Wireless Household Energy Monitoring Devices

• 

  mskeggs on 06/12/2017 - 10:47

  +2

  I have an Efergy, as well as experience with some other units.
  The Efergy is the best on the market.
  I haven't seen the gateway model you linked for a discount anywhere, but occasionally you will see the model with LCD display cheap on Ebay.
  You can add the LCD display to the Efergy one you linked, and I would be inclined to do so. The app/website is great, and very useful for historical trends, but the always on LCD display on the window near my kitchen sink generates (pun!) more savings as I look at it and see somebody has left the bathroom heatlamps on upstairs (because you get a feel for what your usage is with different appliances)

  As an aside, assuming you own your house you should be looking into solar if you are interested in this stuff.

  • 

    singlemalt72 on 06/12/2017 - 11:15

    I can't see solar being a good return for us - nobody at home during the day, low feed in tariffs - perhaps if I was doing some crypto-mining during the day it may be worthwhile.

    Looks like I'll go the Efergy unit, might wait for a 20% ebay deal or something before I pull the trigger

    Thanks.

    • 

      mskeggs on 06/12/2017 - 11:47

      Feed in from 0.11 to 0.17c per kWh are available now. 11c pays off solar in under 10yrs with zero on site use. Surely you don’t leave before sun up and come home in the dark everyday, and turn the fridge off when you leave.

      • 

        singlemalt72 on 06/12/2017 - 13:22

        I do live in a valley with late sunrise and early sunset which makes a bit of a difference (not a lot, though)

    • 

      ESEMCE on 06/12/2017 - 12:49

      Dishwasher and Washing machine on timer helps move load to daylight hours.
      We also use a Slow Cooker fairly often through Winter especially.

• 

  reno on 06/12/2017 - 11:18

  +1

  i went with the cheaper option in a sense with the zigbee sockets - doesn't do the whole house (and if i did it for every socket i'm sure it'll cost even more than this unit)
  but the difference is i can monitor the specific devices (eg the different fridges we have) or certain lights

  • 

    singlemalt72 on 06/12/2017 - 11:23

    I have thought about this also, and may get some in the future, if only for the wifi switching.
    It's nice to have individual device monitoringing, but I am more interested in whole of house. I can use that to demonstrate usage to the kids by turning something off to show the difference it makes.

    • 

      reno on 06/12/2017 - 11:32

      the sockets are wifi connected too (and they show instantly the consumption of that device on that socket from current usage, to "today" and "this months")

      might work by showing the kids how much energy they've used playing with certain devices etc too
      just an option

      i want one for the whole house too, though smart meters should get installed soon across most houses anyway… so i'm kinda leaning towards waiting for that

      • 

        mskeggs on 06/12/2017 - 12:20

        The trouble is, all the big energy usage devices are hard wired: hot water, oven, aircon, central heating etc.

• 

  ESEMCE on 06/12/2017 - 12:51

  I have a Flukso.
  With an old Android phone as the display.
  The phone hooks into my Inverter Bluetooth to upload generation and PVoutput.org combines the usage and consumption data into a friendly graph.

  • 

    singlemalt72 on 06/12/2017 - 13:02

    Looks good, but quite expensive - I do like the gas and water monitoring options, but obviously produced for euro market - not sure if those options would be compatible here.

    • 

      ESEMCE on 06/12/2017 - 13:19

      More expensive, but it was the only energy meter that was designed to upload data to the web at the time I bought it (possibly still is).

      Can't see why gas wouldn't work here.. although I don't really see the point given there are so few gas appliances, it's not that hard to track manually if necessary.
      Gas meter pulse reader just reads the change in reflection of the markings on the rotating dial of the meter..

      Water meter probably wouldn't work given most of us have them out in the front yard.. Even if you did run a long connection out there and waterproofed everything, I don't think the pulses would make it back to the Flukso.

      For our electricity, I just have a clamp on the feed into our house measuring the draw from the house, PVoutput deducts my generation to calculate how much import/export I'm doing at any 5 minute interval.

      I have the Energy Monitor app to monitor the live feed from the Flusko from anywhere.

• 

  PerthectDeal on 06/12/2017 - 13:02

  +1

  To become more energy efficient, I borrowed a plug in power consumption meter from our local library for free (true Ozbargainer).

  It was amazing how much energy I was wasting. After the washing machine had finished, it usually was left on for an hour or sometime overnight until emptied, that was using 5w for a few LEDs on the front. The heaters were using 6w on standby just displaying the time. An older micro hifi system was using 17w blaring out music on full volume but 15w when off in standby displaying the time on its small LCD! This all adds up. I know now what devices I must turn off and the wall and what ones it is ok to leave on.

  Think a single LED uses 0.1w, devices are hugely inefficient in standby. Now that you can light up a room with a 6w LED light bulb so this wastage was the equivalent of leaving all the light on in the house and never turning them off!

  • 

    singlemalt72 on 06/12/2017 - 13:05

    Yeah, I did the same years ago, that's what made me buy a master/slave powerboard for the living room. We only use the entertainment system with the TV on, so everything slaves to the TV power which was chosen for having very low standby power usage. Only my PVR is separate to this so it can record while the rest of the system is off.

  • 

    poboy on 06/12/2017 - 16:45

    I did a full power audit on my house earlier in the year. I was actually surprised by how little standby power I had. 20 year old LCD tv only used 1W on standby, same with my oven. The killer was game systems 10W and set top boxes 12W.

    My friggen ducted heating system uses 40W when it's off!

    • 

      PerthectDeal on 06/12/2017 - 23:31

      Assume you turn off the heating system at the circuit breaker during summer, I do this for our air con units during winter and the cooler months. Not sure how much they use but the control panel buttons are not disconnecting the power so sure 5 - 10 Watts at least.

• 

  ESEMCE on 06/12/2017 - 13:57

  +1

  https://www.crowdsupply.com/whatnick/atm90e26-energy-monitor…

  This device is being sold by a small team out of Adelaide Hackerspace.