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Ask HN: Home Energy Monitor Recommendations?
Hi all,
Wondering if you have any other recommendations or thoughts on the below.
Use case: I have a solar array and want to track in one spot all the energy produced, energy imported, energy exported, and where energy is being used.
Both of the following seem to do what I want with some nuances. I am looking at:
1) Sense [0], which identifies energy use patterns of different devices to determine what devices are on different circuits (apparently even multiple devices on a single circuit) and how much energy each device is using. It is the most expensive option, uses proprietary tech that I am concerned means the company either goes belly up and I’m left with a brick, or forces everyone to switch to a SaaS model and I get held hostage if I want to continue using it in the same way. The other concern is that reviews are massively split - either it’s the greatest thing ever or it simply doesn’t manage to identify energy draws).
2) Emporia Vue 2 [1] which uses traditional CTs clamped on individual circuits. It is more cost effective than the Sense but is limited to 16 circuits and doesn’t provide any insight behind the circuit (so for example if a fridge and freezer are on one outlet, they are grouped together, which apparently the Sense can disentangle to varying success) so the data produced would seem to be less useful. There seem to be options for pushing the data to local storage [2] so if the company goes belly up or trying to force users to SaaS there seems to be an escape hatch.
Anyone have any experience with either product or an alternative? Any insights? Much appreciated!
[0] https://sense.com/
[1] https://www.emporiaenergy.com/how-the-vue-energy-monitor-works
[2] https://github.com/emporia-vue-local/esphome
- guiambros 3y agoI'm also considering the Sense, but haven't decided yet. There's also SPAN Panel [1]. I don't have firsthand knowledge, but the entire panel is "smart", so you can toggle each circuit individually on/off, monitor power utilization, detect patterns, set schedules, etc. Quite expensive thought -- $4.5K for the device + a massive installation of a new panel, requiring city permits, inspections, etc. I guess the target audience is new constructions and major remodeling, and not existing homeowners. [1] https://www.span.io/panel https://www.span.io/panel
- sponaugle 3y agoThe SPAN panels are interesting, and I considered them and a few others like them, but it is hard to use them without knowing if they will be around in 10 years. The standard panels from SquareD, etc are such a known quantity especially for parts availability. You can get the monitoring part of the equation with CTs at least, and that is a start.
- roland35 3y agoSense is much less upfront to install - it is able to detect most large loads just by looking at the overall current and voltage going into the house via disagregation. It works pretty well!
- leon_sbt 3y agoI saw Span a few times. It is a nice idea, but I'm personally not a fan. Doing switching at the panel level seems very clunky. In reality, switching should be done at the device level. Ie per fan , light etc. If they had a self contained server similar to IOTAWATT that just instruments the power draw of each circuit then I would be a fan.
- moneywoes 3y agoHey, I saw your old post here about working on a business may i ask how it turned out? Here is the post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25087138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25087138
- sponaugle 3y agoI am using IotaWatts to do monitoring of every circuit in my house, and it is a pretty great setup. I have a reasonable large setup given I have 9 panels to monitor with >120 individual circuits. I also have it monitoring my 20kw Solar system as well as 42kwh of batteries. https://community.iotawatt.com/t/sorta-larger-than-average-iotawatt-installation/2220 https://community.iotawatt.com/t/sorta-larger-than-average-i... I have all of the data going into influx, with grafana for display. During the build of my house I planned for this by adding additional space below the panels: https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/jeffs-mountain-side-shop-portland.409988/ https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/jeffs-mountain-s... However that was more of a nice to have, not something you have to do. On the solar side, if you want per panel measurements that is something you can really only do with micro-inverters. I'm using Enphase 7A micro-inverters on each panel, so I also get direct data from enphase/enlighten about power production from each panel.
- sponaugle 3y agoOh, and one other that I have used: https://www.brultech.com/greeneye/ https://www.brultech.com/greeneye/ I had one of these in my old house. A little older tech, and I had my own code on a raspberry pi getting to data and putting it into influx. The IotaWatts are much more plug and play, but still it is an option for the DIY.
- voisin 3y agoIotawatt looks great! Super disappointing they’ve discontinued direct sales and now only work through dealers, with apparently only one dealer in Australia right now.
- sponaugle 3y agoOh that is a bummer for sure! Hopefully they can get someone in the US as a distributor.
- j4nek 3y agohttps://www.shelly.cloud/en/products/energy-metering-energy-efficiency#unfiltered https://www.shelly.cloud/en/products/energy-metering-energy-...
- atmanactive 3y agoAfter installing several dozen of Tasmota based WiFi energy monitors around the house, I've noticed WiFi performance dropping significantly on my three-mesh-Ubiquity-Amplifi WiFi network. Therefore, I'm slowly moving away from WiFi based IoT devices and expanding my Z-Wave network with more and more devices. Two years ago I was doing exactly the opposite. The core is, of course, Home Assistant. Just my experience.
- leon_sbt 3y agoAnother vote for IotAWatt . I installed one a few months ago. No cloud app. visit an IP to view the local webserver. Has a neat graphing functions, and can pipe data to InfluxDB. + Home Assistant intergration. Love it. I wish they had a 30 circuit variant, so I can monitor every single circuit in my panel.
- fendale 3y agoI have a Shelly EM on my main grid circuit and solar array and find it to be an excellent product. They have lots of other automation products too.