Check My Solar is built to use Fox Cloud sparingly. We cache aggressively on our servers so most requests never reach Fox. Live data on the Today view is the exception: that is kept as fresh as we reasonably can.
The short answer
| Data type | Approach |
|---|---|
| Live energy flow (solar, battery, grid, house right now) | Fetched regularly and kept fresh - typically every couple of minutes on the Today view |
| Today’s charts and totals | Cached briefly, then refreshed; not re-fetched on every screen tap |
| Past days, weeks, months, years | Cached for hours or longer - historical data does not change, so we rarely call Fox again |
| Device list, forecasts, notifications | Fetched on a schedule or when needed, with caching in between |
Most of what you see in the app is served from Check My Solar’s cache, not a fresh Fox Cloud call every time.
How we keep Fox API usage low
Server-side caching
When one user loads your inverter’s data, the result is stored in Check My Solar’s cache. The next request for the same data - from you or from background jobs such as daily reports - is served from cache until it expires. That means browsing back through last month’s charts does not trigger a new Fox API call for every view.
Historical data stays cached
Past dates are effectively fixed. Week, month, and year views use long cache lifetimes, and completed years can be stored for a very long time. If you open the same period again, we usually already have it.
Smarter fetching
- Week views can be built from cached month data instead of making separate Fox requests.
- Invalid or empty responses from Fox are not cached, so we do not lock in bad data.
- Stale fallbacks let the app show the last good reading if Fox is slow or briefly unavailable, instead of hammering the API.
Request deduplication and rate limiting
The app avoids duplicate in-flight requests when you switch tabs quickly. On our servers, we also pace outbound calls to Fox Cloud so we do not burst the same endpoint repeatedly.
What stays fresh
Live data is the one area where freshness matters most.
- The Live Energy Flow on the Today dashboard uses a dedicated lightweight endpoint so you see current production and flows quickly.
- On Today, live and chart data refresh on a regular cadence (about every two minutes) while you keep the app open.
- If you use the optional Modbus Bridge with an H1 G2 inverter, live numbers can update about every 10 seconds from your home network, with far less reliance on Fox Cloud for realtime telemetry.
We deliberately do not cache live data for long. When you are watching your system in real time, we prioritise up-to-date figures over saving API calls.
If Fox Cloud rate-limits your account
Fox Cloud enforces daily API limits per account. If those limits are reached - from Check My Solar, the Fox ESS app, or anything else using your key - you may see a temporary slowdown or a message that live data will return shortly.
Check My Solar is designed to recover gracefully: we back off, use cached data where appropriate, and resume live fetching when Fox allows it again.
See your current API usage
You can check how much of your Fox daily allowance has been used:
- Open Menu → Account Settings.
- Open Fox Cloud API usage (or API limits).
This reads the usage counter from Fox Cloud for your linked account. It is shared across anything using that API key, not just Check My Solar.