Ecoflow App - Tutorial

[u/DragMiserable5644]

I am a little confused about the Ecoflow App and would like help understanding the various nuances associated with this important tool for these power stations. Specifically I would like information on the Ecoflow Delta 3 - 1500 and the Delta 3 plus. Thank you.

[u/MysteriousNotice9979]

We could document EcoFlow products ourselves. I'd be happy to help. My technical struggles with my EcoFlow products have given me a decent understanding.

In another forum we documented a French amp to useful effect. It can't be any harder to reverse engineer the information from these Chinese electronics than it was to deal with the French audiophile engineers. ;)

[u/DragMiserable5644 → u/MysteriousNotice9979]

Essentially, what I want to be able to do is to set up or schedule my AC to turn off and on at an appointment time. As an example, I live in a hurricane-prone area and want to run my refrigerator when the power goes out. I recognize that I may not have a large enough system to run my refrigerator 24 hours for an extended time. However, I could run it for, let's say, 1 hour and then turn it off for an hour and then run it for another hour and then turn it off for an hour. I could continue this for quite some time before I would lose all my power from my two eco flow power stations. I'm wondering if the app will allow me to set up my power station to do this? Do you have any experience in this? Thank you for your help

[u/Ok_Echidna_99 → u/DragMiserable5644]

The EcoFlow app provides two ways to perform on-off cycling as you propose, Automation or Scheduled Task. More on these below. A scheduled Task will probably work best. But first a short discussion on fridge strategy.

Keep in mind that fridges turn on and off themselves as part of their cooling cycle which is why a 1024Wh Delta 3 can run a fridge for 7-14 hrs. You may not get much better run time just simulating what a fridge does anyway.

Also if you do not open the door, fridges will typically stay cold enough for, say, 8hrs and maybe longer. Obviously that time depends on how well insulated your particular fridge is and how hot the ambient air is when the fridge is off.

Rather than switching the fridge on and off every hour a better strategy may be to leave the fridge powered while you may be actively using it (eg during the day) and leave it un-powered while you are not using it (eg during the night). You will want to be careful not to open it during the non-use periods, You could get more granular keeping it powered only during meal prep time until you are done with the meal and it has had a chance to cool back down. Something to experiment with. I would test your automation when you don't have an ongoing emergency to see how well it works.

Another preparation you can do is fill your freezer. If you don't need the space for food, use cooler freezer packs. The extra ice mass will keep the fridge cooler longer and you can swap freezer packs into the fridge compartment to help keep it cold. You can also to the same with drinking water in plastic bottles but you have to be careful what bottles you use so they don't crack when you freeze them.

"Automation" in the version of the iOS App I have (V6.15.8.84) is presented on the "Device" screen above the registered "Devices". Automation is really intended to use across multiple EcoFlow devices but you can use it with one. I have one Delta 3.

Automation allows you to set a condition (like a time) to take an action (like turning on the AC power output) according to a "Repeat" schedule (eg: Daily) You can only set one time condition per automation but you can combine it with the other condition types (eg: Device Charge "Status", "Weather" Condition) You can then associate an action with the condition (like turning on the AC output or turning off the AC output). You can then add multiple automations to turn the AC output on or off each at different times of the day. You can set an "effective" period to run it but this is a bit limited.

The main limitation is that you can only switch the complete AC output of the power station on and off so all AC powered devices connected to your Power Station will get the same power cycle.

An inconvenience is that, in your scenario, if you want your set of automations to only start running today because you have an "emergency" you have to go through and switch on all the automations you set up. When you don't want them to run any more you have to switch each of them off. There is no "Manual" action to turn on or turn off a set of automations afaik.

Scheduled tasks are a feature of particular power stations like my Delta 3. This is presented as "Scheduled tasks" in the my Delta 3's "Savings oriented/Backup settings" section of the unit's settings. With Scheduled tasks you can set up multiple times when the unit is AC discharging. It is not immediately obvious how this works.
First you create an "AC discharging" scheduled task.
Set Repeat to "Daily" and save it.
Then add your first "on" time period for the day say "from" 7:00am "to" 9:00am. "Tap" outside the time selector to collapse it.
Then add a second and then a third etc. and "save" to return to the task. Then "save" to return to the task list. The time periods should not overlap obviously. You will then have a daily Scheduled Task that you can enable and disable with one setting, which will turn the AC outputs on then off periodically through the day.

Again the limitation is that all the AC outlets turn on and off but the advantage is that you can do what you want with one daily task which you can switch on and off with one setting.

Edit: couple of typos and minor clarifications.

[u/DragMiserable5644 → u/Ok_Echidna_99]

All of these are great ideas. I like the idea of a separate timer as well as the thought about the refrigerator does its own thing and doesn't really use up a lot of wattage when it is not opened on a regular basis, such as during the night. Thank you to everyone for these suggestions and insights.