Hey guys,
I have a rental apartment in which i also offer a washing machine.
Although im ok with people using it reasonably, i would like some way to control the usage to avoid excess usage or charge extra if some guest uses it more than once/twice a day.
I was thinking of hooking the machine on a sonoff Pow.
I thought of two solutions:
Monitor the power consumption (of the sonoff POW) and figure out how many cycles each guest has performed and including some extra fee in the final price afterwards?
Or, one step further, hook up a pushbutton switch on the sonoff pow and power it up for ~2h (or similar) per press, then count the number of activations?
Sonoff pow is rated 16A, should that be enough?
Alternatively on the second solution, (if 16A relay is not recommended) i could power the machine with a circuit breaker rated for more amps and use a sonoff basic with a push button to activate it.
Has anyone encountered a similar issue and could point me out towards a solution?
Or any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks!
The Smartest House folks sell a heavy appliance power montitor plug.
Another option would be a vibration sensor. If you just want to count usages and time running.
For example the Fibaro Motion Sensor includes vibration sensing.
Should be more than enough. My washing machine consumes at top 250-300W. Dryers are more power hungry, exceeding 2kW.
I use a washing machine notification system by monitoring power usage (smart plug) and a contact sensor for the lid.
Canât find a easy solution for your case because how are you gonna determine who uses the washing machine? You mentioned several guests.
Unless you want to count an overall usage and average the cost among all guests.
Thatâs not an issue, maybe my fault in explaining, thereâs only one group that has access to the machine each time.
Why the contact sensor? Isnt the consumption monitoring foolproof?
Plus i would prefer to avoid running cables in the front of the machine, visible to the guests. (people are afraid of cables they dont know and i cant explain to them its just low voltage)
As the rest of the house is not smart yet (and probably wont be) iâd need to use some wifi solution, there is no z-wave capability, nor am i willing to invest in one, in the near future at least.
Any similar wifi solutions?
Or should i stick to one of the two sonoff solutions i mentioned above?
Ah! so you get a notification when things are done.
Thatâs very smart (for own use) but, in my case i just want to discourage people from running 10 cycles a day.
I think the sonoff pow is a good idea. Another approach would be to use vibration sensors to detect when the machine has ended itâs cycle. Like this one:
In that case you can keep count on how many times the state of the machine goes to clean.
Or you can track total power consumption by the pow for the day, then switch it off. The pow can keep track of the total also.
I implemented a solution with two Fibaro Wall Plugs. Itâs Zwave so not cheap, but you really want the wall plugs to be able to handle the load. The wall plugs measure power usage, cumulative power usage and a couple of other stats. Youâre also able to switch the plugs through HA. For automation I created a binary sensor that flips âonâ when usage rises above 10W or something and flips âoffâ when usage drops below 200W for more than two minutes. The automation triggers when the sensor flips to off and sends a push message through Pushbullet. Simple and very effective!
The âdelay_onâ is here because of a feature of our washer. We can program the washer to be finished at a certain time (for instance 5 hours from now). Besides that de washer weighs the laundry in order to decide on the amount of water to use and how long a program will run. This is done by doing a couple of rotations of the drum inside. The weighing however is done at the start, so when I program the machine to be finished later it will weigh the laundry and after that sit still for a couple of hours. The weighing takes less than 2 minutes, so thatâs why itâs there. Otherwise we would get a false âwasher doneâ notification right after weighing.
And hereâs automation:
- alias: "Washer finished"
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.washer_on
from: "on"
to: "off"
action:
- service: notify.michiel
data:
title: Home Assistant - Wasmachine klaar
message: 'Michiel, de wasmachine is klaar.'
- alias: "Dryer finished"
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.dryer_on
from: "on"
to: "off"
action:
- service: notify.michiel
data:
title: Home Assistant - Droger klaar
message: 'Michiel, de droger is klaar.'
I would be careful with the â16Aâ rating on the Sonoff. That is what the relay inside is rated for a resistive load. Washing machines and other motor driven appliances have very large starting current requirements and they fire a transient spike if switched off while running. As long as the relay doesnât trip when running or try to start when closed, you should be fine. Otherwise expect a very short lifespan on the relay in the switch.
You might want to look at the GE 14284 z-wave switch. It is rated to handle motors, is water resistant, and meets US standards. $33 on Amazon. Works with HomeAssistant.
Donât know if they still make it but I had one of these that also had an energy monitor included so you could see the power consumption as well.
Personally I wouldnât want the liability of a switch that doesnât meet motor switching requirements.