Looking for device - a less expensive ($20-$50?) energy monitor WITHOUT a switch

I’ve been looking around for a non-invasive clip on type energy monitor. The first thing to come up usually is the [$90 aeon labs meter](Aeotec by Aeon Labs ZW095 ZW095-A Home Energy Meter Gen5, Small, White https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XD8WZX6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_QeOxDbA3P2WMX) but $90 feels steep. The important thing is that there is no switching capability so a smart plug won’t work. Reason being is that I want to monitor critical equipment, like a sump pump or boiler, but don’t want to inherit the risk of switching it off by accident. I like to tool around with my automations (Home Assistant, webcore, Etc.) so everything is a bit spaghetti code right now and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that I do a “all switches off” by accident.

A smart plug could work if there was an end all be all disable of the switching function, preferably a hardwired toggle on the switch.

I know I could home brew a pi/arduino solution but I prefer nice prepackaged things if they exist

Thanks for the input

1 Like

I just sold my last Aeon Gen1 HEM for around $30 on eBay, sorry! That would have worked perfect for you. The gen1’s are getting hard to find now. I’ve had mine for a few years, and it works great with SmartThings. I know the Gen5 can be more expensive, but it may be worth it since a failure in your critical equipment is sure to cost you more than $90 in damages or repairs.

2 Likes

Cannot believe they finally sold out the v1 inventory. For years they were selling those for as low as $20. I agree that Gen 5 is worth the price. I would watch the Smartest House website, they always have discounts. Or maybe @TheSmartestHouse has a Labor Day coupon to share with you, you never know.

4 Likes

The ZEN15 Power Switch has an option to be disabled for on/off manual control and if you also need to disable Z-Wave on/off control (from the hub), we can send you a custom device handler that provides this functionality.

The old HEM from Aeotec is no longer available unfortunately.

3 Likes

I had several of those devices before I became a Zigbee convert. @Meehog527, you should look into these too.

I have four of these. They have been rock solid. They also have the ‘remember last state’ after power outage functionality.

2 Likes

This sounds great, I have other Zooz stuff that has been good so far. Please send along the custom DH and I’d be curious to see what you did to modify it in order to kill the switching.

I was actually thinking of picking of these up for my washing machine which is for sure out of the realm of “critical” appliances and would be a great place to start testing.

I don’t fully understand the on/off manual control part, is there a physical switch on the device? Not a deal breaker but something to look out for.

Are there any devices like this that can handle more than 15A? Laundry automation would include dryer monitoring which is 240V. Worst case I’d use a vibration sensor for this.

Just a suggestion, Z-Wave doesn’t handle power reporting as well as Zigbee. If I had to start over, I would go with Wi-Fi devices for power reporting, but at minimum I would stick to Zigbee as much as possible, when it comes to devices that overload the mesh.

It’s more for an inferred “on/off” than the actual current value, if that matters.

There might be a way to adjust the device handler or something to make it report less to reduce the mesh load in the case.

Good to know though.

If you were to adjust the DTH, you would be missing local processing, big time.

1 Like

Exactly. I have over 200 zigbee devices, and almost all of them report power; and when power isn’t reported from some devices, others report temperature or humidity like crazy. I’ve never ever had any zigbee mesh performance issues, even when I purposely tried and turned on every single switch and bulb in the house.

1 Like

Getting a little off topic here, but is there any sort of analytics provided by a hub (I have a SmartThings hub) that would indicate your mesh is in trouble?

Poked around a bit and it seemed like other things (a Z-stick or Razberry zwave controller) provide utilities for such a process but ST does not.

Going to mark this as the solution as this is the route I will go with for now, taking into consideration the other suggestions below for future stuff

You’re right unfortunately. We’ve been asking ST for that utility for years, and it’s rumored “to be coming soon”. We’re still waiting!

Not too long ago I caught some interesting mesh diagnostics ST had briefly exposed for Zigbee devices, so maybe we’ll actually see something some day:

1 Like

To be honest, screening the Z-Wave repair logs is more than enough to troubleshoot a Z-Wave mesh problem. In five years or so, I didn’t have a problem that I couldn’t resolve on my own and wished that I had some utilities to help me out. If you follow a few basic rules when building your mesh, you won’t need any utilities either. This very topic is covered in many threads, here is one on Z-Wave utilities:

2 Likes