolt reads live data every two minutes and settings every ten, which uses about 1,000 of them, so FoxCloud and other integrations keep working alongside. If the limit is reached, IonVolt pauses for an hour and carries on.

Local hub (Raspberry Pi) setup, step by step

A local hub runs IonVolt on your own network: a Raspberry Pi at home talks to your Duracell battery directly, and your phone talks to the Pi on your home Wi-Fi. No battery maker's cloud is involved, and readings, changes and your automations keep working when the internet is down. Away from home, the Pi keeps IonVolt's server up to date so the app works anywhere.

What you need: a Raspberry Pi (Zero 2 W, 3, 4 or 5) with its power supply, a microSD card of 8 GB or more, and the inverter's Wi-Fi dongle on the same network as the Pi.

The easy way: IonVolt's ready-made card

1. Write the card. On a computer, install Raspberry Pi Imager. In the IonVolt app, under Ready-made card, tap Download the Pi Card, or Send These Steps to Your Computer to download it there (the link lasts 15 minutes; more). In Imager choose your Pi model, then Choose OS, Use custom and the file you downloaded, then your card. If the Pi won't have a network cable, choose to edit settings when Imager offers and enter your Wi-Fi name and password; leave everything else. Write the card.
2. Start the Pi. Put the card in, connect the network cable if you're using one, plug in the power and wait about three minutes. It looks for your inverter by itself.
3. Pair it. On your phone, on your home Wi-Fi, open IonVolt: Connect your house battery, On your own network (or Settings, Integrations, House battery, Local Hub or Add a Local Hub). Under Ready-made card tap Find My Bridge, then Pair This Bridge. Allow IonVolt to find devices on your local network when asked.
4. Done. The app shows the hub running within a minute. It updates itself overnight.

How it's doing: from a computer on the same network, open http://ionvolt-bridge.local. It says whether the bridge is paired, whether it has found the inverter and whether it's connected to IonVolt. It shows no keys and can't change anything.

Pairing is open for an hour after the Pi starts. If the app says pairing is closed, unplug the Pi for ten seconds, plug it back in and try again. A bridge that's already paired can't be taken over by another account; to give a Pi to someone else, write the card again.

If it can't find the inverter: your router's device list shows the Wi-Fi dongle's address (it often appears as "Espressif" or the inverter maker's name). Once the hub is running, enter it in the app's set-up guide under Your inverter.

Advanced: install it yourself

For a Pi or any always-on Linux computer you already run.

1. Put the system on the card. In Raspberry Pi Imager choose your Pi model, then Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit), then your card. When it asks to customise settings: hostname ionvolt-bridge, a username and password, your Wi-Fi name and password, and under Services turn on SSH. Write the card and start the Pi.
2. Open a terminal to it. On a Mac open Terminal, on Windows open PowerShell, and run ssh USERNAME@ionvolt-bridge.local with the username you chose.
3. Run the installer. In the app's set-up guide choose Command line, tap Install on Your Own Pi, then Copy Command. Paste it into the terminal and press Enter within 15 minutes (tap New Command for a fresh one after that). It installs IonVolt Bridge with its local hub, finds your inverter on the network, and starts it as a service that runs whenever the Pi is on. Add --auto-update to have it update itself overnight like the ready-made card.

If it can't find the inverter, run the app's command again with the dongle's address on the end: ... --inverter 192.168.1.50. To see what the bridge is doing: journalctl -u volt-bridge -f. To stop it: sudo systemctl stop volt-bridge.

To update it (the app says when there's a new version), copy the update command the app shows under Update available and run it on the Pi within 15 minutes. It keeps your key, inverter address, history and automations. A Bridge set to update itself (--auto-update, and every ready-made card) needs nothing from you: it proves it's paired with your account and fetches its own update.

Only one program can talk to the dongle at a time. If something else polls it (a Home Assistant integration, say), stop that first.

A SolaX on the IonVolt Bridge

Works with SolaX. IonVolt Bridge gives a SolaX full control: work mode (Self Use, Feed-in Priority, Back-up and Manual), the two charge and two discharge times, grid charging, each mode's battery levels and the export limit, plus the car guard, Smart charging and Free Power. In the app choose SolaX, then IonVolt Bridge on your home network (full control). SolaX Cloud stays available as the view-only choice.

Which models: IonVolt changes the SolaX X1-Hybrid G4, X3-Hybrid G4 and the G4 Fit (AC-coupled). It reads other SolaX models through the Bridge too (X1-IES, X3-IES, X3-Ultra and older hybrids) but doesn't change them until a tester has confirmed it's safe.

How the Pi reaches the inverter, one of:

• Pocket WiFi 3.0 dongle (easiest). The dongle most G4 inverters came with answers Modbus on your network (port 502) once it's on firmware V3.004.03 or newer. Put it on the same Wi-Fi as the Pi; the Bridge finds it by itself. A Pocket LAN dongle doesn't do Modbus.
• An RS485 adapter wired to the inverter's COM port. A USB to RS485 adapter on the Pi (one with an FTDI FT232RL chip, about £15), with pin 4 of the COM port to the adapter's A and pin 5 to B (the blue and white-blue wires of a network cable). Set it up with the Command line install and add --serial /dev/ttyUSB0 to the end of the command. Already running a Bridge? Copy the update command the app shows and add --serial /dev/ttyUSB0 to its end.

The inverter's own Advanced settings, Modbus should be address 1 and, for RS485, 19200 baud (SolaX's defaults).

Safety. Only an installer should open the inverter or wire its COM port, with the inverter switched off at its AC and DC isolators first. Changing your inverter's settings over Modbus is at your own risk: check your SolaX warranty, and with your installer, before you connect the Bridge. SolaX keeps settings in memory that wears with use, so IonVolt only writes what changes, reads every change back, and limits how often each setting can change.

Changes don't take effect

IonVolt reads every change back from your house battery. If a value doesn't stick, the app tells you and shows what it really has. Changes are off until you turn on Allow changes in Settings.

Forgotten password

On the sign-in screen tap Forgot password?. We email you a six-digit code.

Deleting your account

In the app open Settings, then Account, then Delete account. Your account, house battery link and all stored history are deleted straight away.

Contact

Email hello@ionvolt.app, or use Send Feedback in the app's Settings.