These small devices have sensors that record how much current is flowing through cables, enabling customers to understand energy usage and avoid big bills. As you can see from the above photo, I'm using a single current clamp to monitor the incoming live feed. Our meter tails are not coloured, so figuring out which was the right feed to monitor and which way round to place the current clamp took some trial and error. However, once I got positive (rather than negative) readings within the app, I knew the device was installed just how I needed it. Make sure that your in-home display is fully charged. It’s best to keep it plugged in all the time to avoid issues.

You can mount the interface on the face of your meter easily and without tools - a far less intimidating prospect than clamping individual cables. A challenge when expanding your smart home is to centralize control into a single interface. Also, it's great to connect your real-time energy data with other smart enabled devices. This challenge was the reason behind IFTTT. This is a web-based integration layer to allow multiple smart devices to interact with each other. Home Assistant has supported energy management since 2021.8 of Home Assistant Core, so I'm interested to see how easily the Shelly EM will integrate with my existing Home Assistant setup. The Shelly EM Once it’s installed you must keep your eye on the sensor logs (see screenshot above). You are looking to see how many amps it’s reporting. The idea is we must calibrate the sensor by telling it how much current was really going through the cable when it was reporting a specific value. So in this example the sensor is reporting 0.035 A but my inverter is reporting a real value of 10.87 A.The Vue software allows you to gauge real-time spending, and to see historical data by day, month and year. The Shelly connects directly to your WiFi network without needing a hub and can be controlled via the Shelly app, and connected to the free Shelly Cloud for remote control. The off-the-shelf solution that we advise is the Shelly EM. The device has a local API, updates are pushed to Home Assistant and it has a high quality integration.

If you have a smart gas meter you can use your energy monitor to assess how much things like your gas central heating or gas oven cost to run. However, it’s a bit more complicated than with an electricity energy monitor because the display isn’t updated in real time. With the advent of the energy dashboard I started to look around at the various solutions to get data into HA. My meter (UK) is a smart meter with a remote display, but I couldn’t find any access to the data that was available to HA. I use ESPHome on all my smart devices where possible and ideally I wanted an ESPHome based solution, however I was close to going for the Shelley EM when I tripped over an excellent solution. You may also be able to access your energy monitor display on your computer or smart phone, including viewing analysis charts. Users like that the home energy meter comes with two clamps and one monitor that are easy to connect to a 110 V standard electrical system. Each of the clamps detects one circuit to report the real-time power consumption. Because the monitor is compatible with all certified Z-Wave gateways, your data about real-time consumption is stored by your Z-Wave hub.

OWL Micro+ CM180 Energy Monitor

At the top end of the spectrum is device monitoring by reading energy signatures flowing throw the main pipe. In countries like Germany, SML (Smart Message Language) is used typically. ESPHome’s SML (Smart Message Language) is one way to integrate it. If you prefer to integrate it via MQTT, sml2mqtt is another open source option. Read the meter using an AI-on-the-edge-device Similar to Sense, Energy Monitor the Wiser Energy Monitor takes voltage and current measurements through just two clamp-on sensors for over a million times per second. It evaluates the electrical signals of each device. The Eyedro EHWEM1 is a small and easy to install and to monitor with a free web app that reports hourly, daily, weekly, monthly electricity usage together with estimated costs. A suitable choice for monitoring how much energy your various devices are using, this device may look bulkier than other models we reviewed, but it comes with the advantage of very short installation times.

For the new sensor to start appearing in Home Assistant, Template Entities will need to be reloaded. Press c to bring up the Command Pallette and select Reload Template Entities.For some reason i cant use the above in the energy dashboard BUT if i add this to the dev template it actually calculates fine. {% set pv_generated = states('input_number.sensor.measured_pv_power_2') | float(0) %}

I wanted to use the Shelly EM to monitor the total power consumption of the house, which will involve installing the Shelly EM on the main tails that come in from the meter cupboard into the consumer unit. The main benefit of having an energy monitor is to provide you info on usage. This means you can make informed decisions on how to reduce your energy usage. Why … to save money! The best way to get this data is directly from your electricity meter that sits between your house and the grid. In certain countries these meters contain standardized ways of reading out the information locally. Connect using a P1 port

ESPHome CT Clamp Power and Energy Monitor

The Vue is installed in the consumer unit using CT sensor clamps that go around the mains and any other circuits you wish to monitor. This is because the in-home display only gets updated every 30 minutes which means that sometimes the in-home display will show that you’re using gas when you’re not – it’s still showing data from the last time it was updated. Monitoring energy usage for critical equipment (such as a basement sump pump) provide an important safety net. It ensures your home does not become flooded resulting in costly repairs. Safety The second is a single unit, housed within your panel and interacts over WiFi. For power, this is usually hardwired into the consumer unit itself, which requires the services of an electrician. Again, clamps clip on to specific cables within the unit. What it won't do is work with solar panels or the three-phase supplies common in commercial environments.