Emporia energy monitor is lame, can't get the data I want, ESPHome?

[mciholas]

In preparation for monitoring my parent's house, I bought an Emporia energy monitor kit with two main CTs and 16 branch CTs. It appears to be a nice little kit and seems to work electrically.

What I thought I bought was the ability to get second by second usage data over a long period of time so I can analyze the energy usage, peak demands, start up loads, etc. I thought the Emporia could do that and the literature sure implied that.

What I have come to find out is that you can only get the last 3 hours of 1 second resolution data. After that it is lost forever. 1 minute resolution lasts a week and then is gone.

This is frustrating. I'll miss key peak demand events and thus can't size an inverter to a critical loads panel or figure out what devices can be on that panel.

How do I solve this?

My query to Emporia got nowhere, they clearly don't care about this.

One idea is to log in every 3 hours and download the CSV data and piece it together to get longer data. This is cumbersome because you have to go the app or website to request the download, then they send you an email link to the data (not as an attachment, alas), and then you have to follow the link to get it. To do this manually is untenable, and to automate it would be a chore and quite complex.

So I am looking for some other solution.

I have found "ESPHome" which looks like an open source firmware load on the Emporia to give you more control:

GitHub - emporia-vue-local/esphome: Custom component for ESPHome to add support for the Emporia Vue 2 energy monitor

Custom component for ESPHome to add support for the Emporia Vue 2 energy monitor - emporia-vue-local/esphome

github.com

Will this allow me to collect 1 second resolution data for long periods of time? I couldn't tell from what I found.

If so, can someone point me to a step by step tutorial on how to set this up from flashing the Emporia device firmware to setting up a database/file system to collect the data? It looks like a lot of stuff to configure and all I want is data I can view.

This is easily within my abilities to figure out, I just want to short circuit a learning curve here and get this up and running fast.

Or can I buy something else that will do the job properly?

Mike C.

 

[1201]

I agree emporia vue is lame. Iotawatt is more expensive but it is so much more useful.

 

[dstra1]

Flash the Emporia with ESPHome and you can send all the data you want to a MQTT broker running somewhere. If you have the room you can store as many data points you want.

 

[wsaharem]

I’m doing the same with my Emporia. Extracting data and then saving it into a database for analysis. 3 hours sucks for seconds data. But. As I thought about it, the purpose is to understand usage, and the big load devices rarely only use the power for less than 1 min. (Other than motor spin ups). And, my inverter can handle a 1400W surge for 30 min! So I am still saving the seconds data when I remember, but using the minute data for planning. Being able to automate an extract would be great!

 

[Angular8412]

Flash the Emporia with ESPHome and you can send all the data you want to a MQTT broker running somewhere. If you have the room you can store as many data points you want.

I agree, flash with ESPHome and send the MQTT data to Home Assistant

 

[Dagoth Ur Does Solar]

Flash the Emporia with ESPHome and you can send all the data you want to a MQTT broker running somewhere. If you have the room you can store as many data points you want.

This has been on the back burner for me.

I am currently pulling it all into HomeAssistant through a HACS plugin that just connects to the Emporia cloud via the API.

On top of the plugin itself being a little finicky, the Emporia cloud just has outages sometimes, which is obviously very annoying when I could just be pulling the data over the local network and never have to worry about an outage.

 

[mciholas]

The Emporia Vue 2 is more lame than I thought.

The problems I'm having or had:

1. One channel in intermittent. The little phone jacks are not very reliable.

2. The "1 second" data is not even 1 second resolution for the last 3 hours. They average it to 1 minute and it appears only when you have the app or webpage open does it actually save to 1 second resolution. Here is my CSV file that is supposed to be 1 second resolution and it is clearly that only in the last few minutes, the rest of the file has data that is 60 repeated values, so only truly 1 minute resolution.



Thus the system doesn't even provide the 1 second data over 3 hours that it promises. It really feels sabotaged by terrible policies for data storage.

3. One of my channels (AC unit 1 compressor) has disappeared from the app and webpage display. It is configured and its power is subtracted from the balance result, but I can't display it any more, it just disappeared.

4. When you start the app, I sometimes get a generic set of devices, not what I configured, and it can take 30 seconds or so to show what I have configured.

5. The smart plugs have terrible Wifi range and are basically unusable in may cases.

The new Vue 3 with pluggable header CTs and having Ethernet may be a better device, but the software being so brain dead about collecting data makes the Emporia unusable for any proper measurements. I will be investigating ESPHome for the Vue 3.

My recommendation to anyone who wants a power monitor is to avoid the Emporia. If it can be reflashed to ESPHome and made to work that way, the Vue 3 might be decent hardware (the Vue 2 CT connections are unreliable), but the Emporia software sucks.

Mike C.

 

[Madcodger]

Not getting into an argument with the OP, but for benefit of others that come across this thread, I've had three Emporia Vue monitors in three different buildings (two properties) for more than two years. While not perfect, they've each been overall aligned with the utility in terms of usage measured, and have allowed me to capture enough data to plan my next home for off grid solar. I agree that the little jacks that plug into the device are problematic (I had to wrap each device in tape to make sure they stayed in place but that did the trick). I also agree that the device will sometimes lose wifi connectivity, but that usually resolves in minutes and happens only rarely for me. I have no need for to-the-second measurement and don't expect that from a device at this price point. For the next house, I'll explore other options just to see what's available, but Emporia Vue will definitely remain on the consideration list. I do hope the OP is able to resolve his issues satisfactorily, but I wanted to note that for many, the device is a reasonable option at an attractive price point.

 

[justinm001]

I'm planning on buying a bunch of these for my houses and using home assistant.

GitHub - magico13/ha-emporia-vue: Home Assistant Integration for Emporia Vue Energy Monitor

Home Assistant Integration for Emporia Vue Energy Monitor - magico13/ha-emporia-vue

github.com

Idk if it fixes your issue but thanks for letting me know. One house has 2 panels, other 3 and other 5 so I need at least 10 of these and even then it's not all the Breakers.

 

[Zwy]

I have a MyEyedro in the house, it only has 2 main CT's but I found it far superior to the Emporia I installed in the shop. The Eyedro on a 15 min time graph updates about every second if zoomed in. It only measures total usage but any surge can be determined by subtracting base load.

 

[Shimmy]

If you do go down this route, I would recommend pulling the data into InfluxDB. One second resolution is a lot; 5 seconds is plenty for most applications. For my system (IoTaWatt), I generate hourly energy integrals which greatly simplify long-term use of data. In retrospect 15-minute intervals would have been better, and I should have included max/min kW and max/min Amps, but the utility is limited.

 

[Angular8412]

The Emporia flashed with ESPHome and sending the data to Home Assistant is very reliable. The native Emporia software leaves much to be desired. The native s/w sends data out to the Emporia server and then you have to login to the server to get your data. The server traceroutes to an AWS location in the US, but you don't know who controls it.

The reliability of the unit is good, but you have to make sure the plugs are clean and don't have any tension or stress on them. The ESPHome software does averaging of the data being collected multiple times per second. With Home Assistant you can put the data through a data filter and smooth out erratic data.

 

[1201]

The Emporia flashed with ESPHome and sending the data to Home Assistant is very reliable. The native Emporia software leaves much to be desired. The native s/w sends data out to the Emporia server and then you have to login to the server to get your data. The server traceroutes to an AWS location in the US, but you don't know who controls it.

The reliability of the unit is good, but you have to make sure the plugs are clean and don't have any tension or stress on them. The ESPHome software does averaging of the data being collected multiple times per second. With Home Assistant you can put the data through a data filter and smooth out erratic data.

Is it possible in home assistant to have totals for export and import, or just a net number?

 

[mciholas]

I have no need for to-the-second measurement and don't expect that from a device at this price point.

If it doesn't do it, they shouldn't advertise it that it does. The 1 second data is terribly broken, most of it is 60 seconds averaged.

You need 1 second data if you need to see peak starting power on things like heat pumps, well pumps, etc. This gives you the basis for assessing if an inverter will be strong enough to start those items.

It isn't sufficient to look at 1 minute averaged data and conclude the inverter can start those loads.

Mike C.

 

[Shimmy]

You need 1 second data if you need to see peak starting power on things like heat pumps, well pumps, etc.

One second data is not enough for that either. You need about 100ms intervals to be able to approximate for most motors. If you really want transient data then you need <0.1ms data. Fundamentally this is the difference between an energy monitor and a power monitor. The energy consumed for the largest residential branch circuit in one second is trivial.

 

[Dagoth Ur Does Solar]

One second data is not enough for that either. You need about 100ms intervals to be able to approximate for most motors. If you really want transient data then you need <0.1ms data. Fundamentally this is the difference between an energy monitor and a power monitor. The energy consumed for the largest residential branch circuit in one second is trivial.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I have one, and the device obviously isn't geared towards doing something like measuring inrush current.

I think if someone is looking to get high-resolution inrush current monitoring they should be looking at a Fluke clamp, or at least a different device.

 

[Angular8412]

Is it possible in home assistant to have totals for export and import, or just a net number?

The Emporia only has two CTs for mains measurements. If you put the CTs on the grid feed, then you can see import and export. If you have a hybrid inverter with a grid in and a load out, you can only measure one or the other.

 

[1201]

The Emporia only has two CTs for mains measurements. If you put the CTs on the grid feed, then you can see import and export. If you have a hybrid inverter with a grid in and a load out, you can only measure one or the other.

Correct but it doesn't show two separate numbers-one for import and one for export -it only shows net

 

[Angular8412]

Correct but it doesn't show two separate numbers-one for import and one for export -it only shows net

I guess I misunderstood. You can create sensors in Home Assistant that are separate import and export sensors. Import would be positive flow and export would be negative current flow. Not sure why you would need two separate numbers. Because the data is coming several times a second you can integrate all positive and separately integrate all negative to get separate energy flows.

 

[wattmatters]

Correct but it doesn't show two separate numbers-one for import and one for export -it only shows net

As Angular says, with a real power flow sensor you can create sensors to show just the positive or the negative (or both of course).

Not sure why you would need two separate numbers.

An example: In Australia the tariff credit for exporting energy is different to the tariff billed for importing energy, so knowing each is very useful.