Gill Posted July 4, 2022 Share Posted July 4, 2022 (edited) I'm looking for a cheap whole house power consumption monitor for eco 7 meter. I'm just after something simple I can scrape the data from that'll give me usage (daily or hourly) and saves me from manual reads. I keep finding products that are no longer manufactured. Any recommends appreciated ? Thanks Edited July 4, 2022 by Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted July 4, 2022 Share Posted July 4, 2022 Shelly EM will do what you want. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gill Posted July 5, 2022 Author Share Posted July 5, 2022 Spot on. Thanks Peter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 5, 2022 Share Posted July 5, 2022 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225055383675 Can be linked to a RPi for little cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 5, 2022 Share Posted July 5, 2022 51 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225055383675 Can be linked to a RPi for little cost. How does it cope with solar PV and a PV diverter? I bought a similar thing, different make very cheap like that one, but found it was totally useless with the PV. for a start it could not tell import from export, so if the PV was exporting it showed as "use" and when the PV diverter was doing it's thing (energy bucket principle so energy going backwards and forwards) it counted that as double. I would like such a device, but it must cope with the PV and the PV diverter properly and I have never found such a device. The closest I have got so far is the energy meter built into my own PV diverter which is an old analogue centre zero meter that shows import and export properly. The only reason I would like such a device is it's portability and nice display. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 5, 2022 Share Posted July 5, 2022 26 minutes ago, ProDave said: How does it cope with solar PV and a PV diverter It is not made to measure both. You can put up to 9 CT clamps on them and they log to a different channel. So you can, with a bit of spreadsheet wizardry, easily measure both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radian Posted July 5, 2022 Share Posted July 5, 2022 3 hours ago, ProDave said: The only reason I would like such a device is it's portability and nice display. Why doesn't the Shelley EM meet that brief - with the smartphone app? I'm not 100% certain but the instructions make a big deal about wiring the CT WRT polarity so that would suggest it's sensitive to power flow direction. Failing that, you could re-visit your home made diverter and get to the bottom of why the washing machine was upsetting things. I found the process of sampling I & V and multiplying the samples together 'just worked' for me. I improved accuracy by phase shifting the current by five samples out of 170 per cycle but even before that it was accurate to better than 5%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 5, 2022 Share Posted July 5, 2022 1 hour ago, Radian said: Why doesn't the Shelley EM meet that brief - with the smartphone app? I'm not 100% certain but the instructions make a big deal about wiring the CT WRT polarity so that would suggest it's sensitive to power flow direction. I would hate to buy one then find it falls short when used with solar PV and a burst firing PV dump controller. Is there anyone on this forum that has actually used one and can confirm it reads import and export and correctly "averages" the burst firing of an energy bucket PV dump controller? If I get confirmation it does all that correctly I would buy one, but their website is a little scant on details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 5, 2022 Share Posted July 5, 2022 1 hour ago, ProDave said: would hate to buy one I would hate to buy one and they stop the cloud service, or updates to the phone software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 5, 2022 Share Posted July 5, 2022 30 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: I would hate to buy one and they stop the cloud service, or updates to the phone software. My reading is it links directly to your wifi. Are you saying it only works if it can talk to some cloud service? That would certainly put me off. that is why I am asking for someone who has actually used one to tell it like it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gill Posted July 5, 2022 Author Share Posted July 5, 2022 26 minutes ago, ProDave said: My reading is it links directly to your wifi. Are you saying it only works if it can talk to some cloud service? That would certainly put me off. that is why I am asking for someone who has actually used one to tell it like it is. I read through a blog that mentioned enabling mqqt would disable the cloud integration but also reduce the data available via the app so I guess if you're not using HA or similar then seems to indicate a cloud dependancy. I'd be happy to try it out and report back but looking at this I've no idea what the clip(s) attach to in this setup. 🤔 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kommando Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 On 05/07/2022 at 16:02, ProDave said: I would hate to buy one then find it falls short when used with solar PV and a burst firing PV dump controller. The French house consumption meters are way more sensitive than UK meters to the burst diversion technique, so it does not work with them as the toing and froing of electricity within the bucket is seen by French meters as consumption, in the UK it is not. For the MK2 PVrouter there is new software released for French users which gets round the problem. These are the changes, I will be trying it out as I have a secondary import/export meter installed to check for any export leakage and that is showing a 15W or 0.015kwh export when the MK2 PVrouter is diverting excess to the immersion element. If after installing this program it still shows 15W export then I have some other tricks to try which will be looking at the calibration of the CT clamp. Release notes for the change November 2019: updated to Mk2_fasterControl_1 with these changes: * - Half way through each mains cycle, a prediction is made of the likely energy level at the * end of the cycle. That predicted value allows the triac to be switched at the +ve going * zero-crossing point rather than waiting for a further 10 ms. These changes allow for * faster switching of the load. * - The range of the energy bucket has been reduced to one tenth of its former value. This * allows the unit's operation to commence more rapidly whenever surplus power is available. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radian Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 16 minutes ago, kommando said: For the MK2 PVrouter there is new software released for French users which gets round the problem Thanks for posting that up. A 10ms reduction in response time is only 30 Joules @ 3kW so I'm surprised that helps given the typical UK bucket size of 3600J but I have no idea what the French meters are about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 9 minutes ago, Radian said: no idea what the French meters are about. The French copy no one. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 1 minute ago, SteamyTea said: The French copy no one. Except at le Weekend! Seriously though if all 30 million French households implement this surely the savings will be valuable, most savings are when you multiply them by 30 million. Of course you have to think of the greater good not just your own personal enrichment / aggrandisement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wil Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 I have several Shelly EM and 3EM products and can confirm as standard they use the cloud. You can disable this and have them internal only to your network but you then need to run some sort of Home Assistant server to keep all the logging features. I have no issue with Shelly logging how horrendous my energy usage is for the ease. The HA server is a WIP. I have solar and a diverter as well and they seem to work well. I’ve not done an exact comparison so can’t confirm accuracy against the meter. I have heard some on the forums complaining about the 3phase metering aspect, but can’t remember exactly what this issue was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gill Posted July 11, 2022 Author Share Posted July 11, 2022 Thanks @Wil that's useful to know. I'll eventually go HA but haven't got the time to setup at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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