Understand energy monitoring and OctoMonitor terminology

Power is the rate at which energy is being transferred at a moment, normally shown in watts (W) or kilowatts (kW).

A power reading is not accumulated energy, cost, savings, or proof of what happened between recorded samples.

Energy is an amount accumulated over time, commonly shown in watt-hours (Wh) or kilowatt-hours (kWh).

A kWh estimate depends on sample timing and data completeness and is not automatically a billing-grade meter total.

State of charge is the device-reported estimate of how full a battery is, usually expressed as a percentage.

State of charge is not battery health, state of health, remaining capacity, degradation, or a guaranteed runtime forecast.

Solar or PV input is the power a supported device reports receiving from its photovoltaic input channel or channels.

It is a device-side reading, not a certified panel-output total, and channel availability can vary by model and firmware.

AC input is alternating-current power entering a device boundary, while AC output is power leaving that device toward supported loads.

The labels describe direction at the device and do not by themselves prove whole-property grid import, export, or consumption.

For PowerStream data, gridInputWatts represents reported grid input while invToGridWatts represents inverter output toward the home or grid-side AC path.

Inverter output is not utility-grid export and must not be treated as an export-meter or tariff-settlement value.

Telemetry is the sequence of timestamped device measurements and state updates that OctoMonitor receives and can retain locally.

Telemetry proves only what was recorded; it does not guarantee sensor accuracy, completeness, or an upstream root cause.

A telemetry gap is a period for which OctoMonitor has no accepted local sample matching the report or history scope.

A gap is not zero production or consumption and does not identify the device, network, vendor, runtime, credential, or storage cause.

Coverage describes how much of an expected monitoring period has usable recorded data under a particular report definition.

High coverage does not prove measurement accuracy, and low coverage must not be silently interpreted as zero activity.

MQTT is a publish-and-subscribe messaging protocol used in OctoMonitor’s direct EcoFlow data path for supported live updates.

This does not mean OctoMonitor exposes a general local MQTT broker or a documented outbound MQTT integration for other systems.

API credentials are the key and secret issued through approved EcoFlow developer access so OctoMonitor can authenticate supported requests.

This term describes the access material used by supported EcoFlow requests, not a telemetry field or device measurement.

Browser runtime means OctoMonitor is executing inside a normal browser tab and can monitor while that environment remains active.

Closing or suspending the tab can stop work; a browser session is not an always-on collector or guaranteed alert engine.

A Progressive Web App is an installed presentation of the web app that can open in its own window or from a home-screen icon.

Installing the PWA does not create continuous background execution; closed-app behavior remains browser and operating-system controlled.

The native app is the Angular application packaged through Capacitor for Android or iOS with access to supported platform integrations.

Native packaging still follows operating-system scheduling, permission, battery, network, and background-execution rules.

Background monitoring is the optional best-effort work a supported native environment may receive when the app is not in the foreground.

OctoMonitor background work uses last-known snapshots and is not continuous live EcoFlow polling, guaranteed timing, or an always-on server.

An App Data Backup is a restorable OctoMonitor transfer file; essential, history/archive, and full scopes protect different local data.

A Data Backup Report is a read-only analysis. Export a backup file for recovery and keep a copy outside the browser. Protected updates require their own verified Safety Backup.

A trigger decides when an OctoMonitor automation is eligible to run, while its action describes the supported command or notification to attempt.

A rule does not guarantee device state or delivery; prerequisites, runtime, confirmation, cooldown, and failure handling still matter.

A cooldown limits how soon an event can repeat; hysteresis separates trigger and recovery thresholds so noisy values do not repeatedly cross one boundary.

These are different controls, and their presence or exact behavior must be checked for the specific OctoMonitor alert or automation path.

A local notification is a message requested on the current browser or device rather than sent through an optional external target such as Telegram or Pushover.

A configured signal does not prove delivery; permission, runtime, operating-system policy, channel setup, and a real test still matter.

Stale data is a last accepted reading whose timestamp is older than the freshness threshold used by the current OctoMonitor view.

Stale does not automatically mean the physical device is off or identify whether the cause is network, credentials, vendor service, runtime, or storage.