SolarBoss: Off-Grid Solar Power can give so much more
Use 5 Times the power!
Put your solar to work and use every Watt.
We all want modern conveniences: air con, pool, dishwasher, well pump, water heater, washing machine, electric kettle, coffee maker. Then there’s the iron, hairdryer, straighteners and don’t forget the microwave, toaster and coffee maker. What if you live off the grid? You can still have all the appliances, you just need a helping hand.
One little box to control them all
Having solar power is great. Often, though, it’s a problem to use all that free energy. Switching things on and off, remembering to spread the load and keeping a constant eye on the weather and the state of the batteries can be laborious and prone to errors.
Here is the answer: Meet SolarBoss.
SolarBoss switches your electrical devices according to the available sun and the charge of your batteries. Many things don’t need to happen at an exact time of day, some do. SolarBoss makes instant decisions to give you maximum ‘on-time’ for your appliances.
Smart Switches are a product of the Smart Home revolution. They switch your appliances using WiFi and can be automatically or manually controlled. You can have many more modern appliances that you probably thought possible on solar power. Air con, pool and well pumps and water heaters can be stopped while more immediate needs like coffee and microwave are needed and then restarted when the power is ready again. All without needing to plan or rush around switching things.
Sockets and wired adapters
The smart adapters can just plug in between plug and socket or they can be wired in as a permanent fitting.
You can see what’s happening and take control with your smartphone or computer and get lots of information on how your solar power has been used.
The Smart sockets not only switch things, they also know how much power is being used at any instant. Want to know when the washing cycle has finished? Want to plug in the iron or use that fancy new coffee machine? No problem!
How much of your solar power gets used?
Based on a fairly typical home installation of 3500 watts of solar panels, 700 Ah of batteries and a daily load of 3 kWh here’s the lost energy…
Hope you find that surprising. You could be using 5 times the energy that you use now. This house could use 15 kWh per day. That’s where the power for the air-conditioning, dishwasher, pool heating and more comes from. The missing piece is ‘Control’. SolarBoss ensures that you get the absolute maximum out of your solar investment. (You can follow the web link above the graph and calculate your own. It’s a respected site from the European Commission.)
Our Early Users Love it.
John: “We have a pretty typical solar setup. 3000 watts of panels and a 3KW inverter. We always had to be careful to check what was already on before we turned anything else on. This gadget just makes it all automatic and works unseen until you forget it’s there. Setting up was easy, even for a technical duffer like me and the company have been really helpful in explain things. Can’t imagine how we used to cope without it.”
Paul: “I never thought that we could consider Air Conditioning on solar power. Now we can be cool in summer and warm in winter. The cooler / heater takes about 900 Watts and comes on and off automatically, using power that would have been wasted. When we put the washing machine on, the air con stops for about 20 minutes as the water heats up and then carries on. It’s magic! We used to start the generator to do the washing, no more! and air con too. Very happy with this as we thought we needed to upgrade our power system to add more stuff. It has saved it’s cost many times over and is completely automatic.”
Karen: “Every day used to be a juggling act. Turn things off before turning others on and forgetting to turn the others back on. We used time switches for some things but you still have to remember what’s on and keep checking the sun hasn’t gone in. Now everything just happens and I don’t need to care. We are planning on getting a dishwasher – luxury. We will run it in the afternoon when the most sun is available and not much else is happening, can’t wait.”
Reviews
We are getting the word out and receiving really positive feedback.
What’s in SolarBoss?
The centre of SolarBoss is a small unit that clips onto your solar battery. It uses hardly any power and measures the battery voltage continuously. It knows when your battery is charging in the mornings and keeps the loads lower till the batteries are topped-up. You can still put the coffee on and microwave breakfast etc but the air con and pool will wait. If the sun goes in and the batteries are starting to drain then SolarBoss reduces the loads. The main unit has a clip to go on your ‘mains’ power cable, just like an energy monitor. This tells SolarBoss how much overall power is being used and prevents your inverter being overloaded. From this, and the battery voltage, SolarBoss knows how much extra power can be used.
SolarBoss uses WiFi. If you have WiFi installed then SolarBoss connects to it and the Smart Switches too. It can also be accessed (with security of course) over the Internet so you can keep an eye on things, and be told if there is a problem from anywhere. If you don’t have WiFi, SolarBoss can provide its own so that the Smart Switches can talk to it and for your smartphone access too. You won’t get Internet through it though!
Installation:
Just unpack and mount the main unit next to your inverter. Clip the ‘mains’ sensor onto the power cable where it leaves the inverter. Clip the power cables to the battery connections, at the inverter if more convenient and the unit will start up and show a steady light until it’s ready. When it flashes slowly it’s asking to be configured by your smartphone or computer. You can connect to the device and go through the simple setup wizard. Next, plug in the smart sockets and they will automatically set themselves up. When each socket is ready it will blink the LED and appear on the web screen to let you know.
From then till Now:
It has been an interesting journey over more than 3 years. We investigated a number of technologies and discarded them when better alternatives arose. We wanted to use ‘standard’ hardware wherever possible and found a variant of the hugely popular Raspberry Pi to suit us perfectly. This tiny computer board has lots of power, WiFi and all the interfaces we needed. It also has unmatched software support and we could be confident that the modules we needed were well proven and reliable. We have designed a second board to handle the power and voltage measurement and the clip-on mains power sensor.
One significant challenge was the smartphone interface. It seems a disadvantage to need a special ‘app’ to access SolarBoss and so we have decided to keep all the intelligence in the box. This means that a standard web browser is all you need to access SolarBoss from phone or computer with no special add-ons at all.
We found that the standard Smart Socket software was not up to the task and so we have rewritten this completely. The original software needed a smartphone app to configure and this in turn connects to Far East web servers, something we were not happy with. Our new software is fully self-contained and can be updated if needed ‘over-the-air’ from the main unit if you have an Internet connection.
Still to do:
While we are very happy with the hardware and software progress, there’s still much to do. We have finished the main enclosure design have made an initial run. If all goes to plan we will commission injection moulds for higher numbers. Hardware design is complete and initial productions of the PCBs has been successful. There are great plans for extending the connectivity with Alexa, Google Home and others. We will expand the range of Smart Sockets and Switches to work with SolarBoss. We still have final packaging and documentation to finish and we need more work on our website and support / discussion forum. We are also working on more stats on power usage and also on battery condition. We can tell you a lot about how well your solar system is working. There will be downloadable updates when good new stuff is added which we will strive to make as easy as possible. We have a supply chain being formed and have power sockets for US, EU and UK formats. You will receive the sockets based on delivery address or your choice. We firmly believe that the ongoing risks are very low. The system is working very well and the remaining issues are in logistics, packaging and delivery.
Timeline:
September 2019 Designs and Prototypes Finalised
October 2019 Initial enclosures produced
December 2019 Certifications Verified
January 2020 Production of first units
February 2020 Final testing
March 2020 Prepare Crowdfunding Proposal
May 2020 Launch
The Team:
Peter Mounsey is the original driving force behind the project. A very experienced computer and electronics engineer, Peter lives in an off-grid home and has developed related technology for over 20 years. He has run several tech companies and understands the challenges.
Matt handles our business and finance matters. A qualified ICSA university lecturer, Matt is very capable at handling the contractual, certification and legal matters.
Nigel has designed small, highly functional electronics devices for many years and knows the Pi system inside-out.
Mark has his own successful electronic manufacturing business and has given much time and expertise in helping get the design and structure right.
Peter also has fully automated houses in the UK and Spain. His designs for home automation are famous in the field and he just loves solving problems.
Rienko was our first beta-tester and a co-opted team member. His off-grid home bristles with high power appliances and, fortunately, he is an accomplished engineer also. His feedback and knowledge has been, and is invaluable.
We have developed close relationships with our PCB and enclosure designers and are hugely grateful for the extra miles they have put in.
How can you help?
Backers: Here are your Rewards
The income from crowdfunding is a huge help in moving from ideas to products and we are super-grateful for all the encouragement that has poured in. Thank you all.
Pledge £299 and you will receive a complete SolarBoss with 3 Smart Sockets in US, UK or EU format. We are pitching retail prices at £499 so it’s a massive saving.
This offer is limited to 200 as our very first production run.
Pledge £369 and get SolarBoss with 5 Smart Sockets and 1 wire-in adapter. That’s over £600 value.