Electricity usage monitoring

[iep]

We had our smart meters installed last week but, apparently, it will not be possible to connect them to the network so we'll be stuck with dumb meters after all.

My main reason for agreeing to have them installed was that I'd have a handy tool to monitor our energy use (especially electricity). Given we won't be able to get the the smart meters to work, what are my other options for electricity usage monitoring?

Most of the previously available products seem to have been discontinued (probably due to the smart meter roll out). Can anyone recommend a basic, reliable tool for monitoring electricity usage live?

Ta.

 

[Taylortwocities]

There was a similar thread last week.
In this I recommended the SHELLY EM device. This uses a smartphone app.
Other solutions were also suggested, such as OWL.
see here. https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/measuring-power-usage.597449/#post-5308768

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

My main reason for agreeing to have them installed was that I'd have a handy tool to monitor our energy use (especially electricity). Given we won't be able to get the the smart meters to work, what are my other options for electricity usage monitoring?

Even if they cannot be connected to your supplier, the In Home Display, which they provide with the meters, should still have some basic functionality for consumption.

Other than that, you can buy plug in monitors which can record the consumption over a period of time, of an individual appliance such as a freezer.

 

[iep]

Even if they cannot be connected to your supplier, the In Home Display, which they provide with the meters, should still have some basic functionality for consumption.

Other than that, you can buy plug in monitors which can record the consumption over a period of time, of an individual appliance such as a freezer.

Yeah, I thought that but unfortunately ours is good for nowt (no radio function at all) unless it is commissioned (which is only possible when connected to the mesh radio network). So not IHD functionality at all. Good news is he'll be back in 90 days to try again. I asked what is likely to have changed in 90 days and he said 'Nothing, but I'm contractually obliged'. I look forward to my quarterly visits

Plug is not really what I'm after, I'm really trying to establish the base load of the house. I can then isolate any 'offenders' but switching circuits off/on.

Shelly looks interesting, thanks. The owl ones come up on ebay pretty often too. Just curious about connection quality/reliability etc.

 

[iep]

@Taylortwocities , the Shelly product looks very good. If I'm reading it right you get a small measurement/wifi device and a 120A sensor for £60 that connects to an app on your phone for live and historical data.

Couple of questions (I have read the manual but the answers did not jump out at me).

1. What is the update rate on current being measured? If I switch off a device, how long before the change in current will be registered and reflected in the app? If I'm doing the slightly tedious switching off/on of circuits then a fast update rate will be useful.

2. I guess I can just hang the 120A clamp on my main incoming wire (prior to consumer unit) and that's about it (aside from providing power to the EM unit)?

2. Any faff getting it set up? We have reasonable wifi where the consumer unit sits. I'm guessing that would be the main hurdle.

Cheers.

 

[winston1]

Plug is not really what I'm after, I'm really trying to establish the base load of the house. I can then isolate any 'offenders' but switching circuits off/on.

Gosh, you were well and truly conned by the smart meter lies weren’t you? I would be asking them to remove them as not fit for purpose.

To establish your base load read the meter every hour and work it out from there.

 

[iep]

Gosh, you were well and truly conned by the smart meter lies weren’t you? I would be asking them to remove them as not fit for purpose.

To establish your base load read the meter every hour and work it out from there.

I'm not sure I'd go that far. The meters in our house were over 30 years old so probably due for replacement anyway. It's just a bit frustrating that they continue to roll them out in our town where (as it turns out) nobody can get connected. The Scottish network has been rolled out by a contractor who has, apparently, already met their coverage obligations so it's unlikely to be further improved.

I'm not super excited about reading the meter every hour. Like I say, I want to establish a base load and then switch off circuits/appliances one by one to establish where the power is going. If I have to wait an hour for each measurement, I'll go nuts.

Reason I'm curious is that our usage is insanely high and I can't figure out what appliance is costing us so much money (no electric heating, minimal tumble dryer etc). Plus, I love having data

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I'm not sure I'd go that far. The meters in our house were over 30 years old so probably due for replacement anyway. It's just a bit frustrating that they continue to roll them out in our town where (as it turns out) nobody can get connected. The Scottish network has been rolled out by a contractor who has, apparently, already met their coverage obligations so it's unlikely to be further improved.

I'm not super excited about reading the meter every hour. Like I say, I want to establish a base load and then switch off circuits/appliances one by one to establish where the power is going. If I have to wait an hour for each measurement, I'll go nuts.

Which you can quite easily do with a Smart Meter, take no notice of Whinnie he generally doesn't know what he is talking about.

 

[iep]

Which you can quite easily do with a Smart Meter, take no notice of Whinnie he generally doesn't know what he is talking about.

I'm not sure I follow? The issue here is that I don't have (and can't have) a smart meter. So, I'm looking for alternatives.

Apologies if I've misunderstood.

 

[pcaouolte]

@Taylortwocities , the Shelly product looks very good. If I'm reading it right you get a small measurement/wifi device and a 120A sensor for £60 that connects to an app on your phone for live and historical data.

Couple of questions (I have read the manual but the answers did not jump out at me).

1. What is the update rate on current being measured? If I switch off a device, how long before the change in current will be registered and reflected in the app? If I'm doing the slightly tedious switching off/on of circuits then a fast update rate will be useful.

2. I guess I can just hang the 120A clamp on my main incoming wire (prior to consumer unit) and that's about it (aside from providing power to the EM unit)?

2. Any faff getting it set up? We have reasonable wifi where the consumer unit sits. I'm guessing that would be the main hurdle.

Cheers.

I use the Shelly EM with the 120A sensor clamped around the main feed between the meter and the consumer unit.

1. Updates are about every 15 seconds so switching on a device can be seen almost immediately.
2. Yes. You do need the 120A clamp, the 50A version is not big enough to clamp the main incoming wire.
2 (again) . Yes there is a bit of faf setting it up. The Shelly app isn't brilliant. It can sometimes get frustrating trying to add the new device to the network but they do work eventually.

 

[jj4091]

We had an energy monitor that clamped round the main cable to the consumer unit, many years ago supplied by B.G. who we bought our electricity from. To be honest soon got completely fed up with checking it & it's been in a box in the loft for at least the last 12 years.

 

[iep]

We had an energy monitor that clamped round the main cable to the consumer unit, many years ago supplied by B.G. who we bought our electricity from. To be honest soon got completely fed up with checking it & it's been in a box in the loft for at least the last 12 years.

Sure, but if you need to measure your actual consumption to debug an unexpected behaviour, they are very useful.

 

[ericmark]

We had an energy monitor that clamped round the main cable to the consumer unit, many years ago supplied by B.G. who we bought our electricity from. To be honest soon got completely fed up with checking it & it's been in a box in the loft for at least the last 12 years.

I had same from Scottish Power, but the simple clamp on meter, will show usage, but not over what time, this one £17 likely there are cheaper ones did not really hunt. And at the meter clipped to tails you will soon see what each circuit uses, if you want one to measure DC the price starts at around £35.

To be frank most devices have wattage marked on them, where it varies hard to work out what has gone on with all items together, my old Sky box seemed to use far more than expected, seems it needed the power the LNB, one item here showing a battery charger I can see what it uses and when, but grouped together it shows very little.

 

[iep]

I had same from Scottish Power, but the simple clamp on meter, View attachment 280654 will show usage, but not over what time, this one £17 likely there are cheaper ones did not really hunt. And at the meter clipped to tails you will soon see what each circuit uses, if you want one to measure DC the price starts at around £35.

To be frank most devices have wattage marked on them, where it varies hard to work out what has gone on with all items together, my old Sky box seemed to use far more than expected, seems it needed the power the LNB, one item here showing a battery charger View attachment 280655I can see what it uses and when, but grouped together it shows very little.

Yes, I was thinking of one of these. But, like you say, most items we own have a stated, or easily estimated, energy usage so some kind of logging would be useful.

Our usage is 4x typical for a representative household so I'm guessing there is a single culprit using more than I'd imagine. In terms of being able to discern it amongst all the other usage, I'm betting on a single constant load making up the lion's share of our base load or a very high consumer used intermittently. Hopefully this will make it easy to spot them.

 

[pcaouolte]

The Shelly app keeps 365 days of data. I use the Shelly EM in conjunction with Home assistant which can log power usage at 15 second intervals for 10 days or at hourly intervals indefinitely. That gives me lots of control over what I can see.
Yesterday:

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