Laundry Monitor

I also got a notification from my dryer today, but am not getting one from the washer. Any tips on what duration to use?

It has never worked neither for my washer nor for the dryer. They are both too quiet. What I was wondering was whether I could use a power meter switch to perform the same function. Has anyone tried something like this?

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I bought one of these to attempt just this.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007UZH7B8

I have yet to give it sufficient time to really call it a full fledged attempt but i don’t quite have the device type nailed down just yet. It kind of works, but kind of doesn’t. After I can get the current wattage or amp usage reporting, the actual app should be pretty straightforward.

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There’s a “generic” z-wave power meter switch there that seems to be doing the right thing. I have an app, but I’m not sure subscribing to capability.powerMeter does anything. If I refresh the switch from the mobile UI, my app gets an update, but it doesn’t seem to be polled automatically otherwise. I’m sure I am missing something. Will take another look when I’m less sleep deprived.

Yeah, I’ve got a bastardized Device Type from mostly a different user on the forums here:

It seems to update on it’s own when the dryer is physically on, but once it turns off, it stops updating. I think that’s probably enough to write an app with as the updates come every 6-7 minutes and I’m perfectly fine notifying after 10 minutes of inactivity.

I’ve gotten this far with the App, but it’s my first SmartApp so the syntax used is still a little fuzzy. Maybe someone else can weigh in on what’s wrong? Again, I think the Device Type is good enough to work, it’s just nailing down the actual SmartApp that will work correctly.

Note: The actual switch capability on this Device Type doesn’t appear to work, but I haven’t cared enough about that feature to spend any time on it. Status is reported correctly, but actually turning the switch off/on doesn’t work.

EDIT: Pushed things to Git which are linked a couple posts down and removed the wall of code that was previously here.

I’ll take a look at your code tonight if I have time. Meanwhile, below is what I have so far. My washer/dryer turn off entirely then the cycle is done, so I don’t see any need for timing the inactivity periods. Whenever the power consumption goes to zero - the cycle is done. The “if (power > 8)” bit is to prevent starting the cycle by accidentally pushing the power button on the washer (I have two kids, so “accidents” happen all the time). My washer consumes 8W when it’s on but idle.

My app is mostly just an edited ripoff of the standard one but I’d agree the timing stuff is useless. If you’re having update problems, maybe take a look at my device type first.

EDIT: I decided to edit it quite a bit to rip all of that out to avoid confusion and then combined in a couple things from yours that I liked.

SmartApp
https://github.com/bmmiller/SmartThings/blob/master/smartapp.laundrymonitor/smartapp.laundrymonitor.groovy

DeviceType
https://github.com/bmmiller/SmartThings/blob/master/devicetype.aeonlabs.smartenergyswitch/devicetype.aeonlabs.smartenergyswitch.groovy

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I actually use Aeon Labs DSC24-ZWUS Smart Switch and your DeviceType doesn’t seem to be compatible. I guess it’s time for me to try my hand in writing a DeviceType.

That’s unfortunate. With my device type and smart app, things seem to be working quite well actually. It doesn’t seem to poll the device, but rather sends only updates.

When I get around to it, I’ll update the device type to actually turn it on/off but right now, I don’t need that functionality so I don’t really mind too much.

I found a working combination:

Because Aeon Home Energy Meter does not have the switch capability, it is not possible to control the switch, but I actually prefer it that way - don’t want anyone or anything accidentally switching the washer off in the middle of the cycle.

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Glad that’s working for your device. Now we have a working version for yours and mine since my setup works for mine. Hopefully others will find this that are curious. Works much better than relying on vibration.

@bmmiller I just loaded and used your Laundry Monitor Smartapp are you using this for both washer and dryer? I hook up my washer to the Aeon Labs Z-wave Smart Energy Switch but my dryer is 220 volts? I don’t know of a solution for the dryer? any ideas in the mean time I keep using the smartsense multi. I like your app.

@llcanada I think Aeon Labs is working on a 220 volt monitor but it hasn’t been released. One of the reasons people started using the smart switch is because their washers don’t vibrate enough to trigger the multi sensor. The dryer will likely shake around more do to the weight of the clothes shifting in the drum.

If it is a 220v dryer, you would need a 220v meter. I can’t really help you there obviously but the app itself doesn’t care about the voltage. It really could be used for anything that pulls over 1W as the minimum wattage is user configurable.

For what it is worth though, neither my washer or dryer vibrated enough to utilize the multisensor.

BRANDON
Bought two of these Z wave smart energy switches, I was able to add just fine, when I click on the tile it turns on/off just fine. Here are my issues

When I go to configure/refresh, i get a Error"an unexpected error message"

Ill test the app in a bit

Edit: app isn’t working but it’s related to the main issue. I don’t see any energy used and I get the error message.

What device type are you using? Energy and power usage isn’t a real time thing. It only updates on changes and refresh/configure hasn’t ever done anything for me. I don’t think all devices work by initiating a refresh. My device type has changed to be almost exactly the same as the “Z-Wave Metering Switch” provided by SmartThings. The only difference is my allows you to pick a different icon for the Things screen which is obviously trivial.

I would try and run your washer/dryer to produce a change of value. Even after that happens, and it is changing values, it only updates every 5 minutes so that is something else to consider.

If you aren’t getting energy/power feedback though, I am not sure it is a fair statement to claim that the app doesn’t work. Kind of like saying your car doesn’t work when the gas tank is empty.

Brandon

Ok. I have a better understanding. Using your device and now seeing energy being used.

I wasn’t aware of the 5 minute updates. Anyway to make it more often?

So I’m clear, I need to wait at least 5 minutes after laundry is done before the smartapp notifies me? Been more than 5 and no notification.

Also, the smart labs version has option to turn on lights. Are you working on that?

Thanks in advance

I’m not working on anything anymore with it as it suits my purpose perfectly as-is. What light are you talking about exactly? The blue light around the on/off button? That’s really the only way to know if power is being given to the device that is plugged in so it seems kind of important to keep it actually. I also don’t see anything with the control of the light in the SmartThings device type “Z-Wave Metering Switch.” Perhaps you can copy/paste what you feel should be controlling it?

You could attempt updating the values of 300 at the bottom of the device type (which is in seconds, representing 5 min) in hopes that it speeds up the polling, but think about whether it is really worth it to know that your dryer is off immediately. The reason switches and lights update immediately is because they send state information immediately. Something like a meter cannot operate that way because it is constantly changing. You could potentially get several updates a second which are mostly meaningless as they’d be very close.

Anyway, the way the app works, is once it sees wattage over the user configurable value (default 50) it sets the state to indicate it is running. Once the next poll of wattage is below the threshold AND the previous state was running, it sends out the notification and updates the state to indicate the device is no longer running. If you pick a threshold that is too long, it might not ever switch state.

I am using a slightly modified version of @sudarkoff 's code. I added support for speechSynthesis so I can speak the alerts through my Ubi. When I first used, it, I noticed that my washer never gets to zero, so I set my “off” threshold to <=4 .

The problem I have is that every so often, I get a blip where the washer isn’t being used and the wattage shows 2 and then 1. This shouldn’t trigger an alert, because when the alert went off when the washer was really done, state.cycleOn should be flipping to false. I double checked and there hadn’t been a measurement over 8 since the washer finished, so it shouldn’t have been set back to true

My Washer tends to start at 9w and end at 4w

I currently have the device configured as an Aeon Home Energy Meter

Any ideas why this isn’t working as designed? My handler code is below, my full code is at https://github.com/tierneykev/SmartThings/blob/master/LaundryMontitor

def handler(evt) {
  def latestPower = meter.currentValue("power")
  log.trace "Power: ${latestPower}W"

  if (!state.cycleOn && latestPower > 8) {
    state.cycleOn = true
    state.cycleStart = now()
    log.trace "Cycle started."
  }
  // If the washer stops drawing power, the cycle is complete, send notification.
  else if (state.cycleOn && latestPower <= 4) {
    send(message)
    lightAlert(evt)
    speakMessage(message)
    state.cycleOn = false
    state.cycleEnd = now()
    duration = state.cycleEnd - state.cycleStart
    log.trace "Cycle ended after ${duration} minutes."
  }
}

I just upgraded my washer and the new one doesn’t go to 0 and I’m seeing issues as well. I’ll fix the bug and update the code. I have added some additional goodies since.