A success story for OEM.
A lot of times people are misled into believing that just using an energy monitor will save you money. But it's in fact what you do with the information that does.
Take this example, I was trying to find out what the base load of my house was and it was about 400W.
Working through that 400W I was trying to see what I could put off when it didn't need to be on all the time. Some things like the cupboard warmers went on a timer.
But there was one device that needed a software solution. My Denon AV receiver. I use my AVR to switch Sky+ to the bedroom TV, and in order to do that I needed to keep the Zone 4 on the AVR always on, just in case someone switches the TV on upstairs. But to keep this facility meant using 110W of power all the time instead of 5W while the AVR is in complete stand-by.
So what I did was wrote a python script on my NAS server that runs as a daemon and checks to see if the upstairs TV is swtiched on, and if it is then switch the Zone 4 on the AVR on, if not switch the Zone 4 on the AVR off. Simple.
One of the benefits of smart devices, I guess - they are all on the network, so very easy to check their status and issue a command to them.
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
Nice work!
What hardware do you use to control the power to the TV and AV Receiver?
Any chance you could share your script?
Thanks,
Bill
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
No new hardware used at all. The script is running on my NAS, which is on all the time.
The AVR and TV are both on my home network. They can both be switched on and off using Network commands. Sharing my script will be pointless because it will only work for my Denon AVR and Sony TV.
You need to work out how to check if a device is switched on and if so, how to switch the corresponding one on and vise versa.
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
Got it.
I have a water distiller that I control power to via an X-10 module and a Linux app called bottlerocket, so I wondered if you controlled your receiver and TV in a similar manner.
Control via network is definitely the way to go.
Thanks!
Bill
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
Very nicely done Bruce. Have you come across openHAB before? It may well be complete overkill for what you have already solved, but it is a great tool for automating things, and integrating different devices and protocols.
You setup bindings for all your *things* and they can all *speak* to one another over the openHAB event bus. So you would connect your TV and AVR and then write a simple rule in openHAB to turn on the AVR when the TV comes on.
I realise you have already achieved this with your python script, but by using openHAB you can then control both your TV and AVR via the openHAB iOS/Android apps and integrate all sorts of other goodies as well. For example by adding presence detection using your mobile phones, automatically turn off your TV/amp when no one is home to save even more power!
Just a thought...
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
Thanks for sharing this example Bruce! Really interesting to hear examples of actual savings, very true that its what you do with the information.
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
Now if I only knew about openHAB before! That's what this forum is all about. Give some, get some..
Let's hope it runs on a Synology NAS, because I am not running yet another server in the house.
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
Yep - should do!
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
Got it started on my NAS. Problem is that the last version for which there is a Synology package is 1.5 whereas the latest is 1.7. So playing around with it to see what it can do.
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
Good stuff Bruce - there is an OEM binding already but I think it requires openHAB to be running on the same device as your RF receiving module. I use mine slightly differently, I have my EmonTX (Arduino shield) sitting on an Arduino + Ethernet clone. I then modified the sketch to publish my readings over MQTT/ethernet rather than RF. I then use mqttwarn to monitor those MQTT pubs and forward the readings to EmonCMS (local install) using the mqttwarn EmonCMS target (which I wrote specifically for this task!).
Been working like a dream, publishing readings every 5 secs for over a year now.
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
I am reading up on the openHAB stuff, seems good and I seem to have been reinventing the wheel somewhat with some of the stuff I have in the house!
Many of the bindings I have seen are on version 1.7 but I am running 1.5 so don't know how portable they are.
I too don't have an rf in my emontx setup. I have a serial to Ethernet bridge writing directly to emoncms.org so I can easily modify my script to post to two places.
Re: Saved another 100w from base load, thanks to my OEM
Any 1.7 bindings should run on your 1.5 setup - nothing has changed in the binding APIs for a very long time. If you are going to post to two places it might be worth looking into MQTT - you can have your EmonTX publishing to a single MQTT broker and then have openHAB and EmonCMS (via mqttwarn) subscribing to those topics.
This is the beauty of MQTT - publish it once and then have as many clients subscribing to that topic as you require. Great way to decouple systems from one another IMO.