Energy monitoring plugs

remoteboy

Looking to pick up a bunch of these to get a better picture of the energy usage in the house. Would be looking to tie them into home assistant. Looking at Amazon and there seems to be tplink stuff and then a bunch of rebadged stuff from aliexpress. Are there any decent value options out there that won’t explode the house?

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058321183/energy-monitoring-plugs

I had a few Meross MSS310 plugs that i used to use for simple automation.

Recently i wanted to start monitoring energy usage so i purchased Tp-Link Tapo plugs (a pack of 4x P110).

I hooked them up and liked the info i was getting from each plug. I could even input in the cost of electricity.

The problem that i and others have is that these plugs tend to disconnect from the wifi network and require a reboot of the wifi router/firewall. When they go down, they go down in unison.

At the same time i found that the Meross Mss310 units have been updated to also monitor energy and they are rock solid, no downtime.

Currently trying to see how i can incorporate or consolidate energy costs from multiple devices into Home Assistant with peak and off-peak tariffs.

wandererz

Just to add to this, I made some changes to my wifi settings and DNS and the tapo plugs are now fine.

The app screen sometimes needs refreshing to show the devices though.

The benefit with the Tapo is that it has settings for peak and off peak pricing.

Strong recommendation for the plugs from https://www.mylocalbytes.com/products/smart-plug-pm?variant=42424488820927 which don't need any cloud to get data from. Yes they connect to the WiFi but if you have tasmota / home assistant you can access all via LAN easily.

Instructions to set up weren't perfect but there is a good video on YouTube walking through setup

bittihuduga

any smart plugs that can be recommended for dishwasher/washing machine/dryer? that can hold these machine usages

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121384856#Comment_121384856

I have the ones above covering the above - rated to 13A

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121384856#Comment_121384856

I am using the Tapo plugs mentioned above.

Ezeoul

Tapo P110 is rated to 13A.

€9.99 in DID or avaiable on Amazon but make sure its the P110 and not the P100.

I personally wouldn't use them for something like a washing machine or dishwasher, though.

bittihuduga

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121393463#Comment_121393463

thanks..any particular reason for not using? i just wanted to monitor usage.

i dont have any shelly connected to main circuit board. so this was one option i could try

Ezeoul

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121394256#Comment_121394256

It's just a me thing, ignore it, I shouldn't have mentioned it.

wandererz

The Tapo P110 and above have a power protection setting.

If the set wattage is exceeded the plug powers off.

2) Another nice feature is the ability to see energy consumption by day (hourly usuage), week (daily) , year (monthly) and to export that to a spreadsheet.

3) These plugs also allow you to set peak, off peak and mid peak rates so your energy costs are more accurate.

The Meross plugs, while good, do not cover power protection in the same way, do not show hourly usage and do not have different pricing for peak and off peak rates.

Off course, all of this can be exported to Home Assistant and have it do the calculations. However, my challenge right now is consolidating all this with different rates in Home Assistant.

Working with open source software and the associated custom coding can be a pain and end up taking a considerable amount of time to refine.

There is an Irish guy who runs a site called Farmer Eds Shed who has a script for ESB rates for Home Assistant on github but with no explanation at all as to how to implement it. Great for HA gurus but frustrating for newbies.

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121394256#Comment_121394256

I am getting power consumption from a number of plugs at the moment.

Tapo Plugs

Meross Plugs

And i have these feeding into Home Assistant.

What I am missing are: electric immersion, water pump, lighting usage.

One or more clamp type sensors should resolve that.

I have ordered one of those from AliExpress. It will need to be installed by an electrician or alternatively, connect a standard plug to it and clamp onto the immersion and water pump wires in the closet.

wandererz

There are certain items that are easy to calculate such as:

- broadband and WiFi routers (constantly on and based on rated wattage)

- Alexa/Google devices

- etc.

For items such as the fridge and freezer there is almost no use having a permanent smart plug as you will not be turning them on or off on a regular basis and with an energy monitoring plug in for a week or two you will get a good idea of the energy consumption. That plug can then be reassigned to something else. Unless you use something like Home Assistant that constantly combines/totals the usage across devices.

People think that fridges and freezers consume a high amount of electricity but once they are up and running at optimal temps they are mostly affected by how long the door is left open and when you put in a large amount of new groceries.

bittihuduga

thank you. will check those plugs. my main interest was to know when dish washer/washing machine is completed (notification in hA) and also power usage for each cycle.

theintern

People don't recommend using these kinds of plugs for inductive loads (loads with a motor like a washing machine).

The reason being that potentially if the power goes out, and the motor is still spinning, there can be a back load generated in the plug, and I would imagine most of these plugs would fail badly in this scenario.