Hi!
I am doing electrical installation renovation for the lower floor of the house (which will include replacing the whole electrical panel). One thing that I want is to have a more detailed look at power consumption in the house. We already have solar panels on the roof, and the SolarEdge inverter with a dedicated power meter. So I already have the total consumption. But now I am looking at separate circuit consumption. Or at least per room. There are 5 rooms that I would like to monitor in total - 3 rooms will have 2 circuits - one for lighting and one for others. Two will have more - kitchen and bathroom. I would like at least the main circuits measured - so at least 6 channels. But if I can measure all - even better.
I am from EU, so we are talking 240V, but the input to the panel is 3 phase (with neutral), but those then get split. The kitchen will definitely get all 3 phases though (since the stove is 3 phase).
I am looking for either Zigbee or wifi solution. I definitely don’t want any switching here - just monitoring, so I would prefer if the meter uses clamp sensors. And if possible I would really like this to be DIN rail mountable - so it can fit nicely in the electric panel.
Hmmm, that only gives me 3 channels though. At a minimum I would need 2 then. But even then I would only have the minimum monitoring that I want. If possible I would really like something with more channels (or at least cheaper so I can buy like 3 or 4 of them).
It’s a 16 channel meter, which would be perfect for my use case. I would have to order it from the US though (instructions do say how to wire it in the EU, so it seems to be designed to work everywhere), which is a bit of a minus. Any experience with these? Or any better alternatives?
I have one of these - re-flashed to ESPHome. I wouldn’t recommend the standard firmware/cloudservice, but great with ESPHome.
There are many example configs floating around on the Internet, I studied several and made sure I understood what each was doing before picking bits off each and rewriting for my own configuration. Happy to share if you go down this path.
The alternative that I found is also Refoss EM06/EM16: Refoss Smart Energy Monitor, EM06 (EU Version) – Refoss Official Store
Obviously of Chinese origin, but has a first party Home Assistant integration. The EM16 is available in the US and I can get it from Amazon US (just like the Emporia), but I cannot find any instructions/manuals for it to see is it would work here as well. The EM06 has an European version that they sell here. I would probably get two to get 12 channels. I like that it is cheaper and has direct first party integration.
Thank you. After some thinking I think I might go for the Refoss EM06 - two of them. The shape is a lot more DIN rail friendly, and two of them are 100€ cheaper than the Emporia (mostly because of import taxes). Plus the first party HA integration, so I don’t need to do the whole dance of opening it up and doing ESPHome install.
Oh, that looks way too janky. Also a lot more DIY than I would like for an electrical panel.
In the end I have decided to go with two Refoss EM06. They were the cheapest option and in the form factor that makes the most sense for a European electrical panel. Plus first party HA integration.
How is the experience with the Refoss EM06? Did you get the EM06 or EM06P which is preflashed with the open version of the firmware? Any idea if you can flash the other version on the normal EM06?
I did find some messages stating it only reports every 15 secs, not sure if that resolution is high enough for proper monitoring?
I am looking to do the same for my home in NL (EU). One important thing I want is to be able to see low loads as well, as in the 1-10W range.
Many kWh meters I can find that can be integrated only start out at 0.25A which results in no or very inaccurate measurements below 60W.
Currently have the HomeWizard SDM230 which is a version of the Eastron SDM230 and is MID certified. But it’s only usable per group measuring and is very big and pricey if I would want to measure 6-12 groups as I need to extend my whole meter cupboard to be able fit it.
Big advantage is that it can run 100% local and it’s a Dutch company, obviously not made in NL.