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Yes, this would most definitely be what my family opts for as an excuse to have a braai. I don’t think there is such a thing as too much braai for them…
But to get a bit more to the point, “Electricity usage” is one of those general topics of conversation that rears it head around the braai quite often and usually steers in the direction of how expensive electricity has become followed by everyone’s attempts at implementing some or other strategy toward reducing usage to save money.
One of the most common solutions is usually associated with some or other timer which is installed on energy hungry appliances such as the geyser or a pool pump to control when it is allowed to turn on or turn off.
I have done this myself in the past, but the question around what the actual saving in this approach was always in the back of my mind. So how can we do it better you may ask…
What’s the better option ?
So instead of the “old school” timers approach, a good way to understand your electricity consumption in our opinion is smart power monitoring devices.
Yes this can be quite a daunting task at first, as there are quite a few options out in the market but in my case I was looking for a solutions based on the following criteria which I felt narrowed down the options.
1.) It had to be cost effective. There are extremely expensive options out there.
2.) Available to my home network and not rely on the internet or cloud services.
3.) Integrate with my existing Home Assistant platform so that I can easily track usage and cost from a central location.
Our Options
As mentioned previously, there are many options as far as smart power monitoring devices go and having specific requirements helped but another contributing factor was that we already had experience in working with the Sonoff and Shelly product range as far as lights, switches and sensors, so these suppliers offering smart power monitoring was the cherry on top.
Sonoff :
Sonoff POW R2
Shelly:
Shelly 1PM
Shelly EM
Both of these manufacturers have cloud connectivity options but... as always I want to avoid this like a plague and keep it local to my network and with these that is completely possible and why they were the easier choice for this application.
The first appliance I wanted to monitor and understand power usage of was the 3D Printer as this device runs for hours with a heat bed that is at a constant temperature of 60°
I opted to use the Sonoff POW R2 for this application as the amp draw of the 3D Printer is a maximum of 15 Amps . Sonoff POW R2 is rated at a maximum of 16 Amps so it was fine for this use.
Geyser Monitoring and Control
It is worth the mention that the Shelly EM also have the ability to control a DIN Connector (relay). During the installation of the Shelly EM you could ask your local electrician to install a separate DIN connector to control the desired appliance.
In our case we had a 25Amp DIN Connector installed to the electrical distribution board which would then control the geyser power based on a peak and off peak electricity schedule and slightly more cost effective over setting a traditional timer schedule which is usually adapted to your lifestyle.
Apologies for the rustic wiring diagram!
Dashboard Information
The information displayed on the Home Assistant Dashboard requires a bit more effort and innovation in the sense of displaying information that is useful to you.
Information such as trends of the last week, month, year or placing a value to the amount of electricity consumption is possible. Please view the Additional Resources section of the blog for links that you can use as reference for implementing such dashboards.
Additional Resources
Purchase Sonoff & Shelly EM
Tasmota
https://tasmota.github.io/docs/
Flash Sonoff POW R2 with Tasmota
https://tasmota.github.io/docs/devices/Sonoff-Pow-R2/
Power Monitor Dashboard
