cool update. I still have a peanut plug that I stopped using years ago, because ST did not report power capability. Great name, easy to remember, and crippled!
The power reporting issue was not due to ST, but to the device itself. You have to update the Peanut’s firmware using an Almond hub/router. Once that’s done the power reporting works fine.
ah thx. I won’t be updating without the hub - maybe I heard this before…
I didn’t think about the double adapter
I’m intrigued, what is your use case?
It sounds like OP is in Germany and you linked a UK plug
I believe @Mariano_Colmenarejo is in Europe and has written many Zigbee drivers, so he probably knows a good Zigbee socket with power reporting available in Germany
Note that it’s not just power reporting. using it as a IF for a routine is what i’m after
I bought two z-wave plugs today, they arrive tommorow. It’s on amazon so if they don’t work as intended i can ship them back. if they work i keep the better one
This is a given as long as power reporting appears in SmartThings
Good luck! Keep in mind you want to keep traffic on the mesh (both zwave and zigbee, but especially zwave) low as possible. So having power monitoring updating every few seconds is not a good idea. I tune the parameters for each device according to what I’m trying to monitor. Often its fine if you only send an update every 10 minutes and only if it changed by a % from the last update.
it will be the only z-wave devices. so 2 or 3. Then i cannot poll every few seconds? It is kind of a must for functioning properly.
Can this polling period be set in smartthings?
Just be aware of the messaging required and you’ll be fine. Energy reporting can be chatty, but if you’re not using zwave for lighting and instantanous response, it should be okay. Zwave data rates can go as low as 9.6kbps and as high as 100kbps. Add repeaters in the mix and you can overwhelm a mesh if you have a bunch of devices all screaming with constant power reporting. There’s only so much airtime.
Different devices have different methods to set the reporting rate. Usually requires a device specific driver to set parameters thru ST. Not sure what these particular models offer.
I do have a fair amount of zigbee devices though. Do they take air-time on the same network as z-wave?
Negative. Two different radios, two different frequencies, two different networks. They do share hub resources for processing time but that won’t be a concern for this few of devices.
Thanks for clarifying! so i’l only have those 2-3 z-wave devices then. Then i can probably make the polling rate high enough for quick power reports.
When that works, challenge one is solved and number two starts… I want to use them for solar panels, so that they never output more then 600 watts together, and i want 2 or 3 sets.
So i need to code this into smartthings so that it turns off a set if a other receives already near 600w. but when there’s clouds, that they all work together to get myself the maximum output.
But it will be hard since i cannot combine the output of several plugs. smartthings only allows “if plug 1 has over x watts”. you can make a additional condition to trigger like “if plug 2 has over x watts”, but you cant combine the numbers into one IF.
But i’l probably need to make a seperate topic for this… Probably still gonna have questions about connecting them.
I probably wouldnt use smarthome wireless energy monitoring technology to do something like this, but its worth a try. There must be dedicated hardware that can balance and control panel output specifically for that use. Good luck!
there is, but it’s expensive and in high demand so very high queue lines until you can get one.
What I would do within the SmartThings realm is use virtual switches to do combined AND/OR logic. Setup a routine on each of the power monitors to turn on/off a virtual switch at a given wattage. Then another routine to AND/OR on the state of those virtual switches.
You’ll also want to watch for some sort of hysteresis at the switching point. If the wattage produced varies between 599 and 600W every few seconds you probaby don’t want your logic constantly switching back and forth. So another virtual switch could be added in with a delay, or setup 2 routines for each device - on at 600W / off at 550W, whatever.
i was thinking about virtual switches, i use them a lot already in combination with alexa devices and other stuff. i probably have around 50+ virtual switches also to dim my lights with buttons to -10 and +10 percentages haha. I have a LOT of smart home stuff, but im getting headaches trying to create routines to make this work.
Just published the driver for the Peanut Plug. Check it out here:
I will make a seperate thread for the calculation. The device i found that works very well is the Frient smart plug. It updates around every literal second and integrates great with smartthings. I have tried the fibaro plug and the aeotec plug as well.
The fibaro plug does not allow you to measure solar panels, it only works one way. The aeotec plug is a horrible plug that’s buggy AND slow, measures both ways though.
This Frient plug i have now, is very fast AND measures the wattage as minus on the solar panels. I had 2 wifi smart plugs before (but dont want to rely on internet access) and just like the aeotec plug they just show wattage. They cannot differientiate between feeding or consumption. The frient plug can.
Thanks for the assistance everyone!
EDIT: Nope. In routines i cannot make a “-” character. Because frient shows it as minus energy, i have to put a minus/stripe character in there. It is not possible and therefore i cannot use this device. Extremely sad!