OpenEVSE Finder

A small desktop app that finds your OpenEVSE charging station on your home network and helps you bookmark its web interface — no need to hunt through your router's device list for an IP address.

For OpenEVSE station owners

1. Download the app for your computer from the Releases page:
   • Windows: OpenEVSE-Finder-windows.exe
   • macOS: OpenEVSE-Finder-macos (unsigned — right-click → Open the first time)
   • Linux: OpenEVSE-Finder-linux (chmod +x it first)
2. Run it while connected to the same WiFi network as your charger. If your firewall asks, allow the app network access — it needs it to discover the charger.
3. Your charger appears in the list within a few seconds. Select it, then:
   • Open in Browser — opens the charger's web page (press Ctrl+D / Cmd+D there to bookmark it), or
   • Create Desktop Shortcut — puts an icon on your desktop that opens the charger, or
   • Copy Address — copies the URL so you can paste it anywhere.

If nothing appears automatically, click Scan Network (checks every address on your network), or type the IP address shown on the charger's LCD screen into the box at the bottom and click Test.

The app prefers the charger's openevse-XXXX.local name (which keeps working even if your router assigns a new IP address) and falls back to the raw IP address when your computer can't resolve .local names.

How it finds the charger

The OpenEVSE WiFi firmware already advertises itself via mDNS/Bonjour:

• Hostname openevse-XXXX.local (XXXX = last 4 digits of the device ID, also visible in the charger's WiFi access-point name OpenEVSE_XXXX)
• Services _openevse._tcp (with TXT records type, version, id) and _http._tcp

This app browses those services with python-zeroconf. As a fallback it scans the local /24 subnet probing http://<ip>/status, which the firmware serves without authentication in JSON form.

For developers

pip install -r requirements.txt
python openevse_finder.py

Single file, Tkinter + python-zeroconf, Python 3.9+.

Build a standalone binary:

pip install pyinstaller
pyinstaller openevse_finder.spec     # output in dist/

CI (.github/workflows/build.yml) builds Windows/macOS/Linux binaries on every push and attaches them to GitHub Releases on v* tags.

Firmware notes

No firmware changes are required — discovery relies on what the firmware already ships. Two things worth knowing if you work on the firmware side (openevse_esp32_firmware):

• The _openevse._tcp TXT records (type, version, id) and the openevse-XXXX hostname default are what this tool keys on — keep them stable (src/net_manager.cpp, src/app_config.cpp).
• CORS is hard-coded off (enableCors = false in src/web_server.cpp), which is why a purely browser-based finder isn't possible today; making it a config option would enable future web tooling.