Anyone try IoTaWatt yet?

I got one installed yesterday through a university of Queensland trial, effectively they install an iotawatt and give you a year of cloud storage in exchange for your consumption data and a few surveys on how your usage habits change in that time. If you don’t want to keep it after the trial they will remove it free of charge.
There are still some spots on the trial if you are interested and live near Brisbane (Queensland, Australia).

I haven’t logged into the system yet but I am keen to get it integrated into hass, unfortunately I have just moved to Brisbane and I haven’t gotten around to installing home assistant yet (too many dumb things to sort out first)

I’ve got mine integrated both through the rest json endpoint, and emoncms. They give basically the same numbers, so I’ll remove the rest version at some point.

The only automation I’ve got is around stove being on and no one is home.

I keep a small rest JSON sensor for this information:

image

I’m curious, when you all install these, where did you put the unit and how did you run the wires?

If you put the “brain box” inside the main panel, I assume the thick metal panel blocks all WiFi signal.

I assume the sensor wires aren’t long enough to run all the way down and out of the panel, then over and back up to an electrical box in the adjacent stud bay?

Do you just screw the cover down on the wires coming out and accept that there’s a gap where the panel cover pinches the wires against the panel enclosure box?

I’m very interested in a cost-effective way to ingest current draw for a number of things into HomeAssitant to monitor stuff like washer/dryer, stove, oven, fridge/freezer, dual zone furnaces, and a handful of other things. So far this sounds like the easiest way to get a large number of circuits in without the cloud nor extensive DIY construction

I mounted a box below my breaker box and that’s where the wires run to, in a conduit of course.

Your breaker box should have knock outs for you to attach conduit onto.

How long are the sensor wires? I know the generic eBay CT sensors I got to play with are far too short to reach from top to bottom of the box (it’s a fairly large 200A service panel with 30 slots ~1" wide each, the panel body looks nearly 4ft tall).

My wires were quite long, I’d say about 6-8 feet.

1 Like

The wires from the CTs i purchased with the iotawatt were around 2m long. During covid I needed some extras and bought from ebay, the cables were significantly shorter.

Depending on where you live, chances are there’s a regulation which means can’t install it inside the meter box itself.

I’ve got mine in a separate weatherproof case with the wires run in conduit.

Dumb question, but bother with hunting down conduit and boxes vs just screwing it to the wall and running the wire thru an appropriate grommet?

Since the CTs are low voltage, there isn’t any requirement they be in any specific enclosure, and I don’t see why poking out of the wall would be any different than all the other low voltage stuff that just pops out (alarm wires, thermostats, catv, speakers, etc.)

I could see if you were running it a distance unprotected outside of a wall or snake it a long distance thru the walls and want to upgrade them easily, but I assume with only 6ft cable most people bolt it right adjacent/above/below the panel?

In australia our electricity panels are generally outside. :slight_smile:

In my case it’s a wall of my living room so better to leave it all outside.