Electricity prices have gone up so much over the last few years that I’ve started paying a lot more attention to how much power my appliances are actually using. My goal is to figure out what’s consuming the most energy so I can cut down on unnecessary usage and hopefully lower my electricity bill.
Last week I installed two new Zigbee modules, the SONOFF MINI-ZB1GSP and MINI-ZB1GP, and added them to my Zigbee2MQTT setup. For testing, I connected them to a couple of light bulbs first. They’ve been running for about a week now, and so far everything has been working well. The power readings have been consistent, and I haven’t noticed any disconnects or missing data.
My next step is to use them to monitor my washing machine and refrigerator. The refrigerator is the one I’m most concerned about because it obviously needs to stay powered all the time—turning it off isn’t really an option unless I want my food to spoil. That’s why I’m planning to use the MINI-ZB1GP for the fridge, since it only monitors energy usage and doesn’t control the power supply.
I also heard these modules can be used to monitor solar panel generation. Has anyone here tried that?
I’d also love to hear how everyone else is monitoring energy consumption or automating power usage in Home Assistant. Any ideas or setups worth sharing? : )
I recently installed an Aeotec Home Energy Meter 8. It’s fairly easy to install, though I had an electrician in the house already so I had them do it.
It has tons of configuration possibilities & will monitor in-go & out-go.
For better or for worse, most of the electric draw in my house is monitored through metering outlets, so I compare the Aoetic meter to what I already monitor–among other things.
To test the refrigerator or something, I´d rather use a mesuring plug with a display and switch it around the devices you want to identify.
Throwing a smartplug on everything in your house does not seem to be quite efficient.
I´m reading the whole consumption directly from the powermeter and submit it to HA by tasmota.
With that, I know that I have around 90W at night. And 200W at daytime (homeoffice). Then I can start to identify what the HA and the router uses, what the refrigerator and so on.
Only my 3D Printer, the waterpump for the garden, washingmaschine and lights I want to switch automatically have a smartplug inbetween.
Agree with not using smart plugs on a load you care about always being on - like a fridge or freezer or hvac system. I had a smart plug attached to my router fail and when it failed it turned the router off. Lesson learned.
An approach is to put CT clamps on your mains and solar feeds. This gives you macro level whole house usage. From there I’ve instrumented large power users with CT clamps - HVAC, wells, sump pumps (usually at the destination by placing the device in the electrical box). This also opens a up more diagnostics to detect failing hvac equipment and well pumps. Then smart plugs for things I want to monitor, that are not critical, and where I might want control - like a basement dehumidifier. I also generate “approximate power usage”, for things like smart light switches (that don’t have power monitoring) based of the wattage of the bulbs. Lastly for static loads - like routers, switches, HA server, etc. I measured there usage and then created a static 40 watt load.
Have not done fridges / freezers but that’s next. Primary reason would be to look for failures emerging. Typically the compressors start running a lot as failure approaches.