Smart Switch

A field-deployable controllable switch that decides on local data, mesh data, web data, or weather — and tells you whether the load it’s driving is actually working.
Tags:
Categories:

The OGLAS Smart Switch is the active end of the network. Where the other sensors measure and report, the Smart Switch acts — turning a load on and off based on conditions you’ve defined, and reporting back not just whether it switched but whether the load is actually working.

What it does

A Smart Switch decides whether to be on or off using one or more of:

  • Power-management data — reads incoming watts, battery state, and load from a power-management sensor (e.g. Victron MPPT). Run the relay on stable solar surplus.
  • Sensor data — subscribe to readings from other OGLAS sensors. Tank dropped below 200 mm? Soil moisture below threshold? Battery bank above 90 %? React.
  • Web / API data — when Wi-Fi is available, pull from a local server, MQTT broker, or HTTP endpoint. Used for off-property triggers that need external data.
  • Weather data — forecast and current conditions from a weather API. “Run only when the next 6 hours are clear” is one rule that uses this.

Multiple inputs combine with AND/OR rules in the device config. None of this requires a cloud account — see Your data is your data.

Common deployments

  • Water pump on solar surplus — only run the pump when the MPPT is producing more than the rest of the load needs and the destination tank isn’t already full.
  • Generator starter — battery bank below 30 %, weather forecast says no sun for two days, and it’s between 9am and 5pm? Start the generator. Run for at most two hours, max once per day.
  • Charge controller for opportunistic loads — divert excess solar to an immersion heater, tool-battery charger, or pre-cooling a fridge.
  • Irrigation on dry soil + good weather — soil moisture below threshold and sun forecast for the next four hours.
  • Frost protection — temperature dropping below 2 °C, fans on.
  • Site equipment — a yard load (charger bank, extractor, compressor) on a schedule or a sensor condition, with current sensing to confirm it actually ran.

What it measures

A Smart Switch is also a sensor — when it’s switching a real load, it measures what’s happening:

  • Current — is the pump actually drawing power, or did the contactor weld and the motor’s seized?
  • Voltage — supply voltage at the load, not just at the panel.
  • Faults — over-current, under-voltage, no-current-when-on, current-when-off.
  • Duration — accumulated runtime per day, per week, per session.
  • Power usage — energy consumed, integrated locally and reported.

Alerts you get

Both directions matter:

  • Failure alerts — “supposed to be on, no current detected” — the pump didn’t start, the contactor didn’t pull in, the load is open-circuit.
  • Working alerts — “pump just turned on for the third time today” — useful for confirming an irrigation cycle ran without you having to drive out and check.
  • Threshold alerts — runtime exceeded daily budget, current spiked above expected, fault counter incremented.
  • No-stop alerts — “should have turned off ten minutes ago, still on” — guards against the relay sticking closed.

Logging

Every switch action plus the measured load conditions is logged to the hub as a regular sensor reading. Over time you get:

  • A timeline of when each switched load ran.
  • Power usage per load — useful for identifying the energy hogs.
  • Fault history — “this contactor has welded twice in three months, time to replace it”.
  • Cost per cycle — energy used × your power cost, on each run.

Hardware

The Smart Switch includes:

  • Relay output — solid-state or mechanical, sized for the load. Multiple outputs on larger variants.
  • Current sensor — integrated, to measure whether the load is actually drawing power.
  • Voltage sensor — supply voltage at the load.
  • Long-range radio for comms back to the hub.
  • Wi-Fi for web / API / weather inputs (when available).
  • Bluetooth for direct Victron MPPT reads.

The Smart Switch runs from the same supply as the load it’s switching (or a separate aux supply for cleaner sensing).

Pairs well with

  • Water Trough — trough drops, Smart Switch turns on the pump that fills it.
  • Tank level — tank low, pump on; tank full, pump off.
  • Vehicle Track — Vehicle Track flags low generator hours since service, Smart Switch refuses to auto-start it until you’ve serviced it.
  • Power management — see solar production and Smart Switch action on the same dashboard.
  • Bell — failure alert rings the homestead bell.

Building this into a larger site? That’s exactly what we do — start a custom build or email us.