Zero-UI
← Back to docs/Energy Plan – Zero-UI Home Automation (2025)

Energy Plan – Zero-UI Home Automation (2025)

Purpose

Use energy awareness to quietly optimize comfort and cost without nagging or oscillation. Comfort wins over minor savings.

Desired Outcomes

  • Local awareness of grid/generator/solar state and basic costs
  • Gentle optimizations (scheduling, setpoint nudges) without user-visible thrash
  • Silence by default; alerts only when truly actionable
  • Safe behavior when data is missing or stale

Signals

  • Primary: utility power state (grid up/down), generator status, inverter/solar data (local polling), whole-home power draw
  • Secondary: utility rates (if available), weather for extreme temps
  • Derived: available capacity, trend (charging/discharging), “expensive vs cheap” periods

Core Behaviors

  • Comfort guard: prevent over-cooling/heating when grid constrained; nudge setpoints gently, with ceilings/floors
  • Pre-warm/pre-cool during cheaper/abundant windows (operator-configurable)
  • Generator awareness: if on generator, back off noncritical loads; keep comfort; avoid cycling
  • EV/large loads: schedule/pause when capacity low; resume when available
  • No rapid toggling—changes are infrequent and deliberate

Off/On Logic

  • Setpoint nudges only; no aggressive swings
  • Minimum dwell times between adjustments; no oscillation
  • Manual override respected; do not fight operator adjustments

Notifications

  • Allowed when actionable: generator failed to start; inverter offline unexpectedly; grid down + load shedding active
  • Rate-limited and suppress repeats
  • No “FYI” energy alerts

Fail-Safes

  • Data stale/missing → freeze actions; default to comfort-preserving mode
  • Internet/utility API down → ignore rates; run local-only behaviors
  • HA/MQTT restart → no oscillation on startup; honor last-known safe setpoints

Rollout / Testing

  1. Observe: log energy states/decisions only
  2. Assist: suggest/present planned setpoint nudges; no automation
  3. Apply: enable gentle nudges with dwell and backoff

Naming Examples (one job per automation)

  • energy.grid.detect_outage
  • energy.generator.guard_comfort
  • energy.hvac.nudge_on_rate_window
  • energy.ev.defer_on_high_load