Power bar or Power strip

[Blue Collar Ingenuity]

Hey All, 

             First Post :) . 

I have a Raspberry Pi 2 and am about to install Node-red to build a Smart Home project. Currently I have a Neurio installed and operational. Due to recent failure I need to purchase a new Power bar/strip for my workstation. I thought to myself, self why not purchase a "smart" power strip that I can integrate into my project. Does anyone have any experience or products that I can connect to my wifi or wireless network (TBD) for control and energy monitoring? The energy monitoring is more important then the control. 

Thanks, 

Jeff in Ontario.   

[Julian Knight]

Welcome to the world of Node-Red Jeff!

If you are handy with electronics, you can fairly readily make your own.The Neurio looks like a fairly standard remote electrical monitor with Wi-Fi just with a "cloud" monitoring front-end included. The Instructables web site if you are not already familiar with it is a great resource to get you started & you will find lots of suitable projects from beginner level upwards.

In Europe Owl are the favourite pre-made units for monitoring electricity use & they use standard wireless connectivity and so can be integrated into Node-Red using something like the RFXCOM RFXtrx433E. Though you may need a 315MHz interface rather than 433MHz? The RFX units aren't cheap but they can listen to and control a large number of "standard" wireless units. Tellstick is another similar unit.

Increasingly, we are also seeing low cost Wi-Fi enabled monitors and controls appearing. Thanks in large part to the new, low-cost Wi-Fi modules that are available from a couple of dollars each. Not long ago, Wi-Fi was really expensive for home automation projects because the modules cost upwards of 20-30 dollars. Wi-Fi is also easily integrated into Node-Red because Nick, Dave and colleagues have thoughtfully already done the hard work of integrating HTTP and raw TCP connections. Integration with IFTTT web service is also possible via web services such as PushBullet so that would be another route to integration with your Neurio too.

[Dave C-J]

If you are more software inclined... there is an API available - and someone has done a node.js npm for it...

https://github.com/maaaikoool/neurio

which would be a great starting point to wrap into a Node-RED node ;-)

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regards

Dave Conway-Jones

[Mark Setrem]

If you want to monitor your home electricity usage there is also the open source http://openenergymonitor.org.

They have a variety of monitors for electricity and also a couple of solutions for integrating with a Raspberry Pi.

In terms of integrating it with Node-Red there are a couple of options:

Openenergymonitor.org uses MQTT and there is already a Node-Red node to communicate with the EmonCMS database to storing and visualising your energy usage.

[Andrew Lindsay]

+1 for OpenEnergyMonitor. Those guys rock!

[Blue Collar Ingenuity]

Thanks All!! 

                    I will definitely be experimenting with lots of Node-Red options and Neurio. The goal is to share my smart home on the web. In my original post I mentioned I am seeking a "smart" power bar/strip to power my PC workstation. Anyone have experience? Product? 

I was going to go the route of a Home built OpenEnergyMonitor Pi project but I thought I would support a Canadian company and was interested to follow the appliance detection part of there claim. Two CT's versus 10. I can't wait to get working with the raw data and make my own graphs and gauges. 

On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Andrew Lindsay <adli...@gmail.com> wrote:

+1 for OpenEnergyMonitor. Those guys rock!

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[Toshi Bass]

Hi Jeff, nice to see you on this group, how are you getting on with your rocket launch control system?
Toshi

[Blue Collar Ingenuity]

Hey Toshi, 

                Did my official test over the weekend with some fireworks. Everything worked, except I used Cat5 connectors for my wire runs. They couldn't take the load and one failed. Lesson learned and new "proper" connects are on order. I will be back on the webiopi forum as I want to get a usb camera up and running. Once that is complete I will post it to the www.  :)  

[Dave C-J]

Rockets !!!! - ok - I know it's cross posting but do add a link here when you post  :-) - especially if you use Node-RED to control it...

Back to the thread... I don't have a recommendation - but I have previously hand modified a UK version of something like this - http://www.smarthome.com/ecostrip-2-0-usb-controlled-powerstrip.html   - It just needed +5V to control all 4 extra sockets (1 was live all the time) - so a simple fet on the output of an arduino did the job.

I have also previously added zigbee modules plus relays inside multiways to give individual socket controls... but then things like the HomeEasy (433Mhz controlled sockets) got so cheap - (as mentioned by Julian above) that it's generally been easier to use them and drive them remotely via a transmitter hooked to a micro... arduino, pi etc etc.

[Julian Knight]

Ha ha (laughs manically whilst stroking fury white evil looking cat) - rockets .....

Now I know you are looking to take over the world with Node-Red!

I have to back up my recommendation of Home Easy or similar, whilst the investment in the controller isn't so cheap, once done you are set up for many different types of remote controlled switch and monitor. I already use Home Easy, LightwaveRF and Oregon Scientific. Check out the thread on "Front Door Fun" as well as lately Max and Mike have been having fun with cheap 433MHz alarm and PIR units.

[ryan...@gmail.com]

If you don't mind spending a bit you could look at APC PDUs. http://www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=70

They're IP network enabled power strips made for enterprise network equipment. They come in various sizes/capacities and with the right model you can control and monitor consumption on individual sockets, as well as set limits etc.

I had one a while back and found it fairly easy to talk to over SNMP from a Pi. Recently a friend of mine made a node lib too :) https://github.com/phillipsnick/apc-pdu-snmp

Ryan.

[ryan...@gmail.com]

Another pre-made option that I just remembered is a Z-Wave power strip: http://aeotec.com/z-wave-power-strip 

Downside being that you will probably need to implement a Z-Wave bridge if you're keen on controlling & collecting/publishing stats yourself. I've done it with a USB Z-Wave stick on a Pi but it is a bit of an arse compared to something simple like SNMP over IP for the APC PDU.

This is all assuming the devices to power/monitor are all in one location... if not, I'd go down the 433mhz route as mentioned by the others here, though a pre-made wireless relay including power monitoring on a per-socket basis is not something i've come across yet.

Ryan

[j...@mansey.com]

the mFi mPower by Ubiquiti does per-socket control and monitoring

https://www.ubnt.com/mfi/mpower/

[Greg EVA]

There are hundreds of ways to approach this Jeff in Ontario (I too am from Ontario).  I would say that  you should guide yourself based on your technical affluence in various areas, your budget, and simply where you want to spend your time.

A suggestion to look at is the Watts Up! energy meter products.  They aren't super cheap, but have a number of advantages over other options as they are real energy meters.  They store data, which is grabbed, so no data loss or data not collected should your server/infrastructure suffer hiccups.  They will also provide much more accurate measurements than a generic clip on CT would do.  There are options for USB connected, or Ethernet, including even a web interface, and if you want it an online portal for consulting your consumption stuff.

https://www.wattsupmeters.com/secure/products.php?pn=0#

Echoing Ryan's suggestion... I too have looked at using a UPS for this purpose... as it can fill a bunch of needs/uses all at once.  Obviously not the same price as just a power bar however.  I have looked at and settled on the Eaton 3S or 5S line of UPSes as they have a number of professional features with a reasonable price tag, and most importanly are line-interactive instead of the standard offline - meaning that they automatically handle power fluctuations and will have a longer battery life.  They also have standard and open UPS drivers/tools which you can then integrate into all sort of I.T. stuff... software, SNMP, network management, whatever.

Another reason I lean the way of the UPS... is that systems have been pulling data from these things for ages, so you'll be able to easily leverage existing standards, protocol stacks, etc.  As it was mentioned with some of the other approaches, you'd need wireless interfaces like a Z-Wave controller, or an RFXtrx for, which then also needs to be integrated with drivers and such (although both exist for Node-RED).

[Blue Collar Ingenuity]

The mFi definitely has my attention and there is a local retailer which is a big plus for me. Will keep ya`s posted  

[Blue Collar Ingenuity]

Hi Greg, 

             Cool that you are close. Budget is my number one influence followed by time and technical ability. My background is HVAC&R , Building Automation and now I am an energy manager on a large military base. As mentioned in my first email I am looking to get a webpage up with my energy data and analysis. Goal is to maybe provide my services on the side for residential.   

[ryan...@gmail.com]

Good spot on the mFi - quick search turned up simple control over SSH, which is nice. Fairly competitive pricing compared to Z-Wave products too. Looking forward to your update :)

Re the webpage reporting, there was a related thread on here a while back that would be a good place to start. emonCMS is probably a sensible choice for a detailed bespoke reporting portal, but I personally love Freeboard for very quick and pretty dashboards, example: https://freeboard.io/board/O2WKGJ

Ryan.

[Jon Mansey]

There's also a REST API for the mFI mPower devices here

http://community.ubnt.com/t5/mFi/mPower-mFi-Switch-and-mFi-In-Wall-Outlet-HTTP-API/td-p/1076449

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[Greg EVA]

Hi Jeff,

I *was* close... am no longer (moved out). :-P

Also cool that you are looking at the Neurio stuff... I think I looked into them way back.  Based out in BC... cool stuff... and will be very interesting to see how it works- especially in the residential space.

Just for your info... something you may be interested in based on your background... you should check out NILM (Non Intrusive Load Monitoring).... some pretty crazy stuff with the possibility of automated detection of HVAC issues by watching the electric main meter (not just any meter will do however).

Cheers,

Greg

[ryan...@gmail.com]

I spent a bit more time looking into this today and discovered another option, the Wemo Insight: http://www.amazon.com/WeMo-Electronics-Automation-Smartphones-Compatible/dp/B00EOEDJ9W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432831131&sr=8-1&keywords=wemo+insight

Limited to a single socket and a bit more difficult to talk to than mFi stuff though. Nothing jumped out at me when I had a quick look for existing node packages - they just offered the basic binary control and no reporting, as per the existing node-red wemo node that I think Dave made some time ago). Definitely doable with some work or hackable via a well supported existing python program though.

On the plus side, i've found it cheaper than the mFi and they make a UK socket version :)

Ryan.