Home Energy Monitor Choices For US?

Total newby here. I’m curious about hardware choices for the US. The NorthQ looks good but doesn’t look like it’s available here? The Aeon HEM looks like the only other real choice right now? Something about G2 coming out but I’m not clear if that’s what I see for sale or it’s the G1, or what the difference is.

Thanks for any help.

Brultech. CurrentCost.

As futzle mentioned, brultech is one of them, also the TED5000. There are several threads about these and plug ins for them. I suggest you search the forum.

  • Garrett

I did search but it helps when you have a direction so thanks for that. I thought the TED was a stand alone thing only.

So what I’m getting is that the Aeon is somewhat simplistic, can be somewhat inaccurate, and also difficult to get working.

The TED only comes with 2 CT’s. Each additional set is $84?

The Current Cost is hard to assess because they have very limited info. on their site.

The Brultech seems much more affordable. You can get teh Mono 100x package for a bit over $200, the Zigbee radio will communicate with Vera (through a plugin?), and it comes with a bunch of CT’s

And then run Datamine for good reporting.

Am I kind of on track here?

For the Brultech, you can go simple, and get an one-or-more ECM-1240 model with 7 Channels per node.

…or you can go nuts and get a GreenEye model and have 32 channels.

They aren’t as plug-and-play as most would like, so there’s a learning curve to get it going, along with the Wiring thats needed in the Main/Sub Panel (not everyone is up for doing this type of thing). A few users here have contributed screen-shots to make it a little easier. It’s also easier on a GreenEye than an ECM-1240, since the tools are newer.

That said, I’ve had both the ECM-1240’s, as well as the GreenEye models (what I run currently). They are very cheap if you’re looking to do measurement at a fine-grained scale.

If you only want “top-level” summary data, some of the other options are better and/or easier to get going.

Also consider whether your Energy Supplier has ZigBee support, see this thread for details:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=14039.0

If you go with the GreenEye or ECM-1240’s, then I would strongly recommend using UI5 for this, and not attempting to run it on UI4. My GreenEye samples 32x channels every 5s, and that will kill/corrupt a UI4 deployment (due to MiOS bugs)

Feel free to add further questions to the Brultech thread if you are leaning that route.

Thanks guessed. I am a building performance contractor. We certify house for green building programs, do HVAC design, etc. I have been planning on getting into home automation as part of our business, initially for energy use monitoring, thermostat control, humidity monitoring, and water alarms, and then of course the door is open so…

Anyway I want a system that is fairly stable, that can do everything I need, that I learn to start with, and hopefully stick with. Right now I have two things going on. I want to get a basic system to monitor my small house and then add a thermostat so I can get some experience.

But I have a client building a certified Passive House. This is not passive solar (though it’s incorporated) but a home performance program. It’s the strictest energy efficiency certification in the world. About 90% reduction in HVAC usage & then other stuff as well. So we are counting every watt as you can imagine. And this guy wants to build more of these so we want to monitor as much as we can (dehumidifier, water heater, HVAC, ventilators, pumps, humidity in several locations in the wall & ceiling assemblies, etc.).

So after the limited research I’ve done it seems like the Brultech is a good choice. A 1240 would be good for my house. For my client we’ll want the GreenEye I would think. And, as I wrote above, Datamine for for display? Or do I use the Brultech plugin directly for that? Not clear on that.

Does this sound logical? Definitely not worried about installation or the computer configuration (my last business), but I do need something flexible, stable, and reliable.

These devices are just the data collectors, you’ll definitely need something like Datamine to visualize that data over time.

There is builtin functionality in Vera, but that’s extremely limited in functionality… And really doesn’t function once you have more than ~5 power measurement devices on a Vera unit.

Vera is great for prototyping a real deployment, but you may run into issues as you attempt to scale it out for real usage. Read the forums, and go in with eyes open as to its practical limits in production/deployed situations.

Really I’m surprised to hear that. I mean I can tell there is lots of work going on to try and get everything working together but when I look out there i don’t see much else that looks like it fills my needs. Mostly it seems that MCV/zwave have the flexibility I’m looking for where Iris/Nexia/Zigbee don’t.

Maybe use a cloud-service for the data? I use a Rainforest Eagle, which is solely whole-house monitoring of ZigBee meters, and while I get current readings in VERA, I store the historical data at Bidgely. Which works well - most of the time.

http://www.brultech.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=471

I guess I’m a little confused on that. I here about people using usb sticks or cloud. I have a home network. The Vera 3 will be connected to it and the Brultech will be sending data to that right? So can’t I just store the data wherever I want on my network (my server for example)?