If all you want to do is monitor and not control have a look at the IotaWatt. It has enough inputs to monitor all the circuits in your house.
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Had my first Officeworks Brilliant power monitoring plug fail the other day. Itās still connected and I can still control the relay but the power monitoring has failed:
Interestingly it looks like both the voltage and current sensors are kaput.
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Iāve had a couple fail unfortunatelyā¦ just replaced them with the TP-Link Kasa KP-115
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Iāll be going zigbee when I run out of stock of the Brilliant plugs (still have a dozen spares left).
Why is it so hard to make a reliable wifi power monitoring plug?
Just checked when I bought them. One month out of warranty!
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Consumer Guarantees Act? (or the Oz equivalent, there will probably be one, we tend to copy our consumer legislation from Oz).
Too low value to be covered by Australian Consumer Law (which is the australian equivalent).
I think Tasmota might be a contributing factor, because I kept two standard as a test and theyāve not failed while 50% of the ones I put tasmota on have. Obviously not exactly a scientific test, but i do wonder.
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Well Iām using ESPHome not Tasmota but I get your point.
I donāt see how this sort of failure could occur due to altered firmware though.
Did your failures show the same symptoms as mine or did they go ābangā?
These plugs arenāt as easy to open as the Kogan ones from memory. Might have to be destructive but Iām going to have a look inside.
Similar symptoms to yours, but obviously different firmwareā¦ still āavailableā but stopped reporting, others would no longer trigger the relay.
I donāt know enough about the differences in the firmware, but it could be additional load causing heat (given all the extra features that Tasmota provides), different power management profile for the chip etcā¦
Like I said, unscientific.
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I bought 4 kp115s from Amazon yesterday evening and they are already here and in use.
Not on sale but I read they might be discontinued? In any case I went with them due to good reviews here.
Any ZigBee ones with a good rep Tom?
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No idea sorry. Havenāt researched it yet.
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No worries. Hopefully over the next year or so some new options pop up
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I have also been wondering if the way we use Tasmota/ESPHome on these have an influence. I have set my plugs (Kogan as well as Brilliant ones) to report energy consumption every 10 seconds. And these keep dying after about 12-18 months.
In comparison I left one Brilliant plug with the original Tuya firmware and that is still doing fine, but only reports energy consumption every couple of hours, so useless for detecting if the dishwasher is finished, etc.
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I bought four Shelly Plus 1PM units and have installed three which are working well in light applications.
Two Things:
1: I thought I read that these had been certified for Australian use.
2: They are rated for 16amps at 240v. I was planning to replace a Grid Connect switch that controls my solar HW booster. The hot water system draws 2000 watts (ie about 8.3amps). Someone has suggested that the Shelly could not handle that. I suspect they were confusing it with a motor that might have a higher initial hit, but am I right that the Shelly would have no problem controlling 2000 watts/8.3amps?
As long as it is a resistive load it should be fine.
As for Australian certification, only if you buy it from here or another Australian distributor that has paid to get it tested and certified.
Thanks Tom.
As it is a pretty standard heater, I am sure it is a simple heating element, so I guess I am fine.
Now to find another Clipsal momentary switch with LED to show itās on. They donāt seem popular, so I have had to check around. Haymans were helpful before.
Man the price for those is a rip-off.
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Odd thing is if they were reasonably priced they would do well I reckon.
Like their zigbee range.
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They were about $21 - $22 (inc GST) from Haymanās last time, but even thenā¦. yep!
The ones without the LED are cheaper ($17-ish???) but you need the light when you have no other way of knowing whether the power is on (eg HW booster).
(Putting aside whether it is to do with firmware change) Is there a lower price limit in Australia for consumer protection? A complaint to the relevant authority (commerce commission here) may lead to huge fines here.