Does a home power meter-base exist which uses BlueTooth?
Jack Edin
I was thinking about replacing my home's meter base.
If I got a fancy enough one, I could monitor it in real time.
All of the ones I've ever seen have a serial port.
Not convenient to run wires out to my meter, to begin with. The serial
isn't perfect for long runs, but I can make due...
I don't have a PC near the meter...
But if I could get a wireless meter base, using BlueTooth or perhaps
802.11b with encryption...
Then I'd be happy.
These things are EXPENSIVE. May as well get what I can use.
Running wires ain't cheap... And this way I can move the PC within the
house, without having to change any meter-base's wire's endpoint...
So anybody know of anything?
Dave Houston?
Thankx, in advance...
Jack
:)
RF Dude
main load panel, or an external means of reading the disk turning on your
meter. Here are a couple of examples:
http://www.theenergydetective.com/
http://www.bluelineinnovations.com/
Good Luck.
ChainSmoker
Have you by chance tried either one of these? Your thoughts on the using
with a home automation system....
Jack Edin
I've visited both companies websites.
I've filled-out the need more info forms on both.
That was two days ago.
I've received a reply from TED. And
Good news... TED is on sale!!
Bad news is TED won't have a computer interface till summer...
Good news, maybe, is they're looking at Zigby for their wireless.
Blueline's product is already wireless, but just for the display - as
far as I know.
They have yet to reply to my questions...
Yesterday I asked an engineer at the local power company for advise. I
also asked him to look at TED, and he said "Certainly, the price is
right, if it works."
The power company uses electronic meters in some homes. When I inquired
about those he went on to say, (on this subject):
"It depends on the purpose of monitoring. The PGE meter collects the
consumption without regard to instantaneous usages, since there are no
demand charges in residential. Individual end-use monitoring is used to
check the usage of a specific load. Seeing the total meter
instantaneous kW is an accumulation of everything that is on in the
house at that instant. Since you are billed by consumption, it's kW
times time, so it's all those instantaneous kW's and all those
instantaneous times."
He gave me the number of their residential metering expert, but I have
yet to find the time to call...
I also received TED's manual. I need to look at the current
transformer's hookup instructions to see how I feel about hooking this
up myself.
Jack
:)
Dave Houston
(although not wirelessly). It has the advantage of reading the power
company's meter disc revolutions so it will agree with their readings. It
also has the advantage that it does not require an electrician to install.
The other one requires an electrician to install it. Without additional
technical details I would be leery of its accuracy.
In either case I would want a serial interface so I could access the data
from my HA system.
Brian
I use the one from theenergydetective.com
It was easy to install, I'm a DIYer. 1 clamps around each phase and hook up
to a breaker. Install the Display box on the same side as the breaker. I
installed it on the other phase and it didn't work correctly. Easy enough
but an electrican shouldn't cost that much for this.
I'm also waiting for the computer interface.
--
---------------------------------------
Brian Dye
br...@tech-home.com
http://tech-home.com
---------------------------------------
"Jack Edin" <nos...@logicunlimited.com> wrote in message
news:IPWdnUdv97TVpyHe...@comcast.com...
Beachcomber
>Jack,
>
>I use the one from theenergydetective.com
>
>It was easy to install, I'm a DIYer. 1 clamps around each phase and hook up
>to a breaker. Install the Display box on the same side as the breaker. I
>installed it on the other phase and it didn't work correctly. Easy enough
>but an electrican shouldn't cost that much for this.
>
>I'm also waiting for the computer interface.
>--
This is a nice product to have, but given that you already know your
monthly and daily power consumption (the figures on your electric
bill), I question how much value in knowing the hourly and precise
to-the-minute cost of energy could their be (for most consumers)?
Also for appliances, you can get a good estimate of the cost per
hour's use simply from the wattage rating of the appliance, divide by
1000 and multiply by what your electric company charges per kWh.
Just how much discretion or lifestyle change is going to result in
significant energy change for most households? OK, you can dial down
the thermostat or take fewer baths if you have an electric hot water
heater, but the fridge is still going cycle on and off every hour of
the month... Assume you've already maxed out the savings in switching
your lighting to compact fluourescents, etc.
Beachcomber
Robert Green
<stuff snipped>
> Just how much discretion or lifestyle change is going to result in
> significant energy change for most households?
IIRC, there was someone got a real-time kilowatt meter set up who posted a
while back here in CHA. He said that once his kids were involved in
reaching certain target levels of consumption (i.e. - a minibike if they
saved X$) they became absolute energy misers, turning off lights
religiously. YMMV.
--
Bobby G.
Jack Edin
It is because X10 stuff is unreliable.
When you tell an X10 device to turn on, or off... did it? How can you
know for sure...??
It is open-loop, no feedback, hope it worked...
This is to help close the loop...
Ideally if the computer that told the X10 device to turn ON, for
example, watches the instantaneous power usage - it should see a change.
If it doesn't it can send the command again...
It can also be programmed to know the load. Right?
THEN it can warn when a bulb has burned out, etc.
Wouldn't that be cool?
Jack
:)
ingenie...@gmail.com
Neil Cherry
> Jack, how cheap are these meter readers?
When I took a look the other day they appeared to be about $140. I
think that's US.
--
Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry nch...@linuxha.com
http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site
http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog
http://home.comcast.net/~ncherry/ Backup site
Scott Knight
> It is because X10 stuff is unreliable.
>
> When you tell an X10 device to turn on, or off... did it? How can you
> know for sure...??
>
> It is open-loop, no feedback, hope it worked...
>
> This is to help close the loop...
Or, you could just convert your system over to a newer technology, like
Insteon. Not quite closed loop, but _much_ more reliable with ACK/NACK
responses (with retries on NACK) and message repeating by all devices.
BTW, I think this monitoring thing is a pretty neat idea from the
standpoint of being a data junkie. Just seems an overly complex
solution to your problem when better ones already exist.
--
Scott Knight