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Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana

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Re: Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana

#131

Post by nagisa »

Dalewyn wrote: post #97
baq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using it on two outlets after not having enough prescience to install ethernet in my wardrobe-turned-office - got any reading materials?

Don't have any to link off hand, but the basic gist is this: Electrical wiring of any sort are all antennas to varying degrees, transmitting and receiving electromagnetic signals. Most mains electrical wiring is also unshielded, meaning they readily transmit and receive electromagnetic signals. Powerline ethernet basically puts ethernet data on mains electrical wiring by utilizing the bands that aren't used for carry…

The issue, I think, is that you're extrapolating from the usecase where high bandwidth ethernet is carried over the power lines. Protocols' like X10 bandwidth use and needs are so low (dozens of bits per second) that the interference is indistinguishable from the regular power fluctuations.

Re: Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana

#132

Post by pipe01 »

aulin wrote: post #113
argulane wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ATHOM plugs are very nice, you can order one with ESPHome or Tasomata firmware preinstalled and they can ship from Germany https://www.athom.tech/

I had four tasmota preflashed athom plugs die on me in less than a year. As long as they worked they were perfect but they don't last... Hope they addressed the issue meanwhile

Were you switching high loads? I've had a few for some years with no issues

Re: Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana

#134

Post by baq »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #85
theshrike79 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get less shit ones that aren't made of Chinesium from Shelly

Great suggestion. Some of their modules appear to be UL certified.

Yeah you need to shop for these specifically. They come at a premium.

Re: Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana

#135

Post by Dalewyn »

nagisa wrote: post #131
Dalewyn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't have any to link off hand, but the basic gist is this: Electrical wiring of any sort are all antennas to varying degrees, transmitting and receiving electromagnetic signals. Most mains electrical wiring is also unshielded, meaning they readily transmit and receive electromagnetic signals. Powerline ethernet basically puts ethernet data on mains electrical wiring by utilizing the bands that aren't used for carry…

The issue, I think, is that you're extrapolating from the usecase where high bandwidth ethernet is carried over the power lines. Protocols' like X10 bandwidth use and needs are so low (dozens of bits per second) that the interference is indistinguishable from the regular power fluctuations.

I speak from experience. I tried powerline ethernet because wifi signals traverse the house walls very poorly, to say the least. The sheer noise the powerline adapters generated into the line, regardless traffic, was unacceptable.

Re: Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana

#136

Post by baq »

londons_explore wrote: post #101
wannacboatmovie wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're running all your flat's power through that $14 Chinese rubbish and never assumed that shortcuts were taken or quality would be an issue? How do you know it will continue to function as a circuit breaker and isn't just a piece of wire inside? For the uninitiated, CE marking is meaningless (it allows for self-certification). I'd like to see Big Clive do a teardown of one of those.

There are 2 ways to design these. They could use a regular relay, or they could use a solid state relay. Solid state relays have widespread fraud. Like 60% of the ones on amazon will catch fire or fail before they hit the rated current. Trade suppliers generally don't sell them at >30 amps. Regular relays up to 10 amps are cheap and reliable. Beyond that, they get expensive surprisingly fast, and the reliability is h…

Is it the switching that kills the relay or is it enough to start/stop the load? E.g. if I have a 10A smart plug monitoring power on a small waist-tall freezer in the garage will it eventually damage the switching function?

Re: Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana

#137

Post by benhurmarcel »

microtonal wrote: post #121
stavros wrote: post #19

I got a Zigbee power breaker and hooked it up so all my flat's power goes through it, and then made an e-ink display to show my power consumption: https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-the-timeframe/

For people in The Netherlands: all Smart Meters that the net maintainers installed (are required to) support the P1 standard, which provides a standardized interface for customers to read out current current draw, cumulative power use, etc. Usually gas is hooked as well. You can hook up a cheap dongle to expose the stats in an app. For instance, we use: https://www.homewizard.com/nl/shop/wi-fi-p1-meter/ This meter al…

Same in France, the official meters have an interface on which you can plug a Raspberry Pi for example to read the data live.

Re: Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana

#138

Post by bennyp101 »

dsab wrote: post #14

Guys what are your favourite smart plug? I need one with easy integration with grafana, not sucking, and shipment to EU country?

I've been using a few of these on various devices https://www.mylocalbytes.com/products/smart-plug-pm

Re: Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana

#139

Post by theshrike79 »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #85
theshrike79 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get less shit ones that aren't made of Chinesium from Shelly

Great suggestion. Some of their modules appear to be UL certified.

Some of them (most of the latest models) are scriptable on-device.

There are some ready-made scripts for the Nordics that check the current electricity prices and use those with some basic rulesets to see if the electric heating in a house should be on or off for example.

I just use mine to turn off the ice machine at 22:00 so it doesn't run through the night :D

Re: Monitoring energy usage with smart plugs, Prometheus and Grafana

#140

Post by theshrike79 »

ckolkey wrote: post #21
dsab wrote: post #14

Guys what are your favourite smart plug? I need one with easy integration with grafana, not sucking, and shipment to EU country?

I'm a huge fan of https://www.shelly.com/ - they have a built in webserver and can be controlled via POST requests. No cloud needed.

Big +1 for Shelly stuff. IIRC it was started by a hobbyist who got annoyed at the crap from Aliexpress and decided to do it properly.

And that they have done.

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