Just curious if anyone else out there is using ohmconnect ( http://ohmc.co ) and interested in them completing their integration into smartthings? Essentially you could have peak power grid signals sent to smarthings and you could dim lights and shut off things. Ohm connect also pays you to save power during these events.
I am talking with the Ohmconnect team and they wanted to see the interest in the community…
I would be very interested in an integration here. I’m no developer, but I am a very interested consumer that would pay a one time fee for a premium feature like connecting to STs and bring features like mentioned above.
It makes great sense tbf
How do I integrate my Nest thermostat, Tesla, Belkin switches, or other smart devices with Ohmconnect?
To integrate smart energy devices, navigate to the Automate page. If you would like to see another device in this list, please email us at talk@ohmconnect.com.
Is this limited to CA?
From FAQ:
When you activate your account using your utility login credentials, we give you permission to link your smart meter to Ohmconnect. Smart meters are digital energy readers for most California residences. These meters take frequent readings that allow our system to track whether you reduce your energy.
@tgauchat Yeah, they haven’t been prioritizing the smart things integration since they aren’t really sure the size of the community out there (at leas thats my understanding based on my convo with them).
@darrylb I think it might be:
Which utilities does Ohmconnect support?
We work with PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E. If you would like to request that we cover your utility as well, please email us at talk@ohmconnect.com.
Understood.
Of course, it becomes chicken / egg to some degree … There are some folks who would be influenced to purchase SmartThings over the available integrated competitors if ST-Ohm integration were available.
It gets a tad frustrating for these significantly funded for-profit companies to rely on “Community” developers to solve that dilemma for them at no cost. Particularly since they could contract out this development for a trivial expense per integration.
The SmartThings market is too small, unfortunately, to respond to genuine individual gestures…
Well after all that I logged into the OhmConnect dashboard this morning and realized they added an API at the very bottom of the settings page. Here is a very basic app that will run some hello, home phrases when an Ohm Hour starts and ends. People smarter than I can probably make this a bit better including improving the resetting the timer every polling interval…but hey it works. Please let me know if anyone has questions.
This is great discovery, partly because I really don’t want to get text messages for Ohm-Hours and now I can use any notification method or none!.. If they let us disable SMS!
I’d like to convert this to a Device Type, actually. The shortcut would be to just tie it to a Virtual Switch, of course.
I am a bit obsessed with Devices of unique Capability (see New Capability Types category), and this one piques my interest.
It is a Sensor (not an Actuator), so it could mimic any binary sensor… Perhaps something Energy related might apply.
But it is like when you shut off the HVAC when a window is Open… ie, like a Contact Sensor!
Funny you mention that I was looking at that as well today since it would be nice to have a tile that could go red when an event is active.
I will have to look more into Device Types as I haven’t played with them as much and probably not since the very beginning.
Took a first stab at turing this into a device type and also wrote a corresponding App. Next rev maybe I will take a stab at making it a unique device capability. For now here it is:
This would be cool to tell the fridge to wait until it cycles off on normal temperature control, then kill the fridge power for 4-5-6 hours. Peak-shaving.
of course HVAC / air-conditioning is where the big savings is at. You need a PRE-shaving signal to allow pre-cooling/over-cooling or pre-heating/over-heating before the peak-shaving period. With this signal then everything could be automatic.
A crystal ball?
If all peak-shaving participants received the advance notice, eventually the peak event would shift earlier and earlier, theoretically.
The ideal situation is for the power company to distribute the load across different homes at different hours; thus the “advance time” you get to pre-cool your home the start of your neighbor’s “peak hour”.
Since HVAC" cycles anyway (frequently… Every few minutes or so?) an optimized grid would just ensure the cycles are coordinated (as thousands cycle off, others cycle on, in a geographic region distributed randomly). The closest we have now are “rotating outage blocks” used for emergency grid overloads.
The idea for ohmConnect is to see for that moment the grid is overloaded and for you to turn things off for an hour so a peak power plant doesn’t get turned on. They pay you to participate in each event… what @tgauchat brought up is another pretty interesting thing as well. The OC team has talked about the opposite as well…turning things ON when the prices approach zero or even negative to stabilize the kwh spot price.
This will happen more and more as more clean energy (that is less predictable on output) comes online. It has happened a couple times here in Norther California but nothing to the extent of Texas where it went negative $8/kwh.
I should also add…based on what you mentioned above you should check out Bidgely . With a zigee smart energy gateway hooked to your smart meter (i am using rainforest eagle which i am working on a device type for on ST). It realtime tracks your usage, what tier you are on and then learns based on “usage signatures” when your fridge is running or your dryer…etc.
My utility put a smartmeter on, that I can’t read so I put in a private meter. I already using Plotwatt, seems similar, characterizes loads, and allows multiple meters - actually has me interested in submetering HVAC and a few big loads.
I looked at Bidgely before, but did not see the capability to read a private meter. If utility permission/involvement is required then up to now that has been unlikely for most homeowners.
In theory Bidgely works with TED, which I have. It has great features, but is really really buggy. In fact I can’t get it to talk to Bidgely at all now. I miss that.
has anyone gotten this to successfully work? I have a device of type ohmconnect, and put in my OhmID, but it never changes from “stable grid”. what do I do to get it to poll for the ohmhours?