SmartThings Energy Control brings data from your connected electric meter into your hands.
Together with Bulb Energy in the UK, we’ve built a new tool to help customers understand their energy use. SmartThings Energy Control provides (almost) real time energy consumption data in the SmartThings app and empowers customers to make smarter, greener decisions at home. The integration is available today for free to current Bulb customers with a second-generation smart meter!
@7andy
The Smappee uses a clamp to monitor electricity usage and an optical or magnetic sensor to monitor gas usage.
The Smappee gas sensor will not currently work with a SMETS meter. (They are aware of this.)
Based on the instructions for setting this new Bulb integration set up it seems the way it works is to utilise the fact that the Bulb IHD (In Home Display) is also a CAD (Consumer Access Device). A CAD device uses Zigbee to talk to the SMETS meter and then translates the data in to a form that can be accessed over IP, in this case WiFi.
This method can provide access to gas usage as well as electricity usage although the Smartthings documentation does not confirm their integration supports this.
Furthermore since IHD and CAD are standard functions although each CAD will have its own API this approach should be easily extensible to other brands. (Should Smartthings be willing to do so.)
I managed to identify the manufacturer of Bulb’s IHD6 and IHD3 devices. These are made by Chameleon.
At least one other energy supplier seems to use Chameleon which is Ovo Energy which means this approach might already work with Ovo Energy today as well.
Note: The fact that this integration is using the CAD method means it is not tied to a specific brand of SMETS2 meter only at the moment a specific brand of CAD.
I’m a bulb user and a smartthings user. I note that this integration doesn’t currently work with the Smartthings Classic App, so many people in my position, who would be keen to make use of this capability, can’t at the moment. Are there any plans to deal with this?
In the defence of Samsung I feel that in this case the classic app is simply incapable of this. Actually seeing the screen capture of this in the new app for the first time shows me a genuine benefit of the new app. If only the new app could run everything the old app can I would take the plunge and switch.
When I asked “are there any plans todeal with this?” I had 2 possible solutions in mind: (1) that the bulb integration might work on the Classic App, or (2) that the new App might finally be sufficiently backward compatible to run all the 3rd party stuff I am using, including a couple of DHs I developed myself.
Well, when this was announced I got all excited and signed up for This offer. Monthly cost not too bad for me, so happy days with the added benefit of being able to track usage again (I don’t have a IHD) British Gas never installed one so relied on their app. No one told you years ago when you change supplier you get a dumb meter so for years been back to manual readings and Hoping for the best when the bills land in.
The way the offer reads (or at least my understanding) you get a new 2nd gen meter and the IHD you need to connect to smartthings (can cope with having to use the new app ). To my dismay just found out in their forums that no, if you have a dumb meter you can’t get a 2nd gen, still no further information on the hub/sockets for a £1 offer.
So after all this im paying a bit extra a month for green energy, a company I can’t make contact with and nothing from the promotional offers.
Be aware and perhaps do a bit more research than I did, and make an informed decision.
I signed up. Samsung sent me a redemption code once my Bulb account went live (Although the code doesn’t actually work - Samsung are looking into that and since I already have a v2 hub, I’m in no rush)
Bulb support told me I could request the compatible smart meters once I’d been with them a month. I don’t have any smart meter on my gas but I don’t have an electricity one from Shell energy (I’d moved away from)
thanks for your update, i will have to give them a call in a couple of weeks to see if they will swap the meters over, sent them an email over a week ago and not had any form of response . Finally received the code and redeemed, i also have the v2 hub, but the v3 could make a nice little gift for someone
My ihd hasn’t worked for an age so I couldnt get any data theough on my smartthings energy app however I believe I’ve received some sort of firmware upgrade (husband words not mine) and now I get both my gas and electricity data through fine… well done smartthings! Its addictive!
EDF also appear to be using the IHD3 now, as do Octopus (who supplied mine). However the firmware does not include the required “Pair” option within Settings. So it isn’t possible to use ST with my IHD3 sadly.
I really wanted to get solar export data so I can run my pool heating for free.
I still have smets1 but my ihd3-cad (CA30201 from boost energy) just started giving me readings this past week or so and my bulb account showing an auto updated readings with ‘smart’ next to both gas and electric. Still no pair options for stec
I have paired my Bulb IHD3 meter but I’m not getting any results in the Smartthings app. Is it just me or is it broken? I’ve re-paired successfully multiple times but the app still isn’t updating with any information at all and sometimes I get a server connection error when going into SmartThings Energy Control within the new SmartThings app.
With Bulb, just got the smart meters and the IDH unit which once “settled” now seems to make some sense at least. As for Smart Things, the electricity meter is reading “sensibly”, but the gas meter is a factor of 1000 out. The graph is correct, but the totaliser is mutiplying by 1000 ??
I’ve been using Bulb and Smartthings for some time now. I notice one odd feature. I wonder whether this is seen by others.
There is an App Smartthings Energy Control and a device Bulb Energy Meter. The electricity information appears in the former, but not in the latter and for gas it is the other way round.
I can see the electricity usage in the App, but the gas always says “No Data”.
In the device I see an energy tile, which shows 0.0GWh and a graph which is always zero. For gas, however, I see around 23,000kWh, which appears to be cumulative, and a graph which appears to be current usage. In the History I see Energy, again a cumulative total every minute, and the same cumlative gas total every hour.
The information I want is all there, if I look hard enough, but inconsistently presented.
. Finally received the code and redeemed, i also have the v2 hub, but the v3 could make a nice little gift for someone 