Total Noob and Day 2 of HA. Trying to get Energy from smart plug to work

spideracne · April 7, 2025, 1:25am

Reading, reading, and more reading…I still can’t figure it out.

I’m thinking there are 3 steps when in reality there are probably 12+ steps? This is really my first…“anything” as just getting home assistant up and running was not intuative for my small brain. I read about integrations, devices, entities etc but it clearly went over my head (as in I didn’t know I needed to add “z-wave” integration to be able to see devices). Figured that out and now I can see the z-wave devices in HA (1 zooz USB ZST39 LR controller and 3 Minoston MP21Z / MP31Z smart plugs visible in devices page)

So I have these physical items:

Zooz 800 series z-wave long range S2 USB stick ZST39 LR
3 of these (Amazon.com)

I DON’T have any energy devices connected to my house meter. (and won’t as I’m a renter and can’t mess with any panels). I just want to see "How much energy is consumed from “plug 1” , “plug 2” , and “plug 3”. I live in US (Seattle area) and found that the electric company (Puget Sound Energy) uses “Opower” and I have that integration visible on HA but like I said above there is probably 12+ steps that I’m missing?

As I’m playing with things (and don’t know what I’m doing) I figured out it really does work as I clicked on the “mini smart plug 1” on/off slider and saw in logbook how it turned off. And while watching TV it went off, so excellent confirmation that things are connected!

I hope I was able to give enough details and I appreciate your patience. Assume I don’t understand ANY acyronyms as from the title this is day 2 and second post after months and months of research/reading before buying HA Green a few weeks ago.

mekaneck · April 7, 2025, 2:15am

I don’t have those smart plugs, but looking at their specs they don’t appear to have energy monitoring. So I would say you bought the wrong smart plugs.

The Opower integration (which I also don’t use, but I have read the integration’s documentation) will import your home’s energy usage information from your energy provider’s website. And since your provider typically doesn’t post meter readings until 48 hours after they have been read, you will always have about two days of blank information on your energy dashboard. The data won’t be only for your 3 smart plugs unless those plugs are the only thing consuming energy in your entire house.

spideracne · April 7, 2025, 3:16am

Ok…so those plugs I can’t use for “energy” monitoring but for all other sorts of things (automations, etc), yes?

So any z-wave smart plugs/power strip that CAN show the energy monitoring recommendations then?

Thank you.

mekaneck · April 7, 2025, 3:56am

I use Zigbee energy monitoring plugs so I don’t have any zwave recommendations, but if you are happy with the brand you bought it appears there is a power monitoring version MP31ZP.

The ones you bought can be used for anything involving controlling or monitoring the on/off state of the plug. That of course does include automations, changing the state from your dashboard, looking at the history of when it was turned on, etc.

spideracne · April 7, 2025, 6:48am

Here is list of the zooz 800 USB and the 3 plugs. It shows “MP21Z / MP31Z”. Does that mean the power monitoring function in inside?

Do I just need to set something up?

mekaneck · April 7, 2025, 1:18pm

The “P” at the end of the model indicates power monitoring. You have the model that lacks the trailing “P”.

spideracne · April 7, 2025, 5:29pm

Thanks for the help.

Rudd-O · April 8, 2025, 10:44am

Consider ATHOM plugs. They have energy monitoring. Sure they’re Wi-Fi but they work out of the box with HA.

spideracne · April 8, 2025, 7:36pm

As I’m learning (“P” at end of model indicates power monitoring). Will THIS one deliver “power/energy monitoring”? Does the “Z” mean anything specific?

Model number is: MP31ZP

(Minoston Z-Wave 800 Series Zwave Plug with Energy Monitoring, Power Meter Z-Wave Outlet Switch, Z-Wave hub Required, Work with SmartThings, Wink, Vera, Z-Box Hub, Home Assistant (MP31ZP): Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement)

Rudd-O · April 8, 2025, 7:56pm

It says “with energy monitoring” right in the name.

Care to guess if it will?

spideracne · April 12, 2025, 7:02am

Still reading, reading, reading…

Thank you about the model number of smart plug with “P” for “Power monitoring”. Returned old verstion, Plugged it in new version (MP21ZP/MP31ZP), works like a charm.

Like any project you need info/data to make informed choices so my first goal is to just “get data”. If I never automated anything (blinds opening, coffee turns on after XYZ, etc) my top level goal is to understand how much electricity my place uses. I could probably be happy with that for a long time and nothing else.

How do I make something like the energy section on the demo: Home Assistant Demo

From reading the documentation I think there are a few ways:

Option 1) Different devices connected/looking at your electricity meter attached to your house/apartment.
a) I rent so not able to connect anything to the breaker box
b) Electricity is like voodoo and magic to my simple brain, so not touching
anything to electrocute myself. Again a renter so not paying for electrician
that is not my house.

Option 2) Data from your account at your electric company (I believe I got correct integration but don’t know what to do with it).
a) Seattle, Washington area and (Puget Sound Energy) uses “Opower”. I
installed integration but have no idea what to do past that.

Option 3) Have a couple dozen smart plugs as middle man between anything with a plug? Or if not specifically a smart plug but a z-wave smart power strip? Is this a decent z-wave power strip with energy monitoring? I know it says “energy monitoring” but a a complete rookie I don’t want to make similiar mistake with the smart plugs. (Power strip w/ energy monitoring)

And here is how much I DON’T understand about electricity. After plugging in smart plug at 1pm this afternoon into something that is “always on” but low power, the graphs of Amps, Volts, and Watts were all pretty stable/boring. I “think” I’m looking for the kWh graph = total power consumed from device plugged into this particular smart plug. Pics attached.

If true then how do I take that info and start incorporating it into graphs like the demo?

I appreciate your time and input. Maybe in 3+ years I’ll be more informed and can help the next rookie out.

mekaneck · April 14, 2025, 2:52am

Your Opower integration seems to be proving gas consumption only. I don’t see any electricity consumption sensors. Do you have a different account for electricity?

Once you get electricity sensors working, you can follow the instructions on the opower integration page which tells you step-by-step how to set up your energy dashboard.

There are also directions for adding the gas sensor to your energy dashboard which you should be able to do since those appear to be working.