Aeon Labs Energy Meter clamps

[joelw135 (Joel W)]

There are two resets which one left or right?

[johnconstantelo]

“Reset Watts” is the left. Doesn’t the tile say that? If not, then iOS is having text scaling issues (also a known bug).

[joelw135 (Joel W)]

Sorry to say it doesn’t say which reset is for what. But you were correct it works now. Any idea on the Smart Power Outlet?

[johnconstantelo]

Great… Looks like ST has more work to do fixing more issues. Just remember reset watts on the left, and reset kWh on the right.

I don’t have a custom device handler for the outlet, I just use ST’s default. There’s a developer’s conference call tonight, so maybe ST will shed some light on when all the broken things will be fixed.

[joelw135 (Joel W)]

If you hear anything please let me know. Things like this I expect from Microsoft but not ST.

[joelw135 (Joel W)]

Just received this from ST support:
Thanks for contacting SmartThings support. I’m sorry to hear about your power usage devices no longer displaying their their consumption status. This is something that our developers are aware of and working to remedy. I have tagged your email address to be notified when we release a fix.

[mobious (Glen McGowan)]

@Mike_Maxwell

The direction of the clamps is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter which direction they face.

I can duplicate the below with my HEM…

[sgnihttrams (ocd+adhd+alz+md+asd+fms+tldr+lol=me :))]

@Mike_Maxwell

So this device type in rm (or any smart app) will be a button controller, button 1 is the washer, button 2 is the dryer. Pushed will be the event generaged
No custom commands are required…

@Mike_Maxwell
Can you clarify one more time about the buttons?
I see the boxes displaying data in the device within the ST app, but when it comes to interacting with them through Rule Machine, the only option that I could find was ‘switch’; don’t see anything named ‘button controller’. I know I’m probably just missing some piece of brain code…

Then, it’s just one thing, not two.
i.e. I can’t make rules based on whether one or the other is on or off.
I can only make them based on whether either are on or off.

If side A is on, then the whole switch is on.
If side B is on, then the whole switch is on.

Do you know what I mean?

It’s not horrible. The main point I care about anyway is, ‘Are either of these appliances on?’.
So, if it’s just that and I misunderstood, it’s totally fine with me and already serving the intended purpose.

[damohabir (Daniel)]

@johnconstantelo, based on your screen shot, it seems that the device is reporting battery correctly. However, using your device code, my has been reporting 0% battery for almost 2 days now, and I have new batteries installed.

[johnconstantelo]

Hi @damohabir, unplug from USB power for a few minutes and then plug it back in. Let it run on batteries just for a bit. That’s what I did.

[Mike_Maxwell]

@sgnihttrams, buttons are available in the trigger or conditional trigger section.
The buttons will fire when the connected appliance wattage transitions below the what you have configured.
The switch is on if either alliance is on, and off when both are off.

[sgnihttrams (ocd+adhd+alz+md+asd+fms+tldr+lol=me :))]

@Mike_Maxwell

@sgnihttrams, buttons are available in the trigger or conditional trigger section.
The buttons will fire when the connected appliance wattage transitions below the what you have configured.
The switch is on if either alliance is on, and off when both are off.

@Mike_Maxwell
Sweet.
So, perhaps, for my kitchen cooking odors rule, I will use the switch to trigger turning the HVAC fan on, and then use the buttons to trigger turning it back off after a delay (if that’s possible with those buttons).

Obviously, when I get around to setting up my other v1 HEM, I will use it pretty much like you use it for my washer/dryer laundry tasks.

Thanks!

[Mike_Maxwell]

@sgnihttrams

@Mike_Maxwell

@sgnihttrams, buttons are available in the trigger or conditional trigger section.
The buttons will fire when the connected appliance wattage transitions below the what you have configured.
The switch is on if either alliance is on, and off when both are off.

@Mike_Maxwell
Sweet.
So, perhaps, for my kitchen cooking odors rule, I will use the switch to trigger turning the HVAC fan on, and then use the buttons to trigger turning it back off after a delay (if that’s possible with those buttons).

Obviously, when I get around to setting up my other v1 HEM, I will use it pretty much like you use it for my washer/dryer laundry tasks.

Thanks!

Yea, that should work as expected.

[sgnihttrams (ocd+adhd+alz+md+asd+fms+tldr+lol=me :))]

@Mike_Maxwell
One more question about these things…

If I want to maximize the usefulness of a v1 HEM (staying in the same use case vein as we just discussed to get me going), would it be OK to put a clamp around more than one appliance’s power cord in order to, let’s say, monitor two or three or more appliances?

I know that it would only tell me that some device in the set is on, and I wouldn’t be able to know which one.
I’m just thinking, if what really matters in this use case (my kitchen cooking odors rule) is knowing that ‘something’ is on, it shouldn’t matter which one, right?

[Mike_Maxwell]

no reason not to, but it might be better, (read easier) to move the clamp over to the breaker that runs your kitchen.
Running multiple split cords through one clamp is sure going to look ugly, if it’s even physically possible…

[sgnihttrams (ocd+adhd+alz+md+asd+fms+tldr+lol=me :))]

@Mike_Maxwell

no reason not to, but it might be better, (read easier) to move the clamp over to the breaker that runs your kitchen.
Running multiple split cords through one clamp is sure going to look ugly, if it’s even physically possible…

Thanks!
Ya, my breaker box is a bit of a kludge, and requires the power company to come out to unlock it in order to even get into where the mains are (TLDR)…

@sgnihttrams

@johnconstantelo
Well, I managed to get out to the breaker box to do this today, but discovered that it won’t be possible until I get some help from the power company (the city).

The problem is that, although I can get into the breaker box in order to recover when circuit trips, etc, the compartment where I’d need to get to in order to access the mains is locked.

So, I called and left a msg and will hopefully be able to get back to this in the next day or so…

@sgnihttrams

@johnconstantelo

Indeed.
Well, they came out to meet with me and take a look today, and wow…it’s worse than I thought…

Not only was it locked (as you’re thinking, they don’t want us hurt, but also don’t want anyone messing with their special metering device that they monitor it with from their homebase), but it’s also built in such a way that using the HEM won’t even be possible without some serious modifications.

First, the mains and the breakers are in completely separate compartments, and there are no cables running between the two. Rather, in this setup, they are using some other kind of mechanism for the power to travel from the mains, through their metering device and then into the breaker compartment…a mechanism that doesn’t lend itself to being able to connect the HEM clamps around anything.

Then, in order to even get into the mains compartment again (if I do decide to do the following), I will need to call them and schedule an appointment for them to come out again like they did today in order for them to unlock it.

Then, I will need to have somebody modify the mains compartment to allow the cables of the HEM to pass through the box to the outside where I would mount it on the side of the house or whatever, because it is sealed between the mains and the breakers.

Then, I will need to modify the breaker box…

1. install new, separate breaker for the wires I will need if I want to power the HEM with AC instead of battery
2. Pop out hole in breaker box for those wires to pass outside
3. Seal said hole with appropriate fitting and some caulking or whatever

So, I don’t know if I’m even going to do all of that, but at least I now have a good handle on what would actually be needed if I do decide to go that route.

However, they are working on and will soon be implementing and releasing to us a customer portal of some sort that will allow customers to log in and see our energy usage online. Within that system, it will also be possible to configure alert notifications that will go to an app on mobile devices and sms text messaging alerts which I would then be able to get into ST via IFTTT.

It’s not completely horrible, but wow.
I guess I can see their side of things…If I were them, I’d much prefer my customers not getting zapped, and I would feel pretty good about having presented a way for them to be able to track their own usage and get alerts like this.

Since implementation of this new portal is in the near-term, I guess I will just hold off for now, and see what it’s like. If it works for my needs, fine.

The only problem though is that, unless I actually pull the trigger and do the work necessary to install my own energy meter, I will be at the mercy of theirs, and won’t have a ‘second opinion’ on usage.

That said, given the low confidence we now have in the v1 HEM’s metering/tracking abilities, I guess that wouldn’t be something I’d trust up against their metering system anyway.

So, if I ever do decide to do the modifications, it won’t be until I have a v2 HEM or something else that is more trustworthy for actually metering/measuring real usage data anyway.

So, although I could do what you suggested, if there’s another way to do it without getting into all of that, I’m going to hold off on that until or unless it becomes absolutely necessary (like when I eventually get around to putting one out there to monitor the whole house).

[joelw135 (Joel W)]

Fixed the problem in rendering on the following lines. All I had to do was on the label line remove the 'n" in front of Watts and Energy and the line renders properly.
standardTile(“resetmaxmin”, “device.energy”, width: 3, height: 2, inactiveLabel: false, decoration: “flat”) {
state “default”, label:‘Reset\nWatts’, action:“resetmaxmin”, icon:“st.secondary.refresh-icon”
}
standardTile(“reset”, “device.energy”, width: 3, height: 2, inactiveLabel: false, decoration: “flat”) {
state “default”, label:‘Reset\nEnergy’, action:“reset”, icon:“st.secondary.refresh-icon”

[johnconstantelo]

@joelw135

remove the 'n"

Good find @joelw135. I made the change to my code as well, and github has been updated. It’s too bad we keep finding differences in how ST’s app looks on iOS and Android, but I suppose trying to keep things the same across two very different os’s is a bit challenging.

[joelw135 (Joel W)]

I am still trying to find a way to fix ST’s problem with the Power Outlet not showing power in IOS, so far no luck.

[jbv (Jacob B)]

I know this is a bit old but I thought I would share what I did.

I installed an outlet and extra breaker inside my electrical box. I live in an apartment so I didn’t want to punch a hole on sides of the box. I just got two feet of 12AWG conduit from Lowe’s ($1.60 I think), a 20A breaker (under $6), a “slimline” plastic wall box (under $2), an outlet ($1.50, tamper-proof), and a cover. I then wrapped the outlet and everything in electrical tape.

Here it is from the outside (the solo breaker at the bottom is the power meter breaker).

And from the inside. My hub is about 20 feet from the breaker box and I haven’t had any range issues in the past week since I installed it.