Go-E: sponsor token required

[andig]

With recent fix of #5119, sponsor token will now required for all Go-E chargers with the next release.

[pharao1234]

Only to use the phase switch or will it be required in general for my Go-echarger?
Right now only Gemini is listed to require sponsor token and v3 to allow switch of the phases 1/3?
I like to support this great project, just wondering...
Will my wallbox stop working with next update then?

[thebrainkafka]

Since the mentioned Update in general.

[thebrainkafka]

Got a great individual solution. Thanks

[RTTTC]

Why is a sponsor token now required for Go-E?

I do agree - some explanation of reasoning for this change seems due ?
Up to this point documentation said that Go-E does not need a sponsor token, so I am sure some users chose and purchased their EVCC hardware according to this promise, and have reasonable expectations because of that.

[menkej]

This is exactly what I did 3 weeks ago... :-(

[andig]

I find it confusing that people apparently spend a couple hundred Euros on hardware in the expectation that the evcc team will- for an indefinite period of time- continue to donate their spare time to constanly improve the software and fix bugs. Where does that expectation come from? What justifies that expectation?

[menkej]

Not sure if this is the expectation - at least it was not mine. In my case I bought my charger when the docs where saying it was supported without sponsoring and now it requires sponsoring. Bad timing for me but I would have bought that charger anyways.

Being an open source developer myself I know that you're spending a lot of time into your project and, especially when it comes to hardware support, it also means reasonable costs. So it is perfectly fine to ask for support! But what I find confusing, is that hardware providers have so little interest to support open source projects that make the best out of their products. I had the same experience in a different context.

I think the offering of one time as addition to monthly sponsoring is a good way. And stating clearly that free support for devices is the exception. And for now this is just the period of the change. Change is always difficult for people. ;-)

[oldgitdaddy]

I am also a bit surprised and also a bit upset. Of course the software is free and we know there is no free lunch. So everyone has to make a living. Still, restricting Go-e under sponsorship has been beyond my expectation. What will be next? Sponsorship for MQTT-support? This is a bit disappointing.

[andig]

I simply did 'apt upgrade' and my complete setup stopped working.

Regarding more mature release management that is of course desirable. We've made the conscious decision to stay at 0.x and hence break anything at any time. While we're trying to avoid that as much as possible (notice the large number of TODO remove deprecated comments in the code) it just saves efforts that we can better spend on features and- not to forget- community support.

[andig]

Thank you @oldgitdaddy for the detailed response and suggestions.

And definitely I would have reduced the possibility to SCALE. Scaling in this regard is limiting the number of chargers, the number of vehicles, etc as listed in the configuration.

Agreed. That however is a totally different topic from Go-E as it applies to all chargers. We'll likely revisit this at a later time.

[DanielGlaas]

I agree with the point of view of the developers, that the want to receive a vakue for their great work.
However, it is a bad style that the complete hardware is restricted with a simple version update. I simply did 'apt upgrade' and my complete setup stopped working. This is something which is definitly unexpectable from a users point of view.

@DanielGlaas how would you have suggested doing that instead?

I think it would be best to mark Go-E as deprecated without sponsor token in one version and remove the free usage in another one, maybe about two weeks later.

In detail:
The display to the user, that Go-E is deprecated could be done by using the messages log in the upper right corner of the GUI. Maybe doing it such that the warning about the deprecation is always the first to be displayed and that it always reapperas immediately after clearing the messages. In that way, the user would see for a longer period of time this warning and could think about what to do.

I'm aware that this is much effort, but maybe it is worth doing it like that for the next BRAKING change.
By this, lot of the discussions and anger in this thread that came up AFTER the update which lead to broken setups would probably/maybe have taken place before.

[DanielGlaas]

To be honest => It shall be obligatory to read Release Notes PRIOR to any upgrade! That's why they are delivered and yes, if you skip some versions you have to read through a couple of them. Even on official Software which costs hundred of Euros there might be some features removed/added/change (btw and off-topic Microsoft do this without official note, just for developers)

Do you really read ALL release notes when doing an apt upgrade on a Debian based OS?
I don't believe this, because there are so many packages with some of them are updated on a weekly base.

I had a stable working system for half a year with doing upgrades always weekly and never experiencing problems. Having an average user with a setup like me, do you really expect that all of them read release notes when doing apt upgrade?
May be this would be desirable form a developers point of view, but this is not realistic!

[andig]

I'm aware that this is much effort

Exactly. We can spend that effort or build new features.

Lets please be honest. The point people are making is that our efforts are not for free. The upgrade procedure is a minor nuisance. I‘ve explained where we are investing our time and why. We‘d rather invest in features and bug fixes.

If you want different feel free to do so. If you want professional release procedures please buy a professional EM. Then look at the price tag and reconsider. If you had a stable system that did everything you needed you should simply not have upgraded. When you upgrade you need to consider the upgrade path. With any software. If you want to discuss evcc releases please open a new discussion.

[andig]

After reading people are upset or pi*** after we have spent thousands of hours working on evcc I'm locking this thread. Will revisit at a later time.

[andig]

A different point of view #5244. Reopened.

[iot4all]

Go-e (and users) profit from costfree energy managment (EM) for a very long time (openWB, EVCC, Christians Android-App).
They promised an own EM, but nothing happens than selling cheap wallboxes without EM. Why?

EM is the really important software part for saving significant energy + costs. This takes thousands of hours on development.
So I'm with the EVCC-team - good choice for a more fair world.

[tmeidinger]

When I decided to support evcc in testing and fixing the go-e-API und BMW-API I did so because evcc was announced as free and open software for the ev community. To make the world a little better. I'm fine with sponsoring as a voluntary act. But as soon as sponsoring is made mandatory to use basic functions of the software it can IMHO considered as a monthly fee for a commercial software. If evcc would have started as commercial software from the beginning I wouldn't have participated at all.

[oldgitdaddy]

https://docs.evcc.io/docs/reference/api

Thanks for pointing it out. Then this should be promoted more centrally, as the perception of the developers is, that go-e API is the de-facto way of integration. It also should be included in the announcement, as this is a viable alternative for Open Source implementations. @steff393

[oldgitdaddy]

Still, the question remains, that there is no way to receive HTTP calls, which results in polling of EVCC. Right? Also how will phase switch be triggered?

[DerAndereAndi]

If I may chime in: It looks like you are coming from the EVSE development point of view. There is no de-facto way of integrating an EVSE into evcc. Today each EVSE uses its own API and evcc adopts that specific API. There are generic APIs like OCPP and EEBUS that are not EVSE and vendor specific. Nowhere in evcc it says or shows that the go-e implementation has a different state or recommendation than any other EVSE API implementation.

So if you are developing an EVSE, I personally would recommend not using another vendors API but use OCPP or EEBUS. But this is surely not the topic of this thread as it was written from an end user point of view. ;) Therefor I would recommend to start a new thread with your specific questions or join the Slack channel.

[andig]

Still, the question remains, that there is no way to receive HTTP calls, which results in polling of EVCC. Right? Also how will phase switch be triggered?

Please open a new discussion. Off-topic.

[premultiply]

Still, the question remains, that there is no way to receive HTTP calls, which results in polling of EVCC. Right? Also how will phase switch be triggered?

It really looks like you never read the documentation. :(

[Sputnik24]

2 € per month is a fair price, this is not the issue. Switching to a forces sponsoring (which isn't a sponsoring anymore) for all go-e users which might supposed to be the largest group of evcc users (just a guess) after many of them decided to use go-e on purpose because it works with evcc for free, is in fact not fair.

It would have been better and fair for all to make sponsoring mandatory for all users and reduce the prices.

[Caibuk]

What if evcc dropped support for go-e entirely because of high maintenance and user support costs and total lack of manfacturer support?

What would you've demanded then?

"It's unfair that you stopped supporting my shitty device in your free software that saved me a lot of money by providing easy means to charge as much from my PV as possible (and made my investment in renewable energies even more profitable)!"

I'm wondering where all this entitlement mentality comes from?!

[Schema-F]

I think a good way would have been to stay free for current users who made a decision for evcc an go-e based on the old documentation. And for new users there is the need for a sponsorship. So both sides could be happy?