home energy monitor and energy phantom/vampire killer units?

[SKY888]

Hi guys,

which home energy monitor do you recommend?

I would like a unit to be real-time....... handheld device/web-based.


also, what energy phantom/vampire killer units do you guys recommend?

 

[klapauzius]

Hi guys,

which home energy monitor do you recommend?

I would like a unit to be real-time....... handheld device/web-based.


also, what energy phantom/vampire killer units do you guys recommend?

Kill-a-watt works for most appliances that you plug into a regular 120 V outlet.
I used a bunch of relays (some of these come with a remote, which is quite handy) to put between the vampire and the outlet (e.g. for my computer, home theater, etc. stuff that I dont need on standby during the day).
Anything that works remote/web base is probably quite expensive.

Here is a fun DIY project:

http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think they sell ready-made units too.

 

[braineo]

I use my TED:

http://www.theenergydetective.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[Nekota]

I use a current cost system which has whole house monitoring and individual appliance modules (IAMs) for Killawatt with logging capabilities with a 10 minute plot resolution which I find is not granular enough for real time.

In addition, I setup an account with wattvision to track real time power consumption with a python script based interface to the wattvision API which provides an average 15 second granular visibility, driven by the current cost logging data every 6 seconds. The current cost system has up to 3 line inputs for 3 phase circuits but typical US split phase uses two inputs for line1 and line2. I used a 3rd line input for the EVSE power to the LEAF and passed two turns to the current transformer to multiply the output by 2x (for 240V with no neutral on EVSE). This enables me to use a data base (sqlite3) with 6 second granularity to all the energy consumption flows in the house by Line1, Line2, and the EVSE (Line3) for the LEAF. I recently added PV solar and the EnPhase Energy provides the interface for that system and I'm considering adding another current cost logging system to capture that data stream with the 6 second resolution. I've been running the current cost system for 32 months.

Hand held visibility comes from any web browser application on a smart phone or even a wifi connected Kindle with their experimental browser. The data logging is based on arduino device (2 watt) for current cost and python (moving to raspberry 4 watts soon and drop the 14 watt laptop from the vampire load) for the wattvision.

 

[Boomer23]

I use TED. I'm quite pleased with it, installed 2 years ago. I have 3 monitors in place ("MTUs"), one for my car charging circuit, one for my solar energy production (since I have a 6 year old inverter that doesn't do data output), and one for net power draw for the total house.

For handheld, I use a free app for Apple handhelds called TED-O-Meter. Works over wifi to my router, that TED's gateway is plugged into. TED has a wireless handheld display, but at least the version I bought two years ago is inferior to the TED-O-Meter in wifi range, battery life and display readability. It works well, though, for troubleshooting and setting up the TED system when you"re searching for good circuits to plug TED's gateway into, since it talks directly to the gateway rather than through the router.

Hope that helps.

 

[Smidge204]

I also got a TED, after reading about it on this forum. It's pretty nice and gives good feedback (1 second update intervals, max rate). If I had any gripes about it, it's that it doesn't store the "high-res" data that long... it only saves the past hour's worth of second-by-second readings and the last 48 hours worth of minute-by-minute readings. Not quite good enough for my anal-retentive data policies!

Otherwise it's fantastic.
=Smidge=

 

[Boomer23]

By the way, TED is not web-enabled. The software does display in a web browser, but it's not available away from home over the Internet. Google used to have a solution called Google Power Meter that integrated with TED, but Google canned that service last year, sadly. There may be other solutions to connect TED to the Internet, but I'm not up on them.

 

[klapauzius]

By the way, TED is not web-enabled. The software does display in a web browser, but it's not available away from home over the Internet. Google used to have a solution called Google Power Meter that integrated with TED, but Google canned that service last year, sadly. There may be other solutions to connect TED to the Internet, but I'm not up on them.

Usually, but that depends on the provider, you can allow e.g. port 80 through your router for a specific IP adress (=device) on your local network (e.g. the TED) and then you look at it from everywhere....not sure if this is wise though without some protection/access restrictions.

 

[cwerdna]

Kill-a-watt works for most appliances that you plug into a regular 120 V outlet.

I highly recommend Kill-A-Watt (http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. It's one of the best cheap gadgets I've bought in a long time. It's pretty cool to be able to see how much power something draws when, on, in standby or in different states (e.g. different brightness levels). There are some fancier models at http://www.p3international.com/products/consumer/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

That said, folks like Ingineer have recommended not using it w/your Leaf's 120 volt EVSE (see http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=11574&p=269364#p269364" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. For lower loads or ones that don't pull such a high load for such a prolonged period of time (e.g. running a hair drier or microwave oven for a few minutes), it's fine. I've left it plugged in for weeks on my fridge (~100 watts or so w/compressor on, maybe ~500 watts in defrost mode) and my PCs (~60-80 watts idle, <200 watts w/all cores of CPU maxed out) w/o issue.

 

[SKY888]

thanks guys!

Great recommendations! Lots of awesome products, that I really need to do more research on, before purchasing home monitoring system.

 

[SKY888]

Kill-a-watt works for most appliances that you plug into a regular 120 V outlet.
I used a bunch of relays (some of these come with a remote, which is quite handy) to put between the vampire and the outlet (e.g. for my computer, home theater, etc. stuff that I dont need on standby during the day).

for my home theater system
55" Sony 929 LEd 3dTV
Bose Lifestyle v30 system
Samsung 3d blu-ray player
Verizon DVR
Verizon Wireless
Toshiba laptop

all of them are plugged-in my APC H15 power conditioner
http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/features/753629642/apc-h15" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



You mentioned "relays". I'm sorry, I'm not really a technical person, could you please explain in layman terms, how you were able to achieve eliminating vampire losses.

I know that I really can't "fully" turn off my DVR so it can fully function and record shows during the day/night that we're not watching tv.

What products do you recommend in order for me to eliminate phantom/vampire power losses for other items connected to the APC H15 power conditioner such as the tv, laptop, sound system, blu-ray player?

Thank you!

 

[SKY888]

I also have a jump starter unit
http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/6-in-1-jump-starter/10045050?trail=&fromPLP=true&ancestorID=&searchString=&startSearch=&fromSearchBox=&addFacet=" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It is plugged-in all the time, to get its 100% charge.

Once I unplug it, it loses the charge.

is this unit drawing power while plugged-in?
if so, is there anyway that I can do to avoid it from drawing power? or I really have to keep it plugged-in and can't do anything about it?

I need it to be fully charged, just in case I need to use it for my other vehicle.


thanks!

 

[Smidge204]

It is plugged-in all the time, to get its 100% charge.

How long does it take to lose charge? It appears to have a sealed lead-acid battery, so the self-discharge rate should not be that significant unless the battery is kaput.

You can get a cheap plug-in timer ($10-$15ish), which will allow you to set what time of day the unit will receive power. The timer itself will draw some power, of course, so you'll have to determine how much power the battery unit draws when plugged in and decide if a timer is even worth it. A few minutes per day should be more than enough to keep it topped off.
=Smidge=

 

[SKY888]

It is plugged-in all the time, to get its 100% charge.

How long does it take to lose charge? It appears to have a sealed lead-acid battery, so the self-discharge rate should not be that significant unless the battery is kaput.

You can get a cheap plug-in timer ($10-$15ish), which will allow you to set what time of day the unit will receive power. The timer itself will draw some power, of course, so you'll have to determine how much power the battery unit draws when plugged in and decide if a timer is even worth it. A few minutes per day should be more than enough to keep it topped off.
=Smidge=

The unit shows "100%" charge when plugged-in, and goes down to about "80%" in a day or so.

I actually have one plug-in timer laying around that I bought for my Xmas decorations. I will it to just charge my jump-starter unit for a couple of hours a day to top it off!


thanks for the advice Smidge!


I guess I'll buy two more cheap mechanical plug-in timers for about $5 each......and use them for my two car garage door openers. I just found out that they use about 7.5 watts on stand-by mode. With 15 cents kwh rate, that's about $20 the whole year!

They don't need to use that power from 9pm-5am and 7am-1pm on a daily basis so I think it's worth it!

 

[klapauzius]

You mentioned "relays". I'm sorry, I'm not really a technical person, could you please explain in layman terms, how you were able to achieve eliminating vampire losses.

I know that I really can't "fully" turn off my DVR so it can fully function and record shows during the day/night that we're not watching tv.

What products do you recommend in order for me to eliminate phantom/vampire power losses for other items connected to the APC H15 power conditioner such as the tv, laptop, sound system, blu-ray player?

Thank you!

A relay is an electromechanical switch. The ones I have go between the outlet and the device (e.g. the home theater). They have a little remote and at the push of a button, the relay disconnects the whole device from the wall outlet. It is like unplugging the device. But instead of having to bend down and fumble with hard to reach outlets at the back of some cabinet, the relay will do the "unplugging" for you.

These are the ones I have:

http://www.amazon.com/Remote-Control-BH9936-3-Power-Switches/dp/B0064PKG3Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1361986023&sr=1-1&keywords=bye+bye+standby" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My home theater in standby is drawing about 40W, so that amounts to ~ 350 kWH per year or $35 per year at 10 c per kWH. That is $35 per year for nothing, so by disconnecting it, I am saving that money. My $18 investment has already been repaid 6 times over.

Be aware though that you cannot "unplug" the DVR in this fashion if you want it to record things... in this case you would have to put this on an extra outlet.