As I’m currently doing a re-wire, it’s a great opportunity for me to put some metering in the house.
I’m single-phase, but I plan to monitor multiple sections of the house, which are each wired for 100A independently.
I’m currently eyeing up either the Shelly Pro 3EM – 120A or the 50A.
As it will fit nicely in the consumer unit, and supports Ethernet.
I previously looked at the Aeotec clamp devices, but they seem to be difficult to find with multiple 100A connectors.
Emporia Vue was also a consideration, but I’m always a little hesitant to buy products that require custom firmware to even work properly, when others are available. And I’d also like to avoid using 2.4Ghz wifi for connectivity.
I’d love to hear any experiences people have had with similar devices, good or bad. And how the integration with HA went.
I have the Shelly Pro 3EM 120A and I have nothing but good things to say about it, installation is easy if you know what you’re doing, integration with HA was trivial and it’s very customizable. Before purchasing it I was worried about the update frequency of the values, but I was happy to see that it updates about a couple times per second, which is great. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have!
Ah, brilliant. In that case, I may have the confirmation to make the order.
It’s just a shame the 120A is so much more expensive! £70 vs £120.
As there is a low chance I’ll be pulling more than 50A on a circuit, but I know it’ll 100% happen one day if I cheap out!Yeah the bigger toroids are quite expensive, you can always buy just the toroids by themselves later on though, I think Shelly even sells them separately
Second question actually; How did you find the installation?
I’ll probably get an electrician to fit, but if there are any gotchas it’d be good to know before I instruct.My dad is an electrician so he did it for me, from what he told me it was pretty straightforward. The easiest thing to mess up is the orientation of the toroids, which is easy to notice because the values will be negative. The 120A toroids are also kinda bulky, if your panel is on the small side it might be a bit difficult getting them in there.
They only seem to sell the 50s separately, which is a shame. £50 worth of calibrated iron, hooray (!).
They do sell the big ones on Amazon Spain at least https://www.amazon.es/Shelly-EM-120A-Current-Transformer/dp/B08HM4735J/262-6285131-6774253
@GreatAlbatross Unfortunately I can’t say anything about the given Shelly clamp meter.
But I’m using several of Shelly Plus Plug devices in german version.
https://shellystore.co.uk/product/shelly-plus-plug-uk/I’m a big fan of Shelly, because it can be configured and used completely without sending data to the cloud.
The integration in Home Assistant is very good and my data is only local at my self hosted Home Assistant instance.Appreciate the response.
It’s good to get some feedback on the integration.
I also currently use some (cheap) zigbee plug monitors, which I might replace with these down the line, thanks!
I’m using off-the shelf CT-clamps with an ESP. Obviously it’s a fair amount more work, but it’s cheaper than a commercial solution, fully offline and no subscriptions, you know exactly what you are getting, and you can build a solution that is just the right size for your application, and infinitely modifiable if your needs change.
I think one day, I might go with something like that.
But admitting my own time limitations: It would probably sit in a drawer until I got around to it, joining the RGBW strip and similar ESP I bought a few years ago!
I use a Brultech GreenEye Monitor in my panels to monitor each breaker. Feeds data to a Brultech Dashbox as well as to Home Assistant.
I’ve used Brultech in a house before. It’s not very user friendly to setup having to download some different firmware flashing tools and configure everything in a brittle web UI that only allows one browser tab at once. But it does have Ethernet, comes with a variety of different CT clamps. The donut style CT clamps are very compact making it easy to fit them into a electrical box. Don’t use the built-in one, use the HACS integration. The different sizes make me think that the Brultech is probably more accurate than the Emporia with only a single size.
I ended up going with Emporia Vue2 for my own house given the complexity and my house layout not really permitting the Brultech’s install.
Late to this one, but check out Open Energy Monitor
They have a main unit which can have multiple clamps on (upto 200A) and also remote units if your power distribution is scattered all over the place.
I’ve been using their older EmonPi for years, ever since I added in SolarPV and it’s now linked into Home Assistant so that I can start turning things on & off when I have excess solar energy… not to mention managing the costs.
That’s a good shout, I’d forgotten about them.
Pricey, but a very ground-up open solution. Not sure if I can stomach £350 for a pi and clamps right now!
No, that’s a fair point. I bought the earlier EmonPi (1), which only has grid + solar CT clamps… looks like EmonPi2 has more by default.
But, my unit has been totally reliable, inc. many harsh powercuts, so it’s a long term purchase.
I’ve been using Zamel MEW-01 (https://supla.zamel.com/product/monitor-energii-elektrycznej-wi-fi-3fn-mew-01/) for about 3 years now. I think that would also match your needs? Works really great, connects to MQTT and has 3 versions (they differ by antenna type).
I use Shelly EMs and EM Pros and they are excellent. My favourite feature is that they work on non-networked firewalled VLANs and don’t need the internet to work.
This is something I’ve looked into in the past as well and with about 35 circuits to monitor, the Vue seems like a good one and done solution except it’s way too small, AND there’s mucking about with firmware which I’m none too excited about. I’m waiting for something better.
Shelly, if you’re listening: Smart RCBOs would be interesting to explore.
As would a product that can handle, say, 16 clamps, and you buy the clamps separately.
As I’m currently doing a re-wire
Depending on how far you’re rewiring… You might want to look into a https://www.span.io/. I installed one when I installed solar (and whole house battery). It’s been great for me. Integrates nicely into HA, and with HA now doing parent-child power montoring, I can see the whole break and break out specific loads that I want more information on with the zwave modules I already had.
