Anyone try IoTaWatt yet?

skywise · June 20, 2018, 4:00am

Now that I have basic control of the house going with Home Assistant it’s time to work on some fun stuff.
I’ve been reading about folk doing appliance alerting, using Z wave switches with power monitoring. The problem here is the dryer, it’s a bit beefy to just plug into a switch.
So, I went looking at those panel installed power monitors to see if any were within a reasonable price. I found IoTaWatt(https://github.com/boblemaire/IoTaWatt and https://shop.openenergymonitor.com/iotawatt-wifi-connected-14-channel-electricity-monitor/) which seems to be a perfect fit, I can watch the line to the dryer, washer, dishwasher and then act when needed.

I can’t seem to find any mention of it in Home Assistant though. Has no-one tried it, or is it so simple no-one needs to put it in?

digiblur · June 20, 2018, 11:55am

I stumbled across it yesterday as I have been thinking about doing the same thing but utilizing the DIY method with just a couple sensors here and there for circuits. It would be a little pricey for me honestly to get it shipped and such. Very cool product though!

skywise · June 20, 2018, 12:28pm

If you leave out the power supply and the sense adapter (which I think is just a 9 volt AC transformer) The shipping isn’t bad (to Canada, £6) and the total comes to £124 (~$200 Cdn).
The Aeotec Smart Switch is $70Cdn each, 3 of those gets me to the $200.
This doesn’t count the Current sensors, I’m hoping I can source those closer to home at a reasonable price.

digiblur · June 20, 2018, 1:50pm

Still a bit pricey for my project tastes but it is a ready to go product that will work for many.

Being more of a DIY’er I was looking at utilizing the ESP32’s ADC’s since there are quite a few of them along with being 12-bit. Seems close to the ADC he used combined with the ESP8266. Simplify the design a bit for my needs as I’d would really only need 2 mains (for both legs), then 4-5 sub cores for various other circuits such as air conditioner, etc. I have 2 Sonoff S31s already monitoring the washing machine and dryer separately with notifications. Since I’m gas stove, gas dryer, gas heat, and gas tankless water heater, the only real big power draw I have is the 3.5 ton AC compressor.

DotNetDann · October 8, 2018, 2:24am

I am in the process of building one of these up.
I WILL be integrating to HA. (Probably via MQTT)

Hanging for my PCB’s to arrive.

DotNetDann · October 30, 2018, 10:50am

If anyone is interested, I have got a HA config to integrate the IoTaWatt

github.com

DotNetDann/IoTaWatt/blob/master/Example Home Assistant Configuration.yaml

sensor:
  - platform: rest
    name: IoTaWatt
    json_attributes:
      - inputs
      - outputs
    resource: http://192.168.xxx.xxx/status?inputs=yes&outputs=yes
    value_template: '{{ value_json.inputs[0].Vrms }}v'
    scan_interval: 5

  - platform: template
    sensors:
      iotawatt_1:
        friendly_name_template: 'Channel {{ states.sensor.iotawatt.attributes["inputs"][1].channel }}'
        unit_of_measurement: 'Watts'
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.iotawatt.attributes["inputs"][1].Watts }}'
      iotawatt_total:
        friendly_name_template: '{{ states.sensor.iotawatt.attributes["outputs"][0].name }}'
        unit_of_measurement: 'Watts'
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.iotawatt.attributes["outputs"][0].value }}'

murphys_law · December 2, 2018, 10:03pm

Nice, I’m starting to look at power monitoring for the home. How is everything working now that you’ve had it for a while?

zunn · March 3, 2019, 9:18am

hi, thank you very much, working everything but not the sensor from 10 to 14… am i missing something?
i get value 0 from sensor 10, but from iotawatt “status page” is working correctly

  - platform: template
sensors:
  iotawatt_1:
    friendly_name_template: 'Channel {{ states.sensor.iotawatt.attributes["inputs"][1].channel }}'
    unit_of_measurement: 'Watts'
    value_template: '{{ states.sensor.iotawatt.attributes["inputs"][1].Watts }}'
  iotawatt_2:
    friendly_name_template: 'Channel {{ states.sensor.iotawatt.attributes["inputs"][2].channel }}'
    unit_of_measurement: 'Watts'
    value_template: '{{ states.sensor.iotawatt.attributes["inputs"][2].Watts }}'
  iotawatt_10:
    friendly_name_template: 'Channel {{ states.sensor.iotawatt.attributes["inputs"][10].channel }}'
    unit_of_measurement: 'Watts'
    value_template: '{{ states.sensor.iotawatt.attributes["inputs"][10].Watts }}'

Sebastien_Couture · March 23, 2019, 7:23pm

Hi Zunn,
I was thinking about ordering an iotawatt and I was wondering if everything was working as expected on your side?
Any problems other than the sensors from 10 - 14?

Thanks

zunn · March 23, 2019, 9:55pm

hi, everything is working correctly from iotawatt side, the problem on sensor 10 to 14 still remains on hassio. the iotawatt is very stable and for me very useful to check the energy consumption. think about that hassio refresh the values every 2/3 seconds, instead if you check from iotawatt panel it is almost instant

Sebastien_Couture · March 23, 2019, 10:05pm

Great, even with just 9 sensors working properly I will be happy with that.

Thanks for the feedback.

DotNetDann · March 24, 2019, 4:05am

If you go to the states page and look up the IoTawatt. What is the data it has there?
There is no reason why all channels (along with the calculated ones) are not available.

zunn · March 24, 2019, 7:09am

if i go to iotawatt state page i have all 14 channel with correct values, but if try to import to hassio i got correct value from the sensor 1 to 9 and got 0 from sensor 10 to 14. i think it’s a problem from the code above…
if you want to try just plug one energy meter sensor to a port with double digit and look what you get from home assistant

zunn · March 24, 2019, 7:12am

think about if you live in Europe maybe you have to pay import tax because they ship from usa… i live in Italy and i pay 30€

Sebastien_Couture · March 24, 2019, 1:06pm

I live in Canada, so I will have to pay for import too.
Not sure how much.

I recently bought a Sense Home Energy monitor and so far im not impress with it.
It doesn’t expose the current draw of each devices in HA, only the binary states (ON/OFF), there is also a huge lag between HA and Sense.

I’m thinking about returning it and getting an iotawatt instead.
It sounds like a better option for me.

I’m surprised the iotawatt doesn’t get more attention than that, sounds like a great device…

zunn · March 24, 2019, 5:48pm

it’s a great device and if you buy the energy meter on aliexpress, ebay or amazon you save a lot of money (iotawatt is capable of working with many types of model)
i was thinking about buy a sense, but after some bad reviews i switch to iotawatt and i’m more then happy with it (i have only the problem on hassio from the sensor 10 to 14 but it’s not relate to iotawatt).
i’m surprised too that iotawatt isn’t getting much attentions. (personally i use it for checking how much energy i use and when, in the near future my goal is to use this device in my automations, for example " when laundry go below 10w sent me a notification" so i know that the washing machine is done).
download%20(1)

here some example of my lovelace ui
sorry for my english…

Sebastien_Couture · March 24, 2019, 6:05pm

Today I ordered the iotawatt base, 2 current transformer (200 amps) and 6 current transformers (100 amps), I will most likely order the rest of the clamps later from aliexpress.
I will let you know if I have the same problem as you with sensor 10 to 14.
Hopefully we can get that fixed.

Thanks for your help.

Sebastien_Couture · April 19, 2019, 6:40pm

Hi Zunn,
I have received my iotawatt and I really love it !
I have 12 clamps and they all work fine for me,
although I use appdaemon to query the json result in python.

You could try sending a get request using Postman Chrome extension to test if you get results on inputs 10 to 14.

schford · July 18, 2019, 5:31pm

Just ordered mine thanks for info up here!

Stewface · August 6, 2019, 2:56pm

How is everyone going with these? I Was going to order one