I’ve integrated a IoTaWatt sensor in my energy dashboard, but I can only choose the accumulated power (kWh) sensors, not the actual power flow (kW) sensors (or even the power factor sensors so it can also show Amps).
Did I miss something, or can you really not add actual real-time power consumption (kW) measurements to the dashboard? And if not, why on earth not?
I get that for the price calculations you can make, the prices are typically fixed within a given hour, so it makes sense to also have the kWh for each hour. But if you’re just curious about e.g. how much the power draw increases when turning on a device, that’s just not something you can get in the dashboard with only kWh measurements.
@tom_l fair enough, so I take it power is just not within the scope.
It would be nice to have the option to include, though. If you provided power, HASS could calculate the energy itself. You can’t really go the other way (only averaged over an hour, in this case).
And a quick look of how power is flowing at this instance would, in my opinion, make sense in the energy dashboard, instead of having to make that one thing on a separate dashboard (it kind of fits there, if not technically, then at least functionally, given the stated intent).
use the integration integration to calculate energy from power.
Are you sure you understand the difference between power and energy? Power is momentary, with no timeframe associated with it. Energy is power over a given time period.
Everyone pretty much universally deals with energy because it makes way more sense than power…
I know, power is what I’m asking for (well, what I already have sensor for, just that I think would be nice to show in the energy dashboard for, as you say, a “snapshot” of what’s going on now).
So I can see e.g. how much power draw increases when I ask my server to crunch some numbers, or when the kids start up their devices when they get home. If I only have energy, I can’t see that (because it typically happens within minutes, and not hours).
I’m not saying energy doesn’t make sense to measure (over days, of course I agree that’s what makes sense), I was just asking whether power could be included to get more granular details about moment to moment.
Again, yes, I completely agree (I have those sensors on a separate Lovelace tab so I can see them real-time). I was just saying that, in my opinion, it would make sense to have together with the energy monitoring, since it’s typically the types of things I would look at together.
And I’m (importantly) not arguing power instead of energy (my comment about converting was just to note that if you only have one, I’d always choose power, since energy can easily be calculated from power).
I’m just saying that having the power draw, e.g. beneath the Energy Distribution card (see below) would be useful to me. So I was asking to make sure that was not a option that I had just not been able to find.
Any idea if that feature was implemented? Those moving dots give an impression that the diagram shows instant information rather than daily sums. Hence, if my house has drew 20Kwh, and my solar produced so far <20 Kwh, then the purple line would show no data. Which may not be accurate because at any given point the power consumption of the house could be much less than the power generated from the PV. Sometime it is important to know when your PV system produces more energy than what your house consumes.
Yes, totally with you.
I just installed a Shelly 3EM and was hoping I could see the kW live so I could have an idea of the power drew by my (large) appliances (AC, bore pump, …).
I voted for this feature request, hopefully it will finally re considered.
Thanks @RedEarth , I will try that.
As much as I understand that tracking energy consumption is important, I don’t understand how any automation can be developed based on energy (kWh): energy consumption (as a data point) of the previous 30 min is nice to know, but too late to act!
It seems the cards you’ve recommended only display power. It’s a good start, but plotting power and having the ability to monitor power in a way that we can develop scripts and control other devices is really where the value (of having a meter) is I reckon
UPDATE: I tried adding a gauge card in another dashboard and was happy to see power data (Watts) in the list. And even better: When I click on the gauge, a graph with the power flow appears which gives me much better idea of the ‘energy behaviour’ of my house (including my rooftop solar). Thanks @Redhearth for suggesting.
Now, I need to find how I can use this live flow of data to trigger automations.
Note: I’ll keep my vote for the Feature Request to have these graphs available in the Energy dashboard.
If you have a sensor that is measuring power, you can trigger from its state. This isn’t complicated. If you’re struggling, explain what sensors you have and what you’re trying to achieve. Here is one of mine, as an example:
- alias: Hot water - immersion heater off
description: >-
Turns the immersion off once the controlling Shelly 1PM reports <100W draw
indicating internal thermostat switching off; or after one hour running as a
safety precaution.
id: 2be90bc5-0bcc-41d4-9a18-e1f8d14e87bf
trigger:
- platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.immersion_switch_power
below: '100'
for:
minutes: 1
- platform: state
entity_id: switch.immersion_switch_relay
from: 'off'
to: 'on'
for:
hours: 1
condition:
- condition: state
entity_id: switch.immersion_switch_relay
state: 'on'
action:
- service: switch.turn_off
entity_id: switch.immersion_switch_relay
@Troon, thanks for the reply and apologies for the delay.
To answer your question: I wanted to delay the start of my pool pump until the PV panels export enough energy (delay limited to 9:30am, after which the pool pump is forced ON whatever the solar export is).
I’ve managed to use the built-in automation tool (no coding). I’m using the load reading (kW) from my Shelly 3EM of the Phase where the PV system is connected, which works well.
What I’m after now is a way to display (and graph) the total power of the house (the sum of the power readings of the 3 phases).
I still haven’t found out how to do that.
