Get some Sense... [sense monitoring solution]

[SabrToothSqrl]

I have an idea, instead of monitoring the entire house to start with, just have it monitor one fuse at a time. That should give the Sensor much cleaner picture to identify the devices on that single line. I just bought one. Will see if this plan works out.

It's not a bad idea, but since it's already looking for devices, not sure how that will end up working out.

I'm now up to 11 devices identified including the coffee maker, but no TVs yet... (2, which are used pretty much daily).

Cars now at the body shop, so it won't be looking at that data for a while... I saw the LOL OIL plate tesla there too.. so sad looking .

one of the 'unnamed devices' i'm having a really hard time finding, but the other night I had an idea.. septic pump. It turns on/off with the water level in the tank, but I have no lights or way to really know it's 'on' without lifting the lid and smelling... septic tank... so I'm going to ignore the unknown #3 for a while. Some of the 'unknowns' automatically become better named over time, without me changing them.

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

This is Day 1 vs day 12 you can see what started as a lump of 'unknown' is slowly being deciphered... I just wish it was faster lol.

 

[gregd]

I don't own one, so I'm just guessing here... I think monitoring one circuit at a time, as a way to train it, will probably just confuse the device. It will be hearing noise from the other circuits, but not see the current associated with them. That pattern won't hold when you move to monitoring the whole lot.

 

[wesley888]

I guess I'll find out in a few days when my Sense arrive.

 

[GJ79]

So I was tempted to get the sense too about 6 months back but the problem I am having is that my home is on two 200A panels. According to Sense I would need to get two individual sense units and they can not work together in the app (as of yet as they said they will eventually work on it). Also when I asked them about my Tesla Charger they said they can not reliably detect it yet as the amps are changing to much. So I have put the idea of a sense away for a while now. After reading this thread I found the Smappee interesting and while researching about it I also found the curb. Now I am tempted between the Smappee and the Curb. Does anyone here use any of these two power monitors ? Do they detect the tesla charger ? I do have Solar btw so I would need the solar model of whichever one I will get.

Sorry to hi-jack your thread with all these Questions

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

Link to said 'Curb'? and if I knew the sense couldn't find my Tesla, I would not have bought it... ugh.

 

[GJ79]

Link to said 'Curb'? and if I knew the sense couldn't find my Tesla, I would not have bought it... ugh.

Curb - Power Your Life. Smarter.

Both devices only have a few reviews on Amazon. Would like to hear if someone here has actually installed one. I believe the Curb could actually work as it has additional clamps to measure a single cirquit, so it could be clamped around your tesla cirquit to get accurate data. However I am tending more towards the swampee as it seems like an easier and cheaper setup.

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

$375? Ouch. Holy electrical rat nest... no way would I have the room to put a clamp on every circuit. That's a LOT of install hassle...It's a nice gizmo, but the install would be painful. Would you have 2 clamps on the Tesla since it's 240v? or just one?

 

[GJ79]

$375? Ouch. Holy electrical rat nest... no way would I have the room to put a clamp on every circuit. That's a LOT of install hassle...It's a nice gizmo, but the install would be painful. Would you have 2 clamps on the Tesla since it's 240v? or just one?

The way I understand it it needs two clamps on the main and the additional ones are only for cirquits it can't detect properly. Install is no big deal clipping on a 1 or 10 current clamp. It has to have two clamps on a 240 cirquit, there is no way to measure total energy of that cirquit without it unless they are guessing the other phase in their algorithm. Not sure on this one.

 

[brkaus]

Curb - Power Your Life. Smarter.

Both devices only have a few reviews on Amazon. Would like to hear if someone here has actually installed one. I believe the Curb could actually work as it has additional clamps to measure a single cirquit, so it could be clamped around your tesla cirquit to get accurate data. However I am tending more towards the swampee as it seems like an easier and cheaper setup.

Not a fan of the power line communication that Curb is using to talk to a hub. Tends to conflict with other things. Enphase communication, power line lighting control.

I'm also surprised that the main CT for Curb is 100A and the smaller ones are 50A. Sounds small for current home electrical panels.

I do like that they have additional CTs for monitoring specific circuits.

Where does it say they also use signal processing to identify devices?

 

[GJ79]

Not a fan of the power line communication that Curb is using to talk to a hub. Tends to conflict with other things. Enphase communication, power line lighting control.

I'm also surprised that the main CT for Curb is 100A and the smaller ones are 50A. Sounds small for current home electrical panels.

I do like that they have additional CTs for monitoring specific circuits.

Where does it say they also use signal processing to identify devices?

100A is plenty as amp clamps work at a +15% range. Plus in order to accurately measure current you don't want to oversize the clamps as they become inaccurate. Even though you might have a 200 Amp panel, chances that you are pulling more than 40-50 Amp are very small.

Good point about the signal processing - I was assuming they do as they show all the devices on the picture but it might just be a line for each clamp.

 

[brkaus]

100A is plenty as amp clamps work at a +15% range. Plus in order to accurately measure current you don't want to oversize the clamps as they become inaccurate. Even though you might have a 200 Amp panel, chances that you are pulling more than 40-50 Amp are very small.

Good point about the signal processing - I was assuming they do as they show all the devices on the picture but it might just be a line for each clamp.

Your correct that in most cases, a 200A panel isn't pulling that much. In my case, I have three AC units at around 18a each, plus clothes dryer, two dishwashers, and LED lights. So still within the 100A typically. But they are advertising it to measure your EV (or two?) at up to 80A, so I would guess that would push it over.

If a CT goes over rating, does accuracy suffer? Long term accuracy? Or is it a safety concern?

 

[GJ79]

Your correct that in most cases, a 200A panel isn't pulling that much. In my case, I have three AC units at around 18a each, plus clothes dryer, two dishwashers, and LED lights. So still within the 100A typically. But they are advertising it to measure your EV (or two?) at up to 80A, so I would guess that would push it over.

If a CT goes over rating, does accuracy suffer? Long term accuracy? Or is it a safety concern?

No only the accuracy suffers, there is no safety issue if it goes over rating.

Even with all your appliances you it might go over at times but I suppose that happens rarely. I am pretty sure they chose to include the 100 amp clamps because the majority of Panels are 200 amp panels nowadays and it's the best compromise.

 

[rw86347]

My current car is a leaf. It will tell me exactly how much electricity I use. My average cost over three years was $20 per 1000 miles. And I am an aggressive driver.

 

[Dstrohl]

Had you ever thought of making your own electric meter with something like a Raspberry PI ?
this should be fairly easy, and a lot cheaper.

Like this?
Home | OpenEnergyMonitor

 

[brkaus]

I've been using an older version of a brultech monitor + OpenEnergyMonitor.

The current version of the monitor is 32 channels and is priced much better on a per channel basis. I've been considering upgrading.

GreenEye Monitor Package - Brultech Store

I haven't messed with OpenEnergyMonitor much. My first few attempts were difficult to get data that was useful to me, so I have kind of stopped looking at the data. I did find quite a few energy hogs.

 

[Chopr147]

I was thinking of getting this for no other reason than knowing how much juice exactly the Tesla is using to charge. Too expensive just for my games though. Between my solar panels and electric co. I was able to figure approx. a $16 difference with the Tesla. Sure beats the $200 a month I was spending on gas.

 

[Dstrohl]

I haven't messed with OpenEnergyMonitor much. My first few attempts were difficult to get data that was useful to me, so I have kind of stopped looking at the data. I did find quite a few energy hogs.

If you get to the point where you want to get rid of the OpenEnergyMonitor stuff, let me know.

 

[Dstrohl]

I looked at a couple of these a few months ago, and after doing a bunch of reading of forums, FAQ's and comments, I decided to wait and just do something that used directly connected sensors like TED, or the OpenEnergyMonitor, or others... While I really like the concept of these advanced detection systems, and they are probably fine for normal household things, I am a bit anal about data, and I really want to know for sure where it comes from. And, in my reading, it seemed like none of them were really there yet. there were lots of cases of mis-identification of things, and even when it thought it ID'ed a device, something else could end up being detected instead, or it could change.

None of them really had a good learning option... one of them could learn by turning on and off the devices while in "learn" mode, but even then, sometimes it would incorrectly mark things.

Also, none of them could handle my house with it's dual 200A panels, or at least not well enough for me to really want to mess with them.

I am not putting them down, I think they are really cool, and if you are not that pickey about the accuracy of it's detection, it is probably fine... (and to be honest, there is no real reason I need to be that accurate, I am, as I said, just a bit anal about measuring things.)

Of course, that also left me with figuring it was going to cost me about a thousand dollars to really instrument the house... and I have trouble justifying that level of money... at this point at least.

 

[mspohr]

I looked at a couple of these a few months ago, and after doing a bunch of reading of forums, FAQ's and comments, I decided to wait and just do something that used directly connected sensors like TED, or the OpenEnergyMonitor, or others... While I really like the concept of these advanced detection systems, and they are probably fine for normal household things, I am a bit anal about data, and I really want to know for sure where it comes from. And, in my reading, it seemed like none of them were really there yet. there were lots of cases of mis-identification of things, and even when it thought it ID'ed a device, something else could end up being detected instead, or it could change.

None of them really had a good learning option... one of them could learn by turning on and off the devices while in "learn" mode, but even then, sometimes it would incorrectly mark things.

Also, none of them could handle my house with it's dual 200A panels, or at least not well enough for me to really want to mess with them.

I am not putting them down, I think they are really cool, and if you are not that pickey about the accuracy of it's detection, it is probably fine... (and to be honest, there is no real reason I need to be that accurate, I am, as I said, just a bit anal about measuring things.)

Of course, that also left me with figuring it was going to cost me about a thousand dollars to really instrument the house... and I have trouble justifying that level of money... at this point at least.

I, too, looked at the Sense and was concerned about its learning capabilities. I have considered doing the same thing since I have a Current Cost energy monitor which reports to Xively but ran into the same issues as Sense. It's difficult to determine just which load is causing a power draw. I can easily spot my hot tub and electric heat in the spare room but beyond that it gets fuzzy.
I have been building an OpenEnergyMonitor Arduino using these plans:
How to build an arduino energy monitor | OpenEnergyMonitor
I have seven current monitors, voltage and I added a bunch of temperature sensors. It's all tested and working but not packaged up yet since I had to go off and do some work but I should get it done when I get back. Total cost is less than $200 as a DIY project.