Anyone recommend a smart plug with energy usage monitor built in?

Soldato
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After:-
1) Good Alexa integration
2) Good power usage stats/history
3) The ability to easily clear the energy usage history. Amazing how many don't seem to offer this.

Ta
 
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Hmm - certainly my HA install reads daily data from it (ie so the next day it would reset), just checked the kasa app and it has runtimes and kWh usage for daily, past 7 days and past 30 days - so whilst you might not be able to reset, you could easily check the next day and it'll be 'fresh' data?
 
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What daily data do you get? A rough rundown of the usage that day (eg: hourly)? Or just a single average figure?

Thanks again...
 
Caporegime
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I think tp link do some.

Don't know why you should care about energy usage tbh as if you need the device on then you need it on and it will use whatever it uses.

If you don't need it on then turn it off.

A simple smart plug can do that.

If it's about consumption most devices come with a watt rating and that's how much they tend to use give or take a few percent.

If you want to lower energy usage buy lower wattage devices to begin with.
 
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Hi NellF

Probably easiest if I just transcribe what's in the app from one of the plugs below. Hopefully helpful.

If I wanted hourly, I'd probably just pull it into Home Assistant and render an hourly graph in Grafana or something - pretty sure it doesn't store it locally (nor would I really want it to!)

Energy Usage:
Today
- Current Power - 18.4W
- Total Consumption - 0.38kWh

Past 7 Days
- Daily Average - 0.76kWh
- Total Consumption - 5.34kWh

Past 30 days
- Daily Average - 1.41kWh
- Total Consumption - 42.4kWh

Runtime:
Today
- Current Runtime - 20.3hrs
- Total Runtime - 20.3hrs

Past 7 Days
- Daily Average - 24hrs
- Total Consumption - 168hrs

Past 30 days
- Daily Average - 23.3hrs
- Total Consumption - 700hrs
 
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I think tp link do some.

Don't know why you should care about energy usage tbh as if you need the device on then you need it on and it will use whatever it uses.

If you don't need it on then turn it off.

A simple smart plug can do that.

If it's about consumption most devices come with a watt rating and that's how much they tend to use give or take a few percent.

If you want to lower energy usage buy lower wattage devices to begin with.

Have to say, they've been eye-opening for me (as an electrical engineer!) - partly very useful to monitor device draw throughout the day and partly to monitor/control 'sets' of devices (eg all TV units, all NAS' and so on). Lots of devices are fairly poor in their draw/power management and being able to schedule them is handy.

Being a purist, some devices are amazing how they just mindlessly ping/power cycle cloud servers - so being able to spot the draw patterns and schedule them to just turn off from midnight to 6am to save this is handy.

At the very least, I'm just a data nerd and it's cool...... ;)
 
Caporegime
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Have to say, they've been eye-opening for me (as an electrical engineer!) - partly very useful to monitor device draw throughout the day and partly to monitor/control 'sets' of devices (eg all TV units, all NAS' and so on). Lots of devices are fairly poor in their draw/power management and being able to schedule them is handy.

Being a purist, some devices are amazing how they just mindlessly ping/power cycle cloud servers - so being able to spot the draw patterns and schedule them to just turn off from midnight to 6am to save this is handy.

At the very least, I'm just a data nerd and it's cool...... ;)

I have an unraid server I can login to from anywhere now and just turn it off if need be remotely.

I also have smart plugs that do the same for the subwoofer in my 5.1 set up.

Everything else I'm happy being on standby tbh. Having to explain to the wife she has to turn stuff on using an app before using it would be annoying and tbh it's not a lot of stuff using lots of power.

The main power hungry items are usually stuff which heats air or water. So kettles, showers, hair dryers, tumble dryers, fridges if you live with someone who likes to open the door and look at every item before picking up one then leaving the door open to put it down on the worktop before going back for a second item, etc.

I turn every plug off in my kitchen every day bar the main appliances like fridge, oven, dishwasher. Everything else gets turned off including the microwave. Why because it's easy to do as it's right there in front of you and your normally up on your feet when using it.

However TV's never get turned off at the switch, neither does the avr, multiple ethernet switches, access points, soundbars, PC, etc. Too much hassle.

Tbh I couldn't even power down anything as I have so much smart home stuff I need all the ethernet switches and access points on like for cloud recording the doorbell. Access to CCTV, smart bulbs, etc.

So I have two groups. Stuff which gets turned off and others that are just left on. Having a schedule has worked for me in the past for grow lights but other than that there is nothing I can put on a schedule.

The problem with turning off my unraid server remotely is I need to be physically there to turn it back on using the power button on the pc case.

I've never really looked into power on by ethernet but I suppose I could and that's essentially the only thing I can realistically turn off which would actually save a useful amount of money and be worthwhile.

Most products these days use bugger all especially in standby.

Also I have solar panels if I don't use the power it gets given away so technically makes zero difference to the pocket during the day. Unless of course they aren't generating much or I'm using a lot.

My leccy is around £25 a month for a large detached home stuffed with gadgets. I've already upgraded everything to low power draw like led and a rated equipment.

Plus TV's do firmware updates in standby, etc. I'd hate to brick a TV by having it on a schedule power down overnight.
 
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Heh, yes fairly similar, except I power everything through HA and have a touch panel I've installed in the hall (obviously can also control with any phone, pc etc also). Have all the 'central hub stuff on a single source that always stays on as you describe'

Have also put RFID tags around the house and I can just tap them with any phone/device to trigger a whole set of actions (turn off media centre, lounge lights and associated units, leave the house mode etc).

Agree most high tech devices are pretty efficient these days, just a lot of less effect ones - eg in garage all the battery chargers for power tools are terrible at power cycling, so have all them on a single device. There's various other culprits around the house.

More generally I just like to understand my power profile throughout the day and what devices use the most power and so on...!
 
Caporegime
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Actually I have one device I would like to use my spare smart plug on. Dyson fan / electric heater.

In standby it makes a very loud humming noise. I have exceptionally good hearing as my wife can never hear it but I can from a mile off. Funny that it's a £300-£400 fan made by Dyson you would expect it to be flawless. It's the last ever thing I'll buy from Dyson. Overpriced to oblivion and better products are usually available for at least half the price.
 
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You can do that? ie: An application can grab the data from the TP-Link somehow?
Yep - have a look at Home Assistant. Basically install on a raspberry pi and you're away. Come along leaps and bounds in last year, should autodetect every device in your house and you can drag and drop to build home control panel. Just hooks into these firms APIs and you're away...!

In fact, I just added my devices and built you a chart to demonstrate how quickly you can do this in the last 10 mins.
HA.png


As you can see I can grab minute level data from the whole day from the Kasa plugs - obviously I'd style it nicer etc, but very good fun! Also masses of other integrations - Psycho Sonny - also have a dyson fan integrated here, agree re Dyson - rubbish firm - high price, low quality. Hoovers are useless too...
 
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Caporegime
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Yep - have a look at Home Assistant. Basically install on a raspberry pi and you're away. Come along leaps and bounds in last year, should autodetect every device in your house and you can drag and drop to build home control panel. Just hooks into these firms APIs and you're away...!

In fact, I just added my devices and built you a chart to demonstrate how quickly you can do this in the last 10 mins.
HA.png


As you can see I can grab minute level data from the whole day from the Kasa plugs - obviously I'd style it nicer etc, but very good fun! Also masses of other integrations - Psycho Sonny - also have a dyson fan integrated here, agree re Dyson - rubbish firm - high price, low quality. Hoovers are useless too...

Damn I have 2 raspberry pi's and never had any idea you can do this.

Okay I might get some power monitor plugs to check a few things. I'm also thinking that schedule would be great for my smart speakers.

I wouldn't want them going off accidentally in the middle of the night. Especially annoying if you have a baby or young kids. Especially if a young rascal decides to hit and run on your doorbell. They are normally just left on all the time to hear the doorbell and to give commands for plugs and lights and the heating, etc.

But I don't need certain ones to be on all the time.
 
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Heheh, from arguing 'why do you need energy plugs' to 'damn I'm installing a home assistant server' in under and hour.... I've outdone myself..... ;)

Here's some other screens to whet your appetite:

Ha2.png

Excuse the error on this NAS - can blame OCUK for that as they sent two dud hard drives, so awaiting RMA.... ;)

ha3.png

Monitor/control my Roombas and the 3d printers

ha4.png

Control heating in every room

ha5.png

Monitor how lights are used (useful for outdoor PIRs to see if they're being triggered in the night)


ha6.png

Constantly monitor ISP... ;)



Loads of other screens - all of this is pretty basic, still need to style it all once I've settled on layout etc, but very easy and everything interactive by default - ie click on things to turn on/off, long press on tablet for more info etc.
 
Soldato
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After recommending HA so many times in the "how smart has your home gone thread" i decided to create a dedicated HA thread to discuss all things HA related, but no-one seems to have ventured into it yet. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/forums/threads/home-assistant.18910108/

@NeilF As for resetting the stats on the tplink plugs, i think i did this before with a factory reset (not intentionally) but this does require rejoining the plug to your network again. Which is fine if you only want to do it once, but will get very annoying if that's something you want to do frequently.

As Katie has mentioned, it's a lot easier through HA to just pull and display specific time ranges of data that you want.
 
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