mqtt.py said the P1 age entity "must be exactly sensor.p1_sample_age_s, because SAFETY-01's firmware watchdog subscribes to that literal id", and main.py:340 repeated it. Both are wrong, and wrong in the direction that disarms a safety layer. On HA 2026.8 object_id in a discovery payload does not determine entity_id. HA composes it from the device name plus the entity name, so this one is sensor.goodwe_p1_sample_age. That is what the firmware subscribes to, that is what exists on the live system (verified 2026-08-26), and the firmware's own comment records that sensor.p1_sample_age_s never existed on any HA. The hazard is not the stale name itself, it is that two shipped artefacts disagreed about a safety-critical id while sounding certain. A reader who trusted these comments would have "corrected" the firmware to a name that resolves to nothing - and the failure is silent, because has_state() simply stays false forever and the ingest guard never arms. The firmware calls that out as the shape that FAILS SILENTLY AND LOOKS CORRECT. The comment now says what actually determines the id, and states plainly that renaming the device or the entity's friendly name changes the composed id and disarms the guard. It also cross-references TEL-06, since the guard reads this sensor's value rather than its arrival and so cannot fire for a dead publisher. Found in a backlog audit, as the substance behind PKG-02's premise: the real coupling between firmware and add-on is names, not versions. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Du77usMj8XNKNFZGmUiWDa
GoodWe RS485 Controller — Home Assistant add-on repository
Replaces a GoodWe battery inverter's vendor controller with a local one: holds net grid exchange at zero by emulating the inverter's smart meter over RS485, and runs the monthly battery maintenance cycle the vendor box was doing.
repository.yaml add-on repository metadata
goodwe_controller/ the add-on
config.yaml manifest + options schema (the per-site config form)
app/ the controller
control.py the control law — pure functions, no I/O
maintenance.py the monthly cycle state machine
hass.py Supervisor/Core API access
store.py persistent state in /data
mqtt.py optional status entities
web.py ingress UI
main.py orchestration, heartbeat, failsafe behaviour
test_control.py runnable checks — no framework needed
test_maintenance.py runnable checks — walks a full cycle in fake time
DOCS.md the add-on's documentation tab
firmware/goodwe-master.yaml ESPHome config for the T-CAN485
estop/rs485_log.py optional RS485 e-stop / bus witness
docs/GoodWe-RS485-Field-Guide.pdf the guide techs carry (10pp, A4)
docs/build_guide.py its single source - rebuilds the HTML and PDF
FIELD-GUIDE.md how to edit and rebuild the guide
Picking this up after a break? Read HANDOVER.md first — current state,
what is known broken, and what to do next.
Install
Settings → Add-ons → Add-on store → ⋮ → Repositories → add
https://gittea.kammenstraatha.duckdns.org/admin/goodwe-addon
then install GoodWe RS485 Controller.
⚠️ The repository must be PUBLIC for this to work. Home Assistant clones it
anonymously; against a private repo the store shows nothing and gives no useful
error. If it must stay private, install locally instead: copy
goodwe_controller/ into the machine's /addons/ folder, then
ha store reload — it appears as a Local add-on.
⚠️ Bump version: in goodwe_controller/config.yaml for every change.
Supervisor keys the built image by that version, so without a bump it silently
reuses the old image and your fix appears not to work — on your bench and on
every client's machine.
Requires Home Assistant OS or Supervised. Add-ons cannot be installed on HA Container or Core.
Read this first
The inverter holds its last command forever. It has no meter-timeout of its own — a controller that dies mid-command leaves the battery running until a human intervenes. Measured on real hardware: 5 kW of discharge held for 113 seconds after a controller went silent.
Three layers exist because of that, and only the third covers the Home Assistant machine itself dying:
- ESP32 watchdog — no fresh setpoint for ~30 s → command 0 W, and keep commanding it.
- Wind-down before firmware updates — 0 W written before the update starts.
- RS485 e-stop (optional) — writes 0 W after 30 s of total bus silence.
Sites sold without the e-stop must have the acknowledgement in FIELD-GUIDE.md
§10 signed.
Development
The control law and the maintenance machine are pure Python with no Home Assistant imports, so they run anywhere:
cd goodwe_controller
python3 test_control.py
python3 test_maintenance.py
Both must pass before shipping any change. They are not unit-test theatre —
each assertion corresponds to a rule whose absence produced an observed failure
on real hardware, and the comments in control.py say which.
Compatibility
Check the serial number, not the model name. Characters 6-8 of the serial are the platform tag:
| tag | platform | verdict |
|---|---|---|
ESU EMU ESA BPS BPU EMJ IJL |
105 — ES/EM/BP, AA55-era meter bus | supported |
SPB SPN |
745 — SBP G2 (GW…-SBP-20) |
no |
ESN ESC |
745 — ES G2 (GW…-ES-20) |
no |
ETU EHU BTU … |
205/745/753 — ET/EH/BT hybrids | no |
SDT DST MSU NSU … |
PV-only inverters — no battery to control | no |
A "-20" or "G2" suffix means a different platform with a different meter
protocol. The tags come from the goodwe library's PLATFORM_105_MODELS, which
is also what Home Assistant's own integration uses to pick a protocol.
- GoodWe ES / BP family inverters (AA55 / RS485 meter-bus generation)
- The protocol is reverse-engineered. There is no vendor contract, and a firmware change on GoodWe's side could break every installation at once. Say so when you sell it.