I have the Wiser Insights+ IHD. It is actually a Geo Together Trio Touchbutton which sends Electricity and Gas usage to Geo, and Schneider then get the data from them. There is an additional integration that can be installed through HACS that makes your energy usage data from Geo’s API available to HA. For that alone £14.99 it is a pretty good deal. Schneider haven’t added much in the way of useful Insights, and when I asked them they said they didn’t have plans to do so. They also asked in a survey whether I’d be willing to pay a monthly subscription fee for Insights+ - not without the regular addition of useful features!
I haven’t had any issues with Insights today but I do recall something similar in the past. I may have resolved it by logging out from Wiser app, and clearing the app cache, but I don’t recall exactly.
I also have the Geo IHD. Much better than the stock one that came with the meter and AFAIK you can use mqtt with it to get the data locally. Not done this yet but have used the HACs integration and works really well.
That’s interesting - troubleshooting issues with Schneider, Geo Together and my energy supplier is a drawn out affair. If I can get the data directly from the device I could at least track my usage more independently.
Yes. The Hilderbrand unit provides a mqtt connection.
But £70 is too high a price for data that’s only for interest purposes.
£15 is a fair deal.
But coming from a ‘third party’, is the data reliable?
I tried the Hiderbrand / Bright app to get data into HA last year. (Not using their IHD).
It was initially sporadic.
Then appeared to work for around 3 weeks.
Then became sporadic again, so I gave up.
I compared the data received during the weeks it was working with the Eon smart meter display.
The daily electricity values were generally within 0.5kWh of each other. Two excecptions of -1.1 and -1.94kWh.
The gas values were more random, with peaks of +2.39 and -6.55kWh
Why they aren’t exactly the same is a mystery.
I actually wondered if it was my data they were sending to me.
Has anyone checked the received data? (Not via mqtt).
I’ll give it a go for £15 if it’s ‘accurate’.
The Hildebrand Bright App is using the data from the central Smart Database (SDD) that the smart meters send their data to. (This theoretically means a seamless switch between suppliers now).
And it is the data the energy suppliers us for their billing albeit via a different interface.
My feeling is that the SDD API is the flaky part in this set up not the Bright App
The data from the mqtt feed is the same as in the SDD, when you can access it. That’s my experience FWIW.
The Geo Together data matches the data I get from Octopus Energy, but I can see current usage live and the historic data an hour later, whereas Octopus has a longer delay (at least three hours). I think the Geo Together IHD gets the data direct from the smart meter, and sends it to Geo, but since they need an agreement with the smart meter company, they could also be getting it from the central database.
To be honest, I can’t see a way to make use of live usage in any automations that would add any value, without significant outlay on a smart washing machine/dryer. HA seem to have abandoned the energy dashboard, much as Schneider don’t seem to be investing in Insights+. There isn’t really any decent integration that allows taking advantage of Agile Octopus plunge pricing, and the savings might be pretty small anyway.
The Geo does connect to your meters and receives the data directly and send to geo cloud over your wifi. Just using apps/integrations that talk to providers getting the data from the SSD (like Hildebrand without their IHD) is very hit and miss as the meters do not always send their data regularly and therefore you end up with bad data in HA.
This was why i got the Geo via Insights+ and not regretted it.
atm i’m pllaying around with my heating schedules / temperatures, to find what is the best cost saving, today so far with my current shedule i’m saving around 4kWh of GAS compared to yesterday, and it is 4˚c colder today.
16.5kWh of gas, compared to this time yesterday 20.72kWh. I’d be intergested to know if this is Bad, Good or Average.
The electric meter updates its data every 30 seconds and the gas meter every 30 mins (to save its battery). The gas meter provides its data to the electric meter which has the modem to send to the SSD database. However, this can fail to send (seen by many of the issues with smart meters not sending readings) and is only required to have sent it once a day for billing purposes. As such, as long as you only want a daily reading then you are ok, providing your meter is sendin correctly. If you are looking for more granular use during the day, this can be unreliable.
Having an IHD that sends its data over wifi is more reliable for this granular approach and is no longer relying on the SSD database for info. Obviously still for billing.
That’s very good, this week so far I’m at 344kWh. This is in a 4 bed detached house with h 13 radiators. Outside temps have been single figures all week.
The usage is pretty accurate with Geo, but the cost per kWh does not update very frequently, so on Octopus Agile it’s is completely wrong more often that not. This is likely because the Smart Meter gets the rate from Octopus, then sends it to the Geo IHD - and we know that smart meters aren’t all that good at communicating.
