I am getting ready to do a entire home renovation. I would like to upgrade to mostly smart objects. The one detail that I can’t seem to find anywhere is the ability to track usage by outlet on a smart outlet. I would like to know what each outlet is pulling at any given time. It is just one of those data things that I have wanted to always track. I was looking for similar things on on lights as well. Are these even out there yet?
Most of the things I find can do an aggregate or on the main like but don’t do a drill down. I suspect I could do something like this with z-wave but I could never confirm it. Looking for help from the smart things community.
This feature is typically called energy monitoring. It’s just up to the individual device manufacturers whether they offer it or not on any given model. It’s quite popular for pocket sockets (plug in modules) and is also available on some in wall outlets, in wall micro relays which fit behind light switches, and a few light switches.
It’s important to distinguish between how often the values are logged in the device itself and how often the device reports those values to the hub.
You can run into problems if you configure these devices to report too often, as they can flood your home automation network with the energy monitoring messages and even cause some messages from other devices to be lost. But if you just want to review your energy usage from time to time and you pull the report even four times a day, it shouldn’t be an issue. but some of the devices do allow themselves to be configured to report every few seconds, and those can just hammer your network.
If you do want reporting more frequent than every 15 minutes or so, I would look for Wi-Fi devices rather than Z wave or zigbee. It’s just a matter of protecting the mesh networks from too much traffic.
Once you are getting the energy usage reports, there are many different ways of logging and reviewing the information. The following thread describes those (this is a clickable link):
As far as individual devices, again, it’s just a feature that you need to look for. The following are just some typical examples.
I looked for an affordable hardwired outlet that had this feature and as crazy as it is, there are not that many out there…
I ended up finding the best value from the Iris Smart Plugs when you could find them on sale for $11! Got about 15 of them and should have bought as many as I could. They are a little bulky as they are plug in modules but they do keep track of the kilowatt hours.
Another solution I found was good was the Aeon Labs Smart Strip. It has 4 switchable z-wave outlets but all 6 of the outlets have power metering and track kilowatt hours. I have 4 of them which are way more useful than the Zooz Smart Strip. Although the Zooz has 5 switchable switches, they are not metered.
Thanks both of you for your help! I would love to avoid the bulk but if they are plug in maybe I can avoid the cost of replacing the outlet with a smart outlet. I am more interested in tracking usage and then maybe setting up an AI to turn things off at different levels. I already have a test model at a friend house which he is going to incorporate into a smart mirror.
