Zwave Outlet Consumption Monitoring

I’m running into some issues looking for an outlet that not only is controlled by zwave, but also can monitor energy consumption. Is there a good one out there or am I better off going back to wifi?

The first place I look when I want to learn about Z-Wave devices is the Z-Wave Alliance Product Pages. https://products.z-wavealliance.org/ This is the official catalogue of all Z-Wave Certified Devices and is a great resource to learn about Z-Wave Product Offerings as well as learn about a devices capabilities.

They have an entire section dedicated to energy monitoring devices. https://products.z-wavealliance.org/regions/2/categories/13/products. Are you looking for an outlet, a relay, or a smart plug? There is only 1 outlet available and it uses the older 500 series chips and only one socket can be controlled. Plus you can only buy it from 3rd parties for $70 and up. If you want a smart plug the (3) best options for a smart plug are the following. They all use the newer 700 series chips and cost 2 of the 3 options cost about $30 USD.

  1. Zooz Zen04 Zooz 700 Series Z-Wave Plus Smart Plug ZEN04 - The Smartest House
  2. Minoston MP31ZP https://a.co/d/5b7s0PO
  3. Aetoec Switch 7 Aeotec Switch 7
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Fibaro has very good outlets too.

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Also for any further recommendations we’d need voltage / amperage / geography. ZWave radios are geography locked and power requirements vary greatly by region.

As an aside - power reports get really nasty on a ZWave network in a hurry. I have one of the zooz heavy duty plugs that can almost saturate my network by itself if I don’t apply any throttling to its configuration. I can and do… The plug supports minimum reporting time periods and minimum power change to name a few. With proper settings it behaves nicely.

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Could you help elaborate a bit…? Is it to go into the z-wave config of the plug, and change the reporting internal… or something like that? what’s the interval you are using these days?

Yes you would go into the config and change the interval. The minimum power change is how much of a change from the previous value before it reports a new value. Lets say you set the minimum power change to 1W and your current measurement is 10.2W. The power draw would have to go above 11.2W for the new value to get reported to HA. Depending on how frequently your power draw changes setting your minimum power draw change too low may generate a lot of messages. The minimum reporting time just reports on an interval. So you can set it to report every 60 minutes and so on.

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What Cornell said… :rofl:

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I have actually switched to using Shelly WiFi plugs for this purpose since i found them both cheaper and more reliable than the z-wave ones. I have a few Popp outdoor plugs, but half of them have died in 3 years.
-David

Sorry for being vague. It was late enough when I typed it and missed half of the details. In the US, Looking for 120v / 15 amp standard wall outlet. I don’t want an external wall adapter, but would rather replace the entire receptacle instead. Even if I only have control of 1 outlet I’m good with that too so long as I can monitor consumption within the outlet.

Zooz ZEN04 plugs have a new firmware out that allows disabling of energy reporting.

https://www.support.getzooz.com/kb/article/1387-zen04-smart-plug-change-log/

You can also get Fibaro relays – they can control 1 or 2 plugs and do energy monitoring. I don’t have them for plugs, but I have them for all my switches.

Thanks Guys… Not looking for any more smart plugs… I want an outlet in the wall that doesn’t get moved or removed. My best bet right now is to go with a generic outlet, break the tabs and a shelly plus 2.5. I don’t even think the ZEN52 is an option either for monitoring.

I have about 30 of the Fibaro ones installed in my walls (connected to regular switches) and they seem to be pretty good too. Shelly has the difference of being WiFi vs. Zwave.