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

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I've held off getting an energy monitor because it's seemed like all of the products were still quite immature (and I'm cheap and don't like buying twice IICHI). I'd really like to move forward and wondering what folks on here are using. For myself I've decided against any that require internet or cloud services such as Emporia Vue as I don't want to get stuck with a high monthly subscription or worthless hardware if they go under.

The leading contenders seem to be:

IotaWatt - Open source. Works well. Lots of integration and potential integration. Highly customizable/configurable. My current #1.

TED -

GEM -

Sense - The general thing seems to be that it misses a LOT of stuff (and bundles it all in to 'background') and even what it starts to recognize is hit & miss. Some people really like it but most seem unhappy.

Thoughts and experience with how well these work generally? With Powerwall & Solar Panels/Glass?

It kind of seems the ideal would be for someone to develop Sense like capabilities for the IotaWatt (or TED, GEM, etc.). Sense does now have 2 circuit sensors but only if you don't have solar.

Thanks,
 
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I've held off getting an energy monitor because it's seemed like all of the products were still quite immature (and I'm cheap and don't like buying twice IICHI). I'd really like to move forward and wondering what folks on here are using. For myself I've decided against any that require internet or cloud services such as Emporia Vue as I don't want to get stuck with a high monthly subscription or worthless hardware if they go under.

The leading contenders seem to be:

IotaWatt - Open source. Works well. Lots of integration and potential integration. Highly customizable/configurable. My current #1.

TED -

GEM -

Sense - The general thing seems to be that it misses a LOT of stuff (and bundles it all in to 'background') and even what it starts to recognize is hit & miss. Some people really like it but most seem unhappy.

Thoughts and experience with how well these work generally? With Powerwall & Solar Panels/Glass?

It kind of seems the ideal would be for someone to develop Sense like capabilities for the IotaWatt (or TED, GEM, etc.). Sense does now have 2 circuit sensors but only if you don't have solar.

Thanks,

I tried the TED and it didn't last very long, do not recommend. The company I work for uses exclusively E-Gauge, so you might research that.
 
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I am a big proponent of Sense, but I have only tried that and Emporia, Sense has the superior software, but...

You are correct in that it only identifies the big loads, fridge, washer, dryer, oven, whole house fan or AC, space heaters and furnace, any big draw, doesn't seem to see LED lightbulbs but bigger draws it sees. If you wanna see your load and your solar and kinda get an idea what's happening and don't wanna try to parse EACH of the items plugged into your kitchen circuit by hand, Sense is for you.

It doesn't care where things are plugged in (other than the A or B side of your panel). Some items will never be found like my Plasma TV, they don't generate a distinct electrical signature instead constantly changing draw with the on screen picture, so Sense can track their usage by monitoring for their internet presence. Or if your Plasma is older, like mine, by using a plug-in power-monitor (sold separately). It still tracks the power in the Sense interface directly, and even lets you power items on or off in the interface. There is even support for a power strip (I use at my computer desk) where you can track each outlet.

I use my Sense to tell me when it's time to power on appliances (gotta write an app for this), when there is enough solar vs load. If there is too much solar, I plug in a car. It gives a great sense of what is going on, even if it doesn't identify every load. I dedicated an old 16GB iPad 2 that was too old to do anything else. It shows my solar and my load, and then I have an iPhone 5 that when I am not watching my Tesla stock it shows which individual items are taking power:

IMG_0065 copy.png
IMG_0045 copy.png


Not taken at the same time, obviously. One shows the history, one is a snapshot of now.
 
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I use Sense to monitor my unprotected loads, and I agree with the above. It works well for bigger loads, and I don't need it to tell me when any given LED light bulb comes on. It's pretty simple - You connect it and it pretty quickly begins identifying devices based on AI. I can't say anything bad about it
 
I guess I'm biased toward the Vue since I created that thread that JJrandorin referenced haha.

The Vue seems like the most consumer oriented product I found while researching. What it lacks with an open API like the iotawatt, it makes up for in overall simple plug and play ability. The 16CTs are a mess, but not terribly difficult to install.

The negative of the Sense I saw in reviews was certain loads people wanted to see weren't detected.

So it seems there is no cheap total-solution combining the better UX of the Sense; with the open API of the iotawatt; with the easy-circuit-fidelity of the Vue. And of course all of these solutions don't integrate in a complete package alongside the Solar and Powerwall reporting in the Tesla App.

I guess a super smart main panel made by Tesla could be an answer for someone who wants everything down the road in vaporware land.
 
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FYI, Sense currently has a limit of about 20 "smart plugs". I thought smart plugs was going to solve things for me until I learned about that limit . Unfortunately adding two Kasa HS-300 smart power strips uses 12 of that 20. This made me realize that Sense was not perfect for me.

@holeydonut , does Vue have a similar limit?

I've come to the conclusion that Sense is not the answer if the problem you are trying to solve is how much energy does a given device consume. It solves whole house and it solves for a subset but you are not guaranteed to know what that subset of devices it will give you information on. This not the only problem that is worth solving however (e.g. some of their HVAC fault detection is cool). I wonder if Sense can do something similar to Ting | Fire Safety, Simplified | Smart, Proactive Electrical Fire Prevention. So, even though I'm still in my money back window with for Sense, I will likely keep it but I'm also likely add others as well.

I like the "openness" of IoTaWatt but it has no integration with smart plugs. Home assistant can talk to both. Possibly the best solution if you want a local only solution.

@Randy Spencer are the devices showing up in your meter an iOS only feature or is it function that you have more devices recognized? Here is my screen shot:

Screenshot_20210112-200138.png
 
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TED looks similar to sense in that it doesn't have CTs for individual loads and it's far more expensive than the Vue. I need to monitor in my main service panel which has my one unbacked up load, the Tesla car charger, my main distribution panel (all backed up loads), and my sub panel.

In all, I'll need 4 Vues with about 40 single load CTs.

Emporia is working on a software update to allow nesting so that downstream Vues can be included in the total usage upstream. They're also working on a software update to allow multiple views to be merged as a logical single view for panels that have more than 16 CTs.

I have the one Vue with 16 CTs (and 2 main CTs) I bought on Amazon. Waiting for the Emporia store to get their own stock back in to use the 10% off coupon for a large purchase of the remaining three systems at once.

Really hoping the'll add a public API.
 
@Randy Spencer are the devices showing up in your meter an iOS only feature or is it function that you have more devices recognized?

You mean the names of the devices going onto the timeline as they turn on and off?

IMG_0046.PNG

I just tried it on my iPhone 5, my iPhone X and my Safari browser, and it didn't show on home.sense.com, but it did show on old and new apps as well as the iPad I sent yesterday. If you don't see it on yours I would first pinch to zoom in so there is more space to render those message, but if it doesn't show perhaps they are developing on iOS first, although the iPad 2 is running a really old OS, so old Sense app.
 
@holeydonut , does Vue have a similar limit?
View attachment 627123


Sorry, I don't know the limit of the number of smart plugs you can use in conjunction with the CTs on the Vue. But as sorka mentioned, the Vue doesn't currently aggregate a bunch of metered results into a total home view (pun). So if you get a bunch of plugs I think you're limited to assessing each one individually and it probably isn't the type of result you'll want unless you only care about how a few low-draw home loads behave.

There are also red flags in my eyes in terms of the long-term stability of the company. I have noticed the activity of their developer updates in their own forum has diminished in recent months. Plus, if you look up the company on LinkedIn, you'll see a pull back in hiring to the extent they now only have 1 role they're trying to fill. And last, they clearly have supply chain issues and don't have the working capital to provide inventory of goods for sale. They are single-tracked to Amazon for their sales channel probably to honor existing commitments so their own website is barren.

Putting things together, I think Emporia is pretty strapped for cash and doesn't have any venture/backing to hire and grow their business to address all the things they want to accomplish on the residential monitoring side. B2C is low margin and wrought with headaches. If they go with B2B like those options that Vines mentioned, they could probably tackle things better. But then consumers would lose the easy/affordable gateway to their products.

All those roadmap things they were actively discussing in 2019/2020 will likely not materialize any time soon.
 
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Emporia's model appears to be to sell the hardware cheap (and possibly below cost) and then make revenue off of charging a subscription and selling the data. The probability that they will go belly up and leave all of the hardware useless is not very low.

Sense is just not accurate enough. Perhaps if they can get to 16 or more CT's and combine the circuit level data w/ signature analysis they'd have something quite powerful and useful. As is though it won't give me the info that I'm looking for.
 
TED Pro vs IotaWatt

TED looks similar to sense in that it doesn't have CTs for individual loads and it's far more expensive than the Vue.
TED was once signature based but for the past few years is CT based. There are 8 CT's per Spyder and IIRC you can officially do 4 Spyders so 32 CT's I believe.

One concern w/ TED is that they use PLC for xmitting data from the MTU's to the ECC. Ethernet would be better, WiFi second best IMO.

IotaWatt is much less expensive than TED. I'm not sure if there is anything that TED provides that IotaWatt does not. IotaWatt is open source so potentially will see more advancement in the future. It also works with a wide variety of CT's so you're not locked in. TED may have an advantage in being a 'cleaner' system that just works but people don't seem to have any problems w/ IotaWatt so that may be a non-issue.

Has anyone compared these? Does either have any advantages from a software, raw data or API standpoint? Accuracy?
 
Emporia's model appears to be to sell the hardware cheap (and possibly below cost) and then make revenue off of charging a subscription and selling the data. The probability that they will go belly up and leave all of the hardware useless is not very low.

Sense is just not accurate enough. Perhaps if they can get to 16 or more CT's and combine the circuit level data w/ signature analysis they'd have something quite powerful and useful. As is though it won't give me the info that I'm looking for.

There is no subscription for recurring use of the Vue hardware or mobile app. And as far as I can see there are no upsell features. Adding alerts is currently free, although some of the “coming soon” features could have a cost.

Emporia’s business model seems very similar to Flume for water consumption monitoring. They make money only on the hardware. If they’re selling data on the backend that’d be surprising.
 
Note on the Sense: if you have a service panel with busbars, you won't be able to use it as their CTs likely will not fit around the busbars (I bought one when it first came out, only to discover the busbar issue when trying to install). As noted in the other thread that @jjrandorin linked to, the Emporia Vue has some flexible CTs that should fit busbars.

That said, if you have a smart meter (like PG&E folks do), you could use Wattvision (Sensors | Wattvision.com) as another option that I don't think people have mentioned. I've been using it for years, via a Rainforest Eagle device which is ~$99 on amazon. The Rainforest communicates w/the smart meter over zigbee and then uploads the data to the rainforest service

IMG_1098 (1).png


It only gives net energy usage (the above screencap shows me turning my yet-to-PTO solar roof briefly on, hence the negative usage) but works reliably for me as it's basically reporting what the meter is reporting.

Wattvision has a free tier which only gives you 7 days of history, but if you only need to see instantaneous or >= 7 days of data, it'll only set you back $99 for the hardware and no monthly fees unless you want extended history.