Energy Monitors? IotaWatt? TED? GEM? Sense? Other?

[NorCalSlrUser]

Emporia also makes a smart meter reader - the Vue Utitlity Connect. It is nice that it can be viewed in the same app. It is $39.

The Smart Plugs from Emporia actually can be nested under a CT circuit, so it works very nicely.

On the downside, apparently their devices drop connection for 5 minutes every 65 minutes, but I haven't been bothered by it.

I have a setup where I monitor the sub-panel with Emporia Vue with with 16 CTs and the meter with The Vue Utility Connect.
In this way I don't have to install anything in the main panel.

The difference between those two must be AC+Solar, it will be nice when they allow the sub-panel meter to be nested under the utility meter.

But yes, I am bothered also by the lack of activity at the forums. There is low activity from users, too, maybe more of the users are less of the tinkering kind.

 

[Vines]

@Vines, thanks for the eGauge tip. There's a lot to like about it but the cost is astronomical. It'd be about 3x TED and 6x IotaWatt.

Your's is the first I've heard about a TED system failing. People generally seem to be happy with them. What happened w/ yours?

Well our electrical panel is rather exposed to the elements, and I kept having the CTs die. Not sure if they had dirty power or what but it was an easy choice after the second one in less than a year. The EGauge is overall much more resilient, but is more of a commercial solution. We use it to monitor individual units usage on our service panel.

 

[ElectricTundra]

There is no subscription for recurring use of the Vue hardware or mobile app.

Yet...

Their pricing does not seem like it'd be profitable on just hardware sales. I've seen this routine many times before - very low price, get lots of people on the platform and then start monetizing. Some make it, some don't. We'll see

 

[RGloverii]

I've never had any issues with TED hardware 'dying'. My primary annoyance is the use of PLC for sending the data from the MTUs to the main module. Sometimes its easy to have interference problems.

But once you have things properly installed, I have to say I think the accuracy is spot on. I have TED installed in both of my homes, and also in my motorhome. Everything gets logged as I would expect, and the accuracy is such that you can turn on/off an LED light in your house, and you'll see it reflected in the power usage.

 

[sorka]

One thing I'd like to see Emporia do is take the Sense approach but on a circuit by circuit basis. It would be a lot easier to discriminate load devices on a single circuit than a hundred devices on the entire service. Sense doesn't have CTs for each circuit so it's a lot harder to differentiate different loads when you have 100+ devices on a single load measurement than 3 or 4 devices on each circuit. In theory, you could even tag something as portable i.e. likely to be plugged into any circuit and then those could be tracked as global.

 

[Patrick66]

Persoanlly I am looking at the SharkMP200 to tie into my HASS system. I decided that my important information really is self-consumption, generation, Tesla Wall Connector, dryer, water heater, and air conditioners... along with eventually my battery. The way the two sub-panels are split I should get a good sense of network equipment, lighting, and kitchen loads without all the extra points.

It won’t be an easy solution to integrate, but more fun to do my own filters for equipment. It will also help me look at how to maximize my self-consumption of solar energy.

 

[israndy]

I'd like to see Emporia do is take the Sense approach

An advantage that Sense has is they sample the voltages 1 million times per SECOND. That is 4 million samples per second going into that little box and up to the internet. That is how they can detect individual devices based on their electrical signature. Now if you limit the device selection to one or two per circuit it might be able to differentiat based on the draw, but your kitchen circuit is busy. Can it tell the difference between your toaster and your blender? Sense can.

 

[holeydonut]

An advantage that Sense has is they sample the voltages 1 million times per SECOND. That is 4 million samples per second going into that little box and up to the internet. That is how they can detect individual devices based on their electrical signature. Now if you limit the device selection to one or two per circuit it might be able to differentiat based on the draw, but your kitchen circuit is busy. Can it tell the difference between your toaster and your blender? Sense can.

Lol I wonder if the Sense is actually mining bitcoin or something... I can't imagine a system sampling MHz level data and actually uploading individual discrete readings to the cloud. But indeed the Sense uploads like 3 Gb of data each month it operates to the ether. What people do with that data other than a cool bubble plot is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[sorka]

An advantage that Sense has is they sample the voltages 1 million times per SECOND. That is 4 million samples per second going into that little box and up to the internet. That is how they can detect individual devices based on their electrical signature. Now if you limit the device selection to one or two per circuit it might be able to differentiat based on the draw, but your kitchen circuit is busy. Can it tell the difference between your toaster and your blender? Sense can.

I'm riding the edge of my comcast 1.2tb cap every month so I guess sense wouldn't work for me. Same reason I have Rings instead of Nest.

 

[holeydonut]

I'm riding the edge of my comcast 1.2tb cap every month so I guess sense wouldn't work for me. Same reason I have Rings instead of Nest.

What... there's still metered internet in California?

 

[sorka]

What... there's still metered internet in California?

I've had a cap for years now.

 

[israndy]

I am sure they offer higher tiers of data. I think mine is like 256TB/mo. I should say, it's higher than I can imagine using.

 

[miimura]

What... there's still metered internet in California?

As I recall it was 1TB/mo before the pandemic. Comcast suspended the metering during the beginning of the pandemic and now it's 1.2TB/mo.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

@Vines does egauge include the current transformer for all the channels?

egauge has a smartthings device handler and app which is nice.

eGauge energy meter

 

[mswlogo]

I have two Sense installations and recommend it.

When I first installed it took a long time to discover things and still has missed stuff. When I installed the 2nd at a small very old cottage it figured stuff out quick. I think because it had less stuff to deal with. I think stuff that has lots of variable load confuse it like our heating system.

But at the cottage it has been great tool. It discovered a leak in our water pump that was running for 18 hours. It helped me sort out circuits.

When I stalled the second I noticed you can not give it a lot of hints about you home that I think helps speed up and sort things out. Since I added that info a new wave of appliances were discovered.

 

[Patrick66]

Purchased an IoTaWatt, and looking forward to see how it performs. It seems like a good little platform and very cost effective.

 

[holeydonut]

Purchased an IoTaWatt, and looking forward to see how it performs. It seems like a good little platform and very cost effective.

Yeah I think any of these monitors will likely pay for themselves rather quickly. Regardless of the brand, simply having the data provides an opportunity to find a problem and fix it.

With the Vue, I was able to learn my stupid wine fridge can't actually cool itself to the lowest temperature on the spec sheet. So even though it claims to be able to support 40 degrees F, it was just running the compressor non-stop at 100 to 150 watts because we set it to 40 F. But if I set the temperature to 44 F, it cycles like a normal fridge and takes like 1/3 the power per day.

And the kitchen vent hood had two MR16 bulbs that were like 75 watts a piece... I totally forgot to change those to LEDs since it didn't dawn on me to look there until I saw how much energy that vent hood was taking during meal-prep.

One thing that I want to try improve is telling these dumb AT&T DVR's to go full-off at night. They take so much power even in standby mode.