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IotaWatt installed today!

pvdude

Solar Enthusiast
Joined
Feb 8, 2021
Messages
618
Location
Florida
Hi,
I have been looking for a modern way to measure watts/current.
Today I received & installed an “IotaWatt” system. Communicates w/ WIFI.
Includes a voltage reference, amp probes. Very easy to install.

Not sure how accurate it is, but at least I now have easy visibility into current demand, and w/o dragging out the Fluke hardware!

The house seems to run from 300 watts to over 6kw, depending on how much is powered up.
Photo is where the power typically stays, until the heat pump and/or well pump cycles.

Looking forward to using this tool to fine tune watt usage.

Tomorrow the freight carrier is delivering the first pile’o Schneider solar stuff, this project it beginning to look real.
IoaWatt_web.png
DSC00072.JPG

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Thanks for sharing! Very cool! Now that you've had it a week how's it doing?

Do you by chance know how many watts the IotaWatt device consumes?
Also, why two power adapters? I'm guessing one is a referential voltage and therefore they can't draw power from it?
 
Working great so far.
The big power supply is labelled 15 watts.
Don’t know the small (reference voltage) PS rating.

The historical graphing has been great.
I can see the load peaks and valleys.
The real time “status” display is fun to watch.
It is possible to see the heat pump turn on, well pump, water heater, etc.
Each has it’s own current “’signature”.

Yesterday was laundry day! (Right end of graph)
And it was 92 degrees here, so the Heat pump, washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, water heater, etc were all active. Screen Shot 2021-03-29 at 09.05.44.png
 
I have 3 of these units, work great and the guy that makes them is very attentive if you have any issues or requests. He also has an active forum which helps and the documentation portal is top notch.
 
I have 3 of these units, work great and the guy that makes them is very attentive if you have any issues or requests. He also has an active forum which helps and the documentation portal is top notch.

Does the Iotawatts do monitoring only or also control (switched plugs)?

And is the data cloud-based or local? (Ie: will continue to work even when the web goes down?)
 
Does the Iotawatts do monitoring only or also control (switched plugs)?

And is the data cloud-based or local? (Ie: will continue to work even when the web goes down?)

So far monitoring only and the data is kept local to the device. It also has built in functions for outputting data to various sources with InfluxDB being the primary supported. I use the API to pull data and export to MariaDB myself, but only because I'm very familiar with Maria and already hold decades worth from various other self built home automation devices.

For time series data like this InfluxDB is really the better choice IMO.
 
So far monitoring only and the data is kept local to the device. It also has built in functions for outputting data to various sources with InfluxDB being the primary supported. I use the API to pull data and export to MariaDB myself, but only because I'm very familiar with Maria and already hold decades worth from various other self built home automation devices.

For time series data like this InfluxDB is really the better choice IMO.

I’m looking for a solution to use real-time consumption data to control programmable timers/switches based on simple rules (like ‘when fridge is on chest freezer is switched off’).

Any thoughts on a way to do that with products/environments available today?

Thanks (and hope I’m not hijacking).
 
Any thoughts on a way to do that with products/environments available today?

Ubiquity had mFi which would have been perfect for this (and was super beginner friendly), but in their usual fashion they canned the project prematurely.

I'm not aware of any easy to use canned product, but i quit looking years ago when I built my own devices. I'm sure it could be done with Home Assistant the the right hardware using NodeRed for rules but would likely take some hacking on the end user.
 
Ubiquity had mFi which would have been perfect for this (and was super beginner friendly), but in their usual fashion they canned the project prematurely.

I'm not aware of any easy to use canned product, but i quit looking years ago when I built my own devices. I'm sure it could be done with Home Assistant the the right hardware using NodeRed for rules but would likely take some hacking on the end user.

Thanks. I had the feeling I might need to plunge into DIY mode but thought I’d check if there was any reasonably pre-canned solutions first...
 
I put in multiple IoTaWatt devices in as a cornerstone of my energy audit for planning purposes and for monitoring.

Very impressed as they seem like great devices from a great community.

 
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