I would recommend against buying the TED5000 and holding out for the Aeon device… I bought a TED 4-5 months ago and it was great initially. Then after about a month I started noticing communication dropouts between the MTU and Gateway. So I moved the gateway to another outlet on another circuit. No luck. After much experimenting I have found that most devices in my house (including regular incandescent bulbs) are causing noise over the powerline interrupting the signal between the gateway and the MTU). My only choice would be to buy inline filters for the offending circuits in my breaker panel. This is the entire reason I moved from Insteon to Zwave, because PLC sucks. This is the major downfall of the TED: it relies on PLC between the MTU and gateway. I was ok with buying a few plug in filters (for UPS backups and maybe even amplifiers). But now that I have found that regular light buls are causing some interference too… it becomes way too much of a hassle for me to get this thing working right.
Even worse, when I called Energy Inc. for suport they only said “Go to smarthome.com, they have all the filters you need”. This was their only advice for troubleshooting and support. All of the troubleshooting I did was from my own knowledge of PLC, they did not offer any kind of help beyond pointing me to buying more filters for my house. I am extremely disappointed they didn’t offer more help to get their device working correctly. I understand my electrical system is causing the issue… but they should have relied on some other form of communication between the MTU and Gateway if they wanted this to be successful in the mainstream market.
Thank you for the feedback on TED. I’m not sure if you got the TED with the wireless display and you may have tried this, but could you put the MTU and gateway right next to eachother (on the same circuit) and then just use the wireless display to be able to monitor it from a distance. Of course, you’d probably have to run Cat5 to the gateway to get it to display on the PC, I guess I’m just wondering if the wireless display works well too?
It seems really odd that they would use PLC for the MTU and Radio for the Display, instead of Radio for both. Also why they wouldn’t use Z-Wave or Zigbee to do this is beyond me. If it worked well that would be one thing, but…
I’m haven’t looked into it enough to know, but is it possible to have the MTU and Gateway on the same circuit and only use one filter to isolate that circuit from noise in the reat of the house?
The MTU is behind the panel in the garage. I may be able to put the MTU on the garage circuit (in the panel) and then put the Gateway on one of the garage outlets (this would probably work well)… but I would have to run CAT5 out to the garage to get the information onto the network (and therefore Google Powermeter).
This is actually the option I am going to do… but I just don’t have time right now to run CAT5 to the garage (figures its one of the only rooms I didn’t wire when the house was built!)
I agree this would be easy and is a good solution, I just havent had the best of luck with wireless bridges in the past…
I have a bunch of CAT5e laying around, I’ll probably just use that… I originally wired this house with CAT5e and have not had any problems running gigabit transmissions. There shouldn’t be much interference in a residential application and I haven’t seen much benefit of running CAT6 over CAT5e, all of my runs are 50ft or less. I don’t see running into a problem in the near future… do you have a specific reason for recommending CAT6?
No, you wouldn’t see any difference going to Cat-6 for your current application. I don’t imagine these things will require much bandwidth. I’m just an early adopter, so always thinking about the future. I see 10GBASE-T right around the corner, and I’m going to be using it. Hence, Cat-6.
So for me it would depend on the amount of work it takes to install the cable. Usually the installation is the major cost/labor factor and the cost of the cable is trivial. If it’s an easy install and you’ve got the cable, you’re golden.
Im pretty sure the jury is still out whether or not 10GBASE-T will work over Cat5e. From what I have heard most vendors are saying 10GBASE-T will not be a problem on CAT5e with installations runs that are under 25m (and all of my runs are 10m or less). So, Cat5e still has a good possibility of not being obsolete anytime soon for residential installations.
But yes, Cat6 is the way to go if you have it available.
So, what’s the verdict between TED 5000 and the Aeon? I’m just starting my research on these. And are they both Vera-compatible? Helpful devices to have? Saving you money?
My Aeon is not giving very reliable readings at all at the moment. There is supposed to be a new release coming very soon that addresses this. I’ll post back here after, but I doubt we’ll get anything near as pretty as the interface the TED offers.
@strangely, you might want to “tweak” the Energy Monitor Plugin code to have it upload to Google PowerMeter, and also to MCV if you wanted, then you could have all sorts of fancy visualizations
From what I saw of that code, and Google’s requirements, it would be an interesting effort with a wide-usage.
was up in the attic insulating and heard a distinct buzzing noise.
found an old circuit leading to an unused, unmarked, outdoor Sodium lamp fixture with no switch, junction, etc.
the bulb and fixture had been removed and a plate put over it.
HOWEVER, the ballast was still live. And buzzing loudly.
I removed it and had a eureka thought that the old buzzing ballast was probably wreaking havoc/interference on my power lines in the house - foiling my past frolics with TED.
Dug out the old TED 5000-C, and voila! Gateway and MTUs connected and I am currently monitoring my whole house energy usage. (Still don’t know why they don’t utilize something in addition to PLC for communications, but I guess someone may have mentioned that to them already…!)
It’s pretty darn sensitive, too. Turning on 300 watts of dining room fixtures is reflected immediately and accurately in the TED data. Unplugged the 30w AT&T Microcell, and saw the power usage drop in step. Seeing the curve of Solar generation too on the second MTU, which then adjusts the data to perform Net usage calcs. (jeez, Solar gen so meager in a New York winter…).
Integrated with Google PowerMeter. There’s a nice iPhone app too: Ted-O-Meter. Would be GREAT to have this interfacing with Vera. Now to get rid of that 10 year old electric dryer…
.//A.
++++++++++++++
FYI. I have the Ted5000 (5002-C). Tried to integrate it into my panel (which also has a co-generation inverter connection to my Solar panels).
After weeks of trying, never got it to work reliably. Seems to be too much noise on my power lines. Between the CFLs, Inverter, Dimmers, etc. I think I saw a reliable reading once…
TED users in newer homes seem to have much better results. My 2 test houses were a 100 year old brownstone and a 40 year old beach house.
I am very tempted to pick up your TED setup, but I don’t need both sets of clamps. As I posted above, is it possible to get the powerline communication receiver closer to the source, or get it on a common, relatively unused circuit for better relaiability? I’ll PM you if I decide to take you up on your great offer.
At CEDIA echolabs.net was showing an energy monitor plug-in for Vera that had lots of eye candy and they mentioned a free version and paid version. I think they will work with the Aeon Labs meter and they also support water and gas tracking with supported hardware.
If you havent sold it by Monday I may take you up on it. I have the Aeon HEM being delivered from Hong Kong tomorrow and want to try it out over the weekend before making a decision. I will let you know Monday.
Shady: Was my thoughts too. I had it all running on its own circuit from an outlet I wired ~1 foot from the service panel… Just won’t work on this house/wiring setup, and it’s a shame that it’s just sitting around.
I have used TED (and Vera) in a vacation home (150 miles from home) for the last 9 months. TED has been doing a superb job in monitoring the energy use. It ihas been especially useful in pinpointing energy use problems by my renters (I rent 7-10 weeks a year as the market permits).
For example, the renters who turned the AC way down and left some of the windows open (in July), and then checked out. TED pinpointed the increased energy use and by using Vera I was able to adjusted the thermostat back to a more reasoanble termperature. A call to the rental agent closed the open windows (too bad Vera doesn’t do that… yet).
My two installations of TED (in my house and rental home) have been flawless. The use of TED and Vera together has saved me hundreds of dollars in energy costs and 300 mile round trips drives (5 hours round trip) to the vacation property.
Engery Inc, who developed TED, is much like MiCasaVerde, a small start up company. Both companies are striving to get a market niche. I have been very happy with both products. Support isn’t perfect in either case but the developers REALLY try to help.
I don’t need to know how to install a TED 1001 after all.
Anyone want to buy one?
I connected it to my panel but the Ted main unit (RDU) cannot “hear” the MTU (the box in the panel) unless they are literally connected to the same outlet. Even if I put the MTU on the exact same circuit as the RDU it cannot hear it (the green LED does not flash).
I didn’t realize the Ted uses powerline communication to talk to the other side. Bad idea. I have designed powerline modems in the past and power line comms are so filled with noise its amazing anything works at all. That’s why I’ve been using ZWave which has it flaws but is still way better than power-line.
TRD doesn’t have to be connected to same outlet, but it needs to be on a circuit without a bunch of electrical noise. Suggest you try a number of other outlets.
was up in the attic insulating and heard a distinct buzzing noise.
found an old circuit leading to an unused, unmarked, outdoor Sodium lamp fixture with no switch, junction, etc.
the bulb and fixture had been removed and a plate put over it.
HOWEVER, the ballast was still live. And buzzing loudly.
I removed it and had a eureka thought that the old buzzing ballast was probably wreaking havoc/interference on my power lines in the house - foiling my past frolics with TED.
Dug out the old TED 5000-C, and voila! Gateway and MTUs connected and I am currently monitoring my whole house energy usage. (Still don’t know why they don’t utilize something in addition to PLC for communications, but I guess someone may have mentioned that to them already…!)
It’s pretty darn sensitive, too. Turning on 300 watts of dining room fixtures is reflected immediately and accurately in the TED data. Unplugged the 30w AT&T Microcell, and saw the power usage drop in step. Seeing the curve of Solar generation too on the second MTU, which then adjusts the data to perform Net usage calcs. (jeez, Solar gen so meager in a New York winter…).
Integrated with Google PowerMeter. There’s a nice iPhone app too: Ted-O-Meter. Would be GREAT to have this interfacing with Vera. Now to get rid of that 10 year old electric dryer…
.//A.
Old Post ++++++++++++++
FYI. I have the Ted5000 (5002-C). Tried to integrate it into my panel (which also has a co-generation inverter connection to my Solar panels).
After weeks of trying, never got it to work reliably. Seems to be too much noise on my power lines. Between the CFLs, Inverter, Dimmers, etc. I think I saw a reliable reading once…
TED users in newer homes seem to have much better results. My 2 test houses were a 100 year old brownstone and a 40 year old beach house.
