Hi, I’ve been trying to figure out which smart-meter interface will work with my provider. I’ve tried sniffing with a Software Defined Radio on 900ish MHz but nothing showed up.
The device seems to have a photo-optic interface so I was wondering if the Home Assistant Glow would work, but the documentation I read about the I-210+c says that port is used to program the device.
I just want a way to pull real-time data, will build any hardware or script anything necessary, just feel a bit lost on how to dig into this device.
According to the picture and manual you posted the meter appears to have a zigbee chip in is for smart energy monitoring. If so, see if BGE has the ability to enable a zigbee energy monitoring device with the meter, if so there are several ways to receive this realtime data. If not, there are some projects that do monitor the IR LED’s that are on some of these meters and pulse at a rate that corresponds to power use. Search this forum for ‘Smart Meter’ for some ideas. Below is a thread, that included my experience with this type meter and my utility SCE. Good hunting.
Thank you.
I’ve reached out to BG&E to ask about residential power monitoring, specifically enabling Zigbee SEP.
The Rainforest device is out of stock but seems to operate in the same way as Emporia Vue Smart Home Energy Monitor.
Worst case I could just use clamps to monitor the 200A leads coming into my house.
I would be interested to learn what you hear from BGE. For what it’s worth, I reached out to Rainforest last summer about the compatibility of their energy gateways with BGE smart meters. Rainforest responded that, although their EAGLE-200 energy gateway is compatible with the model of smart meter that BGE uses, BGE has not yet enabled their smart meters to connect to third-party monitoring devices like those made by Rainforest. If was unclear if or when BGE intended to enable that functionality.
It’s painful that we as consumers are paying for these ‘smart meters’, but it seems for a large number of the utilities, water, gas, electric, the only benefit is to the utility to reduce their cost to bill us!!!
Just an FYI, the Rainforest EMU-2 units seem to be readily available from Amazon. The more expensive devices from Rainforest and Vue seem to be out of stock quite a bit. Back on soap box here, I struggle with the ‘value’ of these more expensive devices that upload your usage data to their servers. In theory to give you back more insights to your usage or possible to control HVAC or electrical load via their (it appears) proprietary wifi or zigbee devices. For being here in a self done Home Automation forum, IMHO it is much better to just get the raw whole house power usage and do your own analysis and control.
I hope you all find a way to get this data into Home Assistant, I have found it very useful.
I reached out again to Rainforest to ask whether there has been any progress with BGE. They reported that they have had “good meetings” with BGE over the past few months, and they expect to start a pilot program for BGE customers soon. Fingers crossed!
Solder together a small esp setup to monitor your power.
The other option is to buy a ready made system. I know the emporia vue 1 and 2 are able to be flashed to esphome. Idk for sure about vue 3, but I imagine it’s flashable too. I saw a post where someone confirmed the vue 3 esp32 isn’t bootloader locked.
This way you never have to rely on your service provider to enable and maintain the zigbee setup, everything will be local and if anything breaks or goes wrong, you can fix it yourself without needing to call the service provider.
You can either guesstimate using what your mains voltage should be (120 for Canada here), or you can use a zmpt-101b to actually measure the mains voltage directly at the load, or use a transformer to drop your mains to x V for measurement. The other option is something like a zigbee plug or similar that measures the mains voltage.
Then it’s as simple as x A * y V = watts for active power.
Photovoltaics will need a different setup, usually the controller has facilities for this.
Esphome example of my voltage reading for the moment (screenshot as I can’t copy n paste on mobile from esphome or vscode):
I’ve seen you around and notice this is your schtick. You seem to have a superiority complex and believe you’re a genius.
I think you should spend your time working on your ego and mental health rather than trying to feel superior by dumping on people offering other people real world solutions.
Have a great day!
Edit: also, maybe take a look at the community guidelines if you care about your fellow Hass forum user. As hard as this may be for you to comprehend, the world doesn’t revolve around you.
