System Intergration

Submitted by Loboexe on Mon, 31/12/2012 - 11:11

I am new to home automation but am keen to do something in this area. I have been scanning the internet for a couple of months and have been disappointed that there seemed to be lots of competing proprietary systems available that tied you in to their system, but few open source systems that allow yo to build a complete solution from discrete devices.

Now I have found you site, I have settled on starting simply with emonTX, emonGLCD and use my Raspberry Pi as the emonBase.

At this time I am a consumer of Power and Gas only, I do not have any solar supply although I hope to do this one day. By monitoring my usage of Gas and Electricity closely, I hope to find ways reduce that usage.

My questions are :-

Can I monitor specific appliances or sockets with emon procucts.

I want to also be able to remotely control sockets and lighting (WiFi if possible) but do not want to be tied into a closed system. What are other people who have emon products using for this?

Remote wireless radiator valves are now available from a lot of manufacturers. Has anybody integrated these devices into their home automation setup?

Re: System Intergration

Submitted by Robert Wall on Wed, 02/01/2013 - 02:09.

Welcome, Paul.

It seems as if we're ignoring you! I think it might be because I don't know of anybody active on the forums who is doing/has done the sort of things you have in mind. Trystan is working on recognising individual loads from their signatures, but I think that might have been put on the back burner for now. If that approach isn't feasible, then it starts to get expensive if you want to measure each appliance individually. This is where the multiplexer approach comes into its own, but you still need a lot of c.t's. And there lies another problem: our standard c.t. is 100 A rated and cannot reliably and accurately measure below about 200 W. You might find a solid core c.t. that is suitable and cheap, but I don't know of one off-hand.

Re: System Intergration

Submitted by aideen on Wed, 02/01/2013 - 10:10.

Hi Paul,

There's lots of interesting stuff on Jack Kelly's blog and also on Ollie Parson's

http://jack-kelly.com

http://blog.oliverparson.co.uk

Aideen

Re: System Intergration

Submitted by Loboexe on Wed, 02/01/2013 - 11:21.

Thanks for the feedback.

I figure I may not want to monitor every single socket. The big users, like washing machines, electric oven and dishwashers should be OK with a second TX unit and as they are close together in the kitchen the cables for the c.t should reach I hope.

I guess I am looking for a way to be able to tell my son has left his TV in standby and he game console on but has gone to work and I want to be able to turn them off :)

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