Please consider renaming the Energy dashboard to “Utility” and also make it cover tracking the consumption of all utilities delivered by any utility service/company and not make it limited to only management of power and energy meters but also include other public utility consumables such as Electricity, Gas, Heating, and Water metering.
Update: Preferably make the same dashboard include tracking of other common household utilities like telecoms (phone bills + internet fees) and household waste/sewage fees that is paid per month/year and needs handling (such as garbage pickup) so it can by default act as a single-pane-of-glass for all household utilities.
Backstory; Posting this as a new more broad request as a moderator suggested that in the Energy: water usage feature request which was for adding just water usage to the Energy dashboard where people argue that “water is not energy”, which made me consider other ”utilities” that are also not ”energy” but adds to monthly costs and should be tracked to save both money and the enviroment.
What is wanted is a single out-of-box dashboard with capability of tracking all consumption of public utilities, inc. energy.
The utility meter integration in Home Assistant already provides functionality to track consumptions of various utilities (e.g., energy, gas, water, heating) so it is technically not strictly limited to “energy”.
In the future maybe it will even include categories for other services that have consumption meter and tariffs cost when they require public infrastructure, like communication systems (telephone and internet service).
See example for example Ireland’s government web page listing “utilities” which include; Gas, Electricity, Water, Household waste disposal (both communal sewage and garbage/trash-bin pickup), Telecom/Phone-service, and Internet Provider Services.
Going to add my vote for this as well. It’s possible to track water usage today (as many of us do) via interfaces such as MQTT. But the energy dashboard has taken things to a whole new level with long term statistics and allowing data to be seen daily, weekly, monthly, etc. without having to create separate sensors for each of those data points.
I fully support the idea brought up by others to improve the Energy dashboard by adapting it to be more of a Utility dashboard. Many of us want the dual goals of being more environmentally aware and saving money (nice how those two thing normally go together). If the tools introduced with the energy dashboard were to be extended to other utilities (water in my case - which should be no surprise because I live in drought-stricken Southern California) this task would be made a lot easier.
Also worth mentioning is that the energy dashboard is one of the innovations that makes Home Assistant a true standout over most home automation platforms. The idea of rising above the various integrations to offer meaningful insight into the data. One of the many reasons I enjoy the platform.
I just got Flo by Moen and I agree I want to see it on the energy dashboard, or rename it utility dashboard. Would love to be able to predict some of my bills.
Again, all this follows thw idea that any utility == utility, so should not matter if it utility tracked/measured is energy, gas, water, or heating, etc…
The existing utility meter integration already works as an example of generic collecting for different utility meaaurements and would be nice to have an expanded dashboard out-of-the-box that is also more generic to cover all type of utilities:
"The utility meter integration provides functionality to track consumptions of various utilities (e.g., energy, gas, water, heating).
From a user perspective, utility meters operate in cycles (usually monthly) for billing purposes. This sensor will track a source sensor values, automatically resetting the meter based on the configured cycle. On reset an attribute will store the previous meter value, providing the means for comparison operations (e.g., “did I spend more or less this month?”) or billing estimation (e.g., through a sensor template that multiplies the metered value per the charged unit amount).
Some utility providers have different tariffs according to time/resource availability/etc. The utility meter enables you to define the various tariffs supported by your utility provider and accounts your consumptions in accordance. When tariffs are defined a new entity will show up indicating the current tariff. In order to change the tariff, the user must call a service, usually through an automation that can be based in time or other external source (eg. a REST sensor)."
For some past experience: The Smappee energy monitor began as an electricity monitor, then added gas and water. The Flukso monitor tracks electricity, gas and water.
Yes, I really like the current energy tab, but it is a pity that you cannot add e.g. Water consumption or other energy sources like heat (warm-water net measured in GJ).
So it would be great to rename the Energy tab to ‘Utility’ and add the possibility to also configure other meters to be used on this overview.
I also vote for the renaming of the energy dashboard to utility, and add the possibility to measure cold water usage and hot water usage (solar boiler or heated water from the central heating).
Also some people don’t have gas but use hot water provided by the city to warm their house’s. So it’s only fair that even when not renaming the dashboard, water should be seen as energy. Just like gas is seen as energy
I also want water to be added to energy/utility dashboard.
Would also be nice if hot water storage was added (for solar PV systems without battery that heat up water).
Water Management @Gamester17
Hard agree with this - I could imagine Heat and Electricity coming together under “Energy”, but “Water Management” would make sense as a seperate section… tools for integrating leak detection and cold water shutoff e.t.c. Also, domestic hot water… How much is there in the tank? Calculate “how many hot baths / showers” have you got left e.t.c. Also some larger premises will have pumped DHW return. This would also be good to integrate… presence detection triggered rather than timer e.t.c.
Energy Management
One function that would be good to see on Home Assistant is energy management to keep consumption below a certain level…
There are several important use cases and integration within the energy dashboard would be a reall good…
e.g. A house has a 20kVA incoming supply… but there are lots of appliances and an EV to be charged… if everything is running at once, there is the potential to overload the incoming supply… have a “pecking order” of devices so that you can modulate the energy consumed according to what is most important. With all of the data being collected by the energy panel, this would seem a logical place to be able to assign some sort of priority order. Moreover, if homes have a UPS backup generator, this energy management becomes more important ensuring in the event of grid failure, you turn off the least essential things. I think this would add real value to have this integrated into the HA core.
Heating Sources @lexvdpoel
Also - many are connected to the gas grid, some have district heating… others have oil tanks or wood pellet stores… encompassing a broader range of domestic heating fuels would be really useful.
Sankey Diagrams
I love the natty little animation with dots going from place to place, and quantities e.t.c.
Another cool auto-generated diagram would be a “Sankey Diagram”.
