Owl energy monitors

Plugins & Plugin Development USB RFXtrx Transceiver
1

Hi all, a few simple questions about these…

  1. What does RFXtrx receive from these, is it the signal from the clamp on the power cable to the Owl display, or some signal from the display?

  2. If it is the signal from the clamp, is there any point in having the Owl display? Could you just buy a clamp and be done with it?

  3. The Z-wave clamp monitors seem to cost ?70-90, whereas the electricity company gives out free Zigbee (rebranded Alertme.com) devices that I can’t receive data from and Owl also costs significantly less. What if anything do the Z-wave devices offer to justify their premium price? Two-way communication doesn’t seem to be an advantage here?

TIA

2

The data is received from the sensor, for example CM119, CM160 or CM180i- TSE200
http://www.theowl.com/index.php/energy-monitors/ac

The TSE200 transmits instant current usage for up to 3 phases in Ampere. And it transmits total power usage of all 3 phases in kWh.

3

Thanks Bert, just to be 100% clear before I order, by sensor you mean the clamp? So I only need a clamp to send signals that can be picked up by the RFXtrx433e and the Vera plugin, not the whole Owl product with the display too?

4

You need one TSE200-001 Transmetteur supplémentaire 3 canaux pour Intuition - OWL [TSE200-001]

And for each phase a TSE200-001 Pince ampèremétrique OWL - Version Standard [TSE000-001]
Or TSE200-002 http://www.planete-domotique.com/pince-amperemetrique-owl-version-large

5

Gotcha, that’s clear now, thanks!

For the benefit of others who have the same question, just the clamp sensor is required, which, in the case of Owl comes in two parts, the clamp and a transmitter unit. The display is optional as the RFXtrx will do the job of receiving the data sent by the transmitter.

Having said all that, it looks to me as though the CM180 includes both the clamp and three channel transmitter for less than the price of buying them separately! I’ve just ordered one, so will correct this if that is not the case…