I want to install an energy monitor at my property which is a work site for me, but I don’t live there full time, so I can monitor pump health for water systems, and other energy draws from my various machines. I understand that Sense energy monitors and Aeotec are both designed to use web interfaces to control systems, and I can work with that, however the internet at this location has multiple shutdowns and data problems. I need a system that has local backup on hardware during data connection outages and can later be accessed by my computer. Is this something that can be accomplished by hard wiring Home Assistant to the router the energy sensors are plugged into? Does Home Assistant find these sensors through the hard wire or is it only going to find them via internet connections? I really don’t know how they work and am hesitant to drop $400 on hardware when I don’t know what it does. The documentation here doesn’t explain any of that: Sense - Home Assistant but the linked python code on github seems to connect through the Sense.com website. Is there a way to give it an IP code to find it over the ethernet instead? Same questions for Aeon Aeotec device. Does that have to go through the Smart Things connection or is there a local option? I prefer Sense because of the device recognition features but I can also turn machines on and off manually and get a feel for what their signatures look like, I suppose. Would suck to have to recreate the smart device recognition that Sense offers manually. Maybe that isn’t available to the Home Assistant anyway? Does anybody know?
The Sense device has a WiFi connection to your internet router and uploads all its data to the cloud. If you connect Home Assistant, it can then download that data from the cloud making a local copy. If you go to the Sense Integration page you linked above, note that the IoT Class is “Cloud Polling” meaning it requires an internet connection to retrieve data. However the Sense is the only product I’ve seen with its unique device detection feature.
The Aeotec Energy Monitor device is somewhat different. It does not have WiFi, but instead uses a Z-Wave connection (900 MHz) to a local controller device within 20-30 feet away. The local controller can be a SmartThings hub, or can be a Home Assistant server coupled with a Z-wave usb dongle. If you opt to use the SmartThings hub, it will backup all data to the cloud, which in turn can send the data to Home Assistant, as evident by the HA SmartThings integration showing the IoT class as “Cloud Push”. If you opt to make HA the Z-wave controller instead of SmartThings, you skip the cloud step — the Z-wave integration IoT class is “Local Push” so no data is ever copied to the internet.
Another interesting option is the Shelly EM, which like the Sense uses a WiFi connection, but instead can send data to HA directly on the LAN, even without the Internet present; the HA Shelly Integration also lists its IoT Class as “Local Push”. While this is functionally identical to the Aeotec-with-HA-controller option. It requires less hardware investment since no Z-wave dongle is required.
So to summarize the connectivity of these four options:
- Sense Meter - Router - Internet - HA
- Aeotec Meter - SmartThings Hub - Router - Internet - HA
- Aeotec Meter - HA w/Z-wave dongle
- Shelly EM - WiFi AP - HA