I have a number of Tasmota plugs in use and one is attached directly to our clothes iron.
I’d like to determine if it’s been left on un-intentionally and take action appropriately.
Unfortunately, it seems to only register spikes of usage that are quite far apart (for an iron I would have thought) and I’m struggling to think about the automation trigger conditions that would manage this.
I’ve thought about checking if the power usage is in progress for a period of time, but as you can see from the history, this would fail because of the constant drops in consumption to practically zero.
Does anyone have any views on how this can be managed with an automation trigger before I consider adding a presence detector to the room where it is located most of the time? It’s not an ideal approach because the iron can be freely moved around, so would prefer to do something purely on the power monitoring if possible.
I’ve attached traces of the power usage (real time) plus the consumption from today when the iron was mistakenly left on. Unfortunately there is a gap in the readings in the early part, but you can see the consistent pattern of it being left on.
I have my iron connected via IKEA plug and I turn it on/off using IKEA on/off switch. Turning the iron on triggers 30 minutes timer, that is cancelled by turnig the iron off. If timer reqaches 30 minutes I send actionable notifications to all home residents with information about iron being turned on and possiblity to turn it off or leave on for another 30 miutes directly from notification. Works pretty well for me.
Thing to consider is to turn the iron off in no response received from anyone (lets say within 5 minutes after notification was send)… but so far it did not happened.
I hadn’t considered a timer. Primarily because the smart socket is typically switched on and the iron is switched on and off directly on the iron itself. I just wanted a process to cover off the eventuality of it being left on.
I guess we could try leaving the iron on and switching using Alexa to enable the socket (or reach down to the plug) and then the timer approach could work.
My washing machine behaves similarly in that power usage varies in operation, but I want to know when it’s done. I created the automation below to watch for power consumption to go above 100W for five minutes (meaning a wash cycle has started), and then waiting for power consumption below 5W for 15 seconds (meaning a wash cycle has ended.)
You could adjust these values for your iron. Turn your iron on and use it for a while. Then let it sit idle for a while. Then take a look at the power consumption history over that time period. Maybe in use it consumes 1500W every 2 minutes, but in idle it only reheats every 10 minutes. So if you see power consumption below 1000W for 9 minutes, then assume it’s in an idle state.
alias: Laundry notification - washer finished
description: Send me a notification when the washer has finished and have the TV speak the alert.
trigger:
- platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.washer_switch_electric_consumption_w
for:
hours: 0
minutes: 5
seconds: 0
above: 100
condition: []
action:
- wait_for_trigger:
- platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.washer_switch_electric_consumption_w
for:
hours: 0
minutes: 0
seconds: 15
below: 5
- service: notify.john
data:
message: Washing machine is done
alias: Send notification to John
- service: notify.alexa_media_living_room_fire_tv_cube
data:
message: The washer has finished.
mode: single
