Is there a device that will tell you what appliances uses electricity in your house?

thebourke

Is there a device that will tell you what device uses electricity in your house.

I have a smart meter that was installed by ESB.

drury..

Some people monitor circuits or even individual outlets and collect data whatever

Another one of these new smart "tasks" that's mostly not needed and takes up time

Is there a specific issue ?

Padre_Pio

You can either get current clamps you can put in your consumer unit to measure current on each circuit, or you can get power measurement plugs that go between your socket and an appliance.

It depends what you want to get from the data.

Personally I would get the plugs and leave them on each appliance for a day, then add up your totals to see what's drawing the most power

rdhma

Search for Power Meter Plug. The two scenarios where it is most useful are:

1. High power appliances which are used only periodically. Find how much a clothes wash/ dry cycle costs.
2. Detecting parasitic loads. An appliance drawing some power when it is meant to be completely off or drawing only a minimal standby current. I did once find a desktop computer behaving this way.

thebourke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122595772#Comment_122595772

no specific issue..im just want to know what appliances are using the most electricity

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607098#Comment_122607098

I use Tapo smart plugs (purchased on Amazon).

wandererz

I can set costs for night rate and day rate and it will calculate the costs.

Whichever smartplug you get, make sure it has energy monitoring and costs.

The ones I have are the P110.

€40 for a 4 pack at the moment.

drury..

What's the point of all that

bennyx_o

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608100#Comment_122608100

As the OP said, to see which appliances use the most electricity. You can also add the price per kWh and see how much each appliance (or whatever you have plugged into the smart plug) has cost you each month. To have the ability to turn a light on from anywhere in the world, once you have internet? Just because you see it as pointless, doesn't mean others don't

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608100#Comment_122608100

Still living in 1989??

wandererz

The points are:

1. Getting visibility of which devices are switched on when
2. How much energy each is consuming, at different times of the day and under what conditions (e.g. 30,60,90 degree wash)
3. Turn devices on and off when you want
4. Schedule devices to turn on at certain times (e.g. Set the washing machine or dryer settings, switch it on while the smart plug is off and set a schedule to turn on during night rate). Thereby halving your washing bill.
5. Security - program lamps to switch on and off while away.
6. Cost reduction

Here's an example of cost reduction

In the previous screenshot I can see that someone switched on the washing machine at 12pm (how much energy it consumed) then again around 6pm (probably drying cycle).

This is totally inefficient, switching on in the middle of the day and at peak usage hours.

Although I do know why this was done this specific time.

drury..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608360#Comment_122608360

Not making much of a point there

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608419#Comment_122608419

Have a look above. It may help with your insane electric bill.

wandererz

There are also clamp on type monitors that clamp onto the wires going into your fuse box so that you can monitor usage on items that don't have a plug, such as the immersion, water pump, lighting circuits.

Needs electrician to connect to power though in the fuse box.

Example below.

https://amzn.eu/d/fDx5mdk

wandererz

Smart meters in Ireland are not smart at all. They don't provide any information about which devices are consuming power and how much, they show the total consumed power of the house.

The information isn't available in realtime either, typically the next day. By which time one has to take a guess at what was turned on and when. Even worse when looking back across the month.

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608507#Comment_122608507

Try telling Electric Ireland that! I reported their TV add which says "tell how much electricity you use by appliance type" with a smart meter which it can't do, but they told the person dealing with the complaint that their algorithm could which is bullsh1t. Case closed.

drury..

And the reason you need this information

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608636#Comment_122608636

Care to say who you are asking that question?

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608636#Comment_122608636

Curiosity dude, its why we are where we are as a species.

drury..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608756#Comment_122608756

That's mostly what it is a time wasting exercise

They do have their specific uses when necessary

A lot of the "smart revolution " is simply adding unnecessary complexity to daily life

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608636#Comment_122608636

Go back up the thread and read my responses. They are clear enough.

Otherwise you are just trolling.

In April you were asking about an insane €2K electric bill in shared student accommodation. That may have been a glitch or billing problem.

The reason is to avoid such scenarios if they are caused by certain appliances, certain usage patterns or a general "I don't give a feck" attitude .

I'm guessing that until relatively recently you were living with the parents and didn't have to worry about the bills. We're heading into winter now, by October heating systems will be switched on on a regular basis including things like room heaters.

Wait until you see the costs shoot up from October to April and you will be wondering WTF is happening as you will be haemorrhaging money. Especially if you are on a two or three month billing cycle and bill shock hits you. It's a common occurrence every year.

Also, in winter, things like longer and warmer showers or hot baths have an effect.

People have moved to things like airfryers, do you know how efficient your airfryer is, how much energy it consumes or even your gaming rig, monitors, TV etc (even when they are "off"). Simply pressing an off button on a remote does not switch off the appliance totally.

This information, however, provides a greater degree of observability and allows one to perhaps make changes that will reduce costs, reduce usage when the grid is commonly known to be under stress, allow the grid to make use of less fossil fuels and make more use of renewable and sustainable resources.

A simple example is that i was sitting in a cafe in London one morning before a meeting and realised that the heating system was switched on in Ireland with nobody in the house. I turned it off by a single command and changed the schedule.

When we go to bed, any of us can say "…. turn off the entertainment system". This powers off the TV, AV receiver, speakers, media box, games console and any USB powered devices plugged into that smart power strip.

crossman47

Electric Ireland give me a purported analysis of my usage by type (cooking, lighting, etc). It would be useful if I could trust it but the largest single item is always "Always On". I have asked them what this covers but got no reply. I find it difficult to believe as fridges are supposed to be a separate heading and the only things I can think of that are always on (and not specified under headings such as cooking, lighting, entertainment, etc)are wifi, house alarm, an alarm clock and the control for gas heating.

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122609020#Comment_122609020

What is the constant power draw? Have you gone through the consumer unit and eliminated things by turning off circuits? They can't say what device you are using it's just false advertising. My immersion uses about 2.5kW so does my airfryer and my tumble dryer and top oven as an example, how can they tell what I turned on for 45 minutes? They can't. They just know I turned something on if even that.

Cyrus

Shelly energy monitoring clamps are good, integrate with home assistant for better visuals.

I have one for total usage plus one each for the Heatpump and car charger (the big users)

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122609052#Comment_122609052

Thanks! I was struggling to remember the brand name.

wandererz

We are almost 12 days gone into Sept and here are my usages for the fridge, freezer and washing machine.

One would think that the full size freezer would be expensive to run (because it's freezing stuff) but it's actually cheaper than the full size fridge as the fridge is opened more frequently and left open for longer so has to get back to set temp more often.

With the washer/dryer however, it's only been used on two days this month (we were traveling) but those 4 wash/dry cycles over just two days cost more than either the fridge or freezer over - 11.7 days.

I know what my usage is over the fridge /freezer. It's consistent, so I don't necessarily need to be monitoring it constantly unless there is a spike,but the monitors are there and I'm leaving them in.

Washer Dryer

Fridge

Freezer

drury..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608868#Comment_122608868

I'm a spark for over 30 yrs pay my own bill for 30 yrs

I know the ratings of appliances in the house and the approximate running cost

Most of what you're posting is waffle and no im not trolling

I've a few bits in the house on standby and other stuff gets switched off

I check the meter an odd time to see if theres anything untoward happening with usage

wandererz

The one other thing I would suggest is to look at your night and day rates and add in VAT to get a more accurate figure.

I do appreciate what people are saying in that this can be a waste of actual time. But once setup, it's there and I only spend a few mins every so often looking at it.

There are people who have gone down the whole integration route with various different software and integrations and end up spending an inordinate amount of time with optimising, integrating and coding as most of the software is open source. One may not be IT literate or proficient with coding and then it becomes a whole new (e.g. Linux) nightmare that sucks up time and effort.

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122609126#Comment_122609126

OK.

Perhaps different generations.

I was off by a few years 2024-31 years =1993

Not 1989,but not too far off.

Most of the people asking questions here are not sparks. They don't have the requisite knowledge and/or they want and expect something easy to access and use and provide observability, not mess around with calculating stuff or guesswork.

If they can see what's going on by consulting an app on their phone, then great.

I'm not here to argue (I'm trying not to) . The OP asked a question and i replied to him providing real life examples. If it helps him, then great.

This information is also here for posterity for anyone else to consult should they have a similar question in the future. I let them make their own decisions based on the information that or the non-information provided.

I've just off the back of my head counted close to or over 30 items in a two bed apartment with just two people which draw power, including all the lights as just one circuit. Trying to get to the bottom of that isn't easy (I know, I know, turn everything off and turn everything on and watch what happens or use a portable meter etc)

I've spent an inordinate amount of time on these replies but I don't mind as I am stuck in bed with Covid (yes, it's still out there).

drury..

Thats probably the thing

I would say I have a good idea of what's going on around the place in terms of electricity usage due to my work experience

And like I said i take an odd check on the meter

Having said all that if something extreme were to happen in terms of sudden usage well then I'd miss it without the real-time monitoring

Each to their own but i have an issue with a lot of the complexity the smart technology is introducing

My idea of smart is a flush lighting pir in my hallway that does what I need it to to do without user intervention

wandererz

As a spark, you could offer a service to connect a Shelly or similar unit to a customer's fuse box (maybe connect or show them how to connect it to their WiFi) plus provide a Home Assistant (HA) box.

There are labour and hardware sales in the above.

In terms of configuring home assistant, there is a company I consulted with who will help the customer configure HA remotely including the fancy dashboards etc. They will do the initial consult with the customer, provide you with a price and you include a markup.

People are bought into the idea of smart homes and if it's not smart already then they want some element of control and visibility. To what degree is up to them.

wandererz

@drury.. I didn't mean to come across as nasty in what I said, probably just a result of being stuck in bed.

I am in the Dublin 15 area and need someone to install a Shelly unit in my fuse box plus a wall plug socket from the fuse box down (about 1-2 meters). I can explain how the Shelly can be connected if it's the first time (it's a simple feed).

Then my smart life will be fulfilled.

If you are in the area at some stage, then give me a quote via direct message and we can go from there.

drury..

That is it

People are bought into smart

Now how much flexibility you need over control of an immersion heater is debatable

I would argue it's mostly time wasting getting into smart control with the above item

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122609331#Comment_122609331

being able to turn off the immersion remotely would be useful wouldnt it?

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122609331#Comment_122609331

Depends on the family and lifestyle.

Just spent a week in a cottage in Connemara where I paid via Prepay-Power topup.

No need to have the immersion on at home every morning at the set time when we were away so I turned it off remotely.

My wife went back to Dublin for a work meeting, but she spent a night at home and returned the next day. Looking back I could see that after her stay the energy costs increased about 32% compared to the previous days when we where not there.

She left the kitchen and hallway lights on when she left. Unfortunately I don't have control over that at the moment for various reasons.

We are getting into winter. If heating systems are set to come on automatically at a certain temperature then if a window/door is left open the heating will switch on unnecessarily when nobody is around. In that case, one can get a warning and make a change.

I'm not a big fanboy of anything specific but I was just frustrated at not knowing where my money was going on electricity bills every month and not being able to view it. Add to that, my wife leaves all the lights on all the time if she has a chance. It would be great to show her the difference.

wandererz

Screenshot below of the bedroom (switched off at the isolator as never used), lounge and kitchen underfloor heating, plus the immersion.

Can be turned on/off and set to different temps and schedules.

65535

I've currently (pun intended) a 2 month bill from Electric Ireland and I dread it now.

There can be 8 here at times and some of them have no issue in using the clothes dryer even when it's sunny and has wind outside with 2 long clotheslines so I understand the requirement here indeed.

I'm looking into getting an overall device which I have seen but it was not available that would automatically detect what type of device was plugged in depending on the load etc.

I'd prefer the 'overall' device rather than one with individual sockets.

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122609416#Comment_122609416

Have a look at Shelly clamp or "tuya smart life wifi energy meter".

It clips onto the cables coming from the various circuits in your home at the fuse box. In that way you can tell which circuit is drawing energy and when.

They come in one, two, four clamp options, so you may need more than one.

It's not battery operated so will need to be wired in by an electrician.

drury..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122609385#Comment_122609385

Would it though if you've already programmed it to turn off using a standard timer

Sh1t happens but how often

wandererz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122609512#Comment_122609512

I just provided an answer. Head off on holiday for a week or two or a weekend away and one is concerned more with packing/kids/pets etc and forget about turning off the immersion.

It's a matter of inclusion and understanding what may happen in other people's lives and what their needs arerather than just in ones own.

Another example is if one has a holiday home and that's a distance away. One visits, leaves and remembers a few days later that the immersion and other stuff is still switched on.

Or if renters turn up the heating to 26 degrees which you will have to pay for (happens).