Local Monitor¶

Local Monitor is a solution for collecting data from heat pumps that are not connected to the internet. There are two possibilities of installing the Local Monitor:

Installing Local Monitor on a computer that is on the same network as the heat pumps
Installing Local Monitor as a standalone device.

Commission Local Monitor as follows:

Install Local Monitor on an existing computer or using a standalone device.
Connect to Local Monitor using OHCP.
Verify that Local Monitor collects data from heat pumps.

After collecting data for a while, there are two ways to have the data uploaded to Oilon Device Portal:

Uploading data by providing an internet connection
Uploading data by first downloading it to your laptop and uploading with OHPC.

Installing on an existing computer¶

Local Monitor can be installed on an existing computer on the same network with the heat pumps. Supported operating systems include Windows 32 and 64 bit, Linux 32, 64 bit, arm32, and macOS. Acquire a suitable installer package and install it in the computer like you would any software.

The installer will install a service that will automatically start when the computer starts.

On Windows, a firewall rule must be created to allow network access for Local Monitor.

Open the Windows Defender Firewall settings.
Click on Inbound Rules and on New Rule…

Select Program, and click on Next.

Browse to the Local Monitor installation folder, and select localmonitorsvc.exe. Click Next.

$Browse to Local Monitor\localmonitorsvc.exe$

Select Allow the connection, and click Next.

Select all boxes, and click Next.

Give a name for the rule, such as Local Monitor Service, and click Finish.

You must create an outbound rule as well by repeating the steps, but instead of creating a new Inbound rule, select Outbound rules from the menu on the left.

Installing Local Monitor as a standalone solution¶

Local Monitor can be provided as a standalone solution. Along with the software, a hardware package will be provided that can be place in the same network with the heat pumps. If possible, install the standalone Local Monitor unit inside the heat pump’s electrical cabinet.

Connect the Local Monitor unit to a 24 V DC power supply. You can use the 24 V DC supply of the heat pump. Alternatively, you can connect a 5 Volt 15 W power supply with a USB cable.
Connect an Ethernet cable between the Local Monitor unit and the heat pump’s Tosibox unit (or other suitable router). Use one of the LAN or service ports (not the WAN port) on the Tosibox unit.

Connect to the Local Monitor to OHCP¶

The steps for connecting Local Monitor to OHCP are the same regardless whether Local Monitor was installed on an existing computer on the using the standalone unit.

First, find out the IP address of the Local Monitor device.

Existing computer network settings¶

If installed in an existing computer, the easiest way to find out the IP address is to check it on the computer. Consult the operating system manuals if necessary.

Standalone network settings¶

The standalone solution is set to automatically use the following IP address settings:

10.20.30.240
10.0.0.240
192.168.0.240
192.168.1.240
172.16.0.240
IP provided by DHCP

Local Monitor will automatically select a suitable static network configuration. If a suitable static configuration is not found, use DHCP to acquire an IP:

Discovering Local Monitor IP using DHCP¶

To obtain an IP address for Local Monitor using DHCP:

Open the DHCP server admin console, and look for the IP of hostname local-monitor.
Use the Discover IP function in OHCP.

Use the Discover IP function as follows:

Connect you laptop to the same networks as the Local Monitor and heat pumps.
Set the gateway IP to the Local Monitor IP Address field in OHPC.

Click on the Discover IP button. The IP address of the local monitor should be discovered after a while.

If the function fails to discover the IP address, check the following:

Check if Local Monitor is turned on.
Check if Local Monitor’s Network connection is down. Check the network cables.
Check if your laptop’s network connection is down.
Check that your laptop is in the same network as Local Monitor.

Changing the IP address of Local Monitor in the heat pump automation system¶

By default, the heat pumps are configured to the IP address 10.20.30.240 for the Local Monitor. If any other IP address is used, update the address in the heat pump automation system.

Checking logs¶

After figuring out the IP address, check the connection by clicking on the Logs button. If the connection works, a list of logs should be shown.

Verifying that the Local Monitor is collecting data from the heat pumps¶

To verify that the Local Monitor is working and actually collecting data, check the logs for lines stating:

Successfully saved data for epoch...

If this text appears several times in the logs, the heat pumps are sending data to Local Monitor, and the data is being saved.
If you cannot see the text in the logs, the heat pumps are not sending data to Local Monitor.
If you see log lines with error messages instead of this text, the heat pumps are sending data but the system fails to save the data.

Uploading data by providing an internet connection¶

The easiest way to have the data uploaded from Local Monitor to Oilon Device Portal is by providing Local Monitor with an internet connection.

If Local Monitor is connected to a Tosibox (or any other router), provide an internet connection to the router. Local Monitor should automatically detect the internet connection and start sending data to Oilon Device Portal.

To verify that the data is being sent, connect to Local Monitor with OHPC, and check the logs for lines stating:

Successfully sent data for: ...

If these lines appear in the logs, the data is currently being transferred to Oilon Device Portal.
The time it takes to transfer the data varies based on the amount of collected data and the quality of the internet connection. 1 year of data for one heat pump takes approximately 4 GB of space.
You can see the timestamp of the data currently being transferred in the logs.

Uploading data by first downloading it to your laptop and uploading with OHPC¶

If you cannot provide an internet connection to Local Monitor, download the data onto your laptop.

Connect your laptop to the same network with the Local Monitor.
Open OHPC and click on the Unsent button.

All unsent data will be transferred from Local Monitor to your laptop. The target folder in your laptop is a subfolder local-monitor in the installation folder of OST.

Connect your laptop to internet.
Click on the Upload button. The data will be uploaded from your laptop to Oilon Device Portal.

Uploading data by manually moving the data to your computer¶

If you are not able to connect to Local Monitor, move or copy the data from Local Monitor to your laptop.

Move or copy the data to your laptop into a subfolder local-monitor/unsent in the installation folder of OST.

Example: if you have installed OST to a folder C:/Users/johndoe/OilonSelect, copy the data to C:/Users/johndoe/OilonSelect/local-monitor/unsent.

Connect your laptop to internet.
Click on the Upload button. The data will be uploaded from your laptop to Oilon Device Portal.

Changing the folders where data is stored¶

By default, the collected data is saved to folders C:\temp\local-monitor\unsent and C:\temp\local-monitor\sent.

To change the folder where the unsent and sent data is stored:

1. Edit the localmonitor.vmoptions and localmonitorsvc.vmoptions files found in the installation folder. Add the following lines:

-Doilon.odp.persister.unsentFolder=C:\local-monitor\unsent
-Doilon.odp.persister.sentFolder=C:\local-monitor\sent

Replace the folders C:\local-monitor\unsent and C:\local-monitor\sent with folders of your choosing.
Restart the Local Monitor.

Disabling RAM buffer¶

By default, the received data points are stored in a RAM buffer until 10,000 of them have been received. To have the data points stored to disk straight away, modify the localmonitor.vmoptions and localmonitorsvc.vmoptions files found in the installation folder.

Add the following line to both files:

-Doilon.odp.persister.bufferInMemory=false

Changing IP address of the standalone solution¶

The default IP Address of Local Monitor is 10.20.30.240.

To change the IP address of the standalone solution, start by logging in via SSH.

Set your laptop to use the same IP Address space, e.g. gateway 10.20.30.1, IP 10.20.30.241 and net mask 255.255.255.0.
Connect your laptop to the ethernet port of the Local Monitor.
Open an SSH connection with e.g. Putty to 10.20.30.240. Login with the user name ‘localmonitor’ and, contact Oilon to obtain the password.

After logging in:

Edit the /etc/dhcpcd.conf file.
Run the command nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf.
Add a new profile for the new IP address configuration, or edit old ones if an IP Address space of your requirements has already been defined.

If you add a new profile, an arping line must be added above as well. See the figure below.

Close the editor by pressing CTRL + X and y + Enter.
Reboot the Local Monitor by running reboot now or by power cycling it.

After the reboot, the new IP Address profile should be automatically used.