So I’ve had two Brultech ECM 1240’s for a good 10+ years now. They work, for the most part, but they each require a serial port on my HomeSeer PC and there really isn’t a good web interface or client for them. I have them integrated with HomeSeer using UltraECM3 and that’s what I’m using as my interface. I have decided to get a solar system and powerwalls for my house, which is going to be installed a week from Monday. They are going to need to move some circuits around and redo some of my electrical panels, so I was planning to remove the ECM 1240’s before they got here. That got me thinking about whether it makes sense to reinstall them after they are done or if I should upgrade to something a bit newer.
I like the idea of the sense and some of the other ‘smart’ monitors in that they can theoretically monitor loads that don’t have dedicated circuits. One of the downsides of my current solution is that I can monitor most of my big loads (fridge, heat pump, water heater, etc) because they have a dedicated circuit, but other things, such as my pool pump and TV’s don’t have dedicated circuits, so I can’t measure them. However, I’m also not sure just how accurate the smart monitors really can be at detecting all the different loads. Especially with something like the lights in my salt water aquarium. The lights draw quite a lot of power, but they are also dimmable, so they start in the morning with a very low power draw and slowly ramp up through the day until they are drawing a lot of power in the afternoon, then they ramp down again through the evening. I feel like that would be difficult or impossible for a smart monitor to detect, but it is also a big load for me.
So, all that said, what are you guys using for energy monitoring? I’d like something that integrates with HomeSeer, but having it’s own web interface or app would be helpful too. Something that can also measure solar production would be nice as well, although the system I am installing does come with it’s own app for that, so it’s not a must have.
I like the idea of the sense and some of the other ‘smart’ monitors in that they can theoretically monitor loads that don’t have dedicated circuits. One of the downsides of my current solution is that I can monitor most of my big loads (fridge, heat pump, water heater, etc) because they have a dedicated circuit, but other things, such as my pool pump and TV’s don’t have dedicated circuits, so I can’t measure them. However, I’m also not sure just how accurate the smart monitors really can be at detecting all the different loads. Especially with something like the lights in my salt water aquarium. The lights draw quite a lot of power, but they are also dimmable, so they start in the morning with a very low power draw and slowly ramp up through the day until they are drawing a lot of power in the afternoon, then they ramp down again through the evening. I feel like that would be difficult or impossible for a smart monitor to detect, but it is also a big load for me.
So, all that said, what are you guys using for energy monitoring? I’d like something that integrates with HomeSeer, but having it’s own web interface or app would be helpful too. Something that can also measure solar production would be nice as well, although the system I am installing does come with it’s own app for that, so it’s not a must have.
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