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ONZO Wireless Energy Monitor

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  • 08-02-2012 8:46pm
    #1
    rayh
    Registered Users Posts: 153 ✭✭


    As part of a community based energy project, I purchased 4 ONZO units in February 2011 and within a short period 2 units failed. The company replaced the units and advised that the problem would be resolved by a firmware upgrade. Last week the 5th unit has failed.
    Have any other persons had this type of experience with this make of unit as we have been running Watson's and Owl units in parallel without any difficulties .
    PS - I have previously posted this on Electric Ireland form without reply


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    #2
    Bruthal
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,422 ✭✭✭✭Bruthal


    I never used them ones you are having problems with anyway.

    I have the owl one myself, with no problems the last 6 or 7 months.


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    #3
    rayh
    Registered Users Posts: 153 ✭✭rayh


    robbie7730 wrote: »
    I never used them ones you are having problems with anyway.

    I have the owl one myself, with no problems the last 6 or 7 months.

    Yes I can only conclude that not many of these units were sold in Ireland

    It is an interesting unit as it never needs batteries. The clamp unit harvests its own energy from the magnetic field and the display from the usb. It uploads all data to the Onzo server from which a number of graphical details are available, however it is not possible to access the raw data. From their database they are able to show comparisions for both usage and peakloads of houses of similar sizes, but I must assume that these house may not be in Ireland. They also claim that it is more accurate as it has a 1 second sampling rate.


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    #4
    Bruthal
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,422 ✭✭✭✭Bruthal


    rayh wrote: »
    Yes I can only conclude that not many of these units were sold in Ireland

    It is an interesting unit as it never needs batteries. The clamp unit harvests its own energy from the magnetic field and the display from the usb. It uploads all data to the Onzo server from which a number of graphical details are available, however it is not possible to access the raw data. From their database they are able to show comparisions for both usage and peakloads of houses of similar sizes, but I must assume that these house may not be in Ireland. They also claim that it is more accurate as it has a 1 second sampling rate.

    The higher sampling rate should be better alright, although over a few months, an item still being measured for a few seconds after it actually goes off, would be averaged out by items not being measured for a few seconds after they are switched on, on the 5 second sampling ones. But the higher sampling rate is obviously better.

    These monitors are really only ammeters, and assume a fixed voltage which the user can set, usually 220v, 230v or 240v etc. So they are not true KWH meters.

    So if the monitor was put around a 12v AC cable feeding a 12v 120 watt lamp, it should read 0.12 KWH`s after an hour of that lamp running, but would in fact read 2.3 KWH`s if its set at the 230v setting, because it measures 10 amps for the lamp and assumes 230v.

    But the domestic supply voltage is usually stable enough for them to give a decent enough reading over time even though they only measure current, where as a true KWH meter such as the esb ones, measure current and voltage at all times.

    If the user has a big motor running frequently, the energy monitor will read higher than the esb whole current meter, because the monitor will measure the wattless current too, which the esb meter wont.


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