Aeon Labs Smart Strip DSC11 does not report energy consumption

[crab987]

Well, bad news people. According to Aeon Labs tech support, smart strip is NOT capable of sending data on change in wattage. That data can be sent only on report interval. Parameter 80 (0x50) setting only affects on/off switch (you can configure it to send signal when one of 4 controllable outlets changes status, and that's it).


Therefore, my idea to detect when TV is turned on and lower blinds, dim lights, etc. will not work with this strip. Best case is to lower report interval as low as it goes and live with it. I don't know of any other power strip (Z-Wave or otherwise) that's capable of what I was after.

[rmasonjr]

Well, bad news people. According to Aeon Labs tech support, smart strip is NOT capable of sending data on change in wattage. That data can be sent only on report interval. Parameter 80 (0x50) setting only affects on/off switch (you can configure it to send signal when one of 4 controllable outlets changes status, and that's it).


Therefore, my idea to detect when TV is turned on and lower blinds, dim lights, etc. will not work with this strip. Best case is to lower report interval as low as it goes and live with it. I don't know of any other power strip (Z-Wave or otherwise) that's capable of what I was after.

I use the Aeon Smart Energy Switch to detect TV power and it works fine. I have them plugged into wall outlets and power strips.

[jms72499]

Are you using polling? Perhaps something has changed from the older units to the current ones

[crab987]

@jms72499, note that @rmasonjr is talking about different Aeon Labs product. Smart Energy Switch is not same as Smart Strip.

[jms72499]

gotcha. Thank you for the clarification.

[crab987]

Well, the plot thickens. I gave them an example and tech support came back with different answer this time.

Question:

My apologies. Let's try this on one example.

I have only one device plugged in. My TV is plugged into Channel 1 of electric measurement. That's one closest to action button and can't be programmatically switched on/off (Socket 1). When TV is off, meter reads 0W. When TV is on meter reads 500W.

Parameters are set as follows:
4 (0x04) = 1
6 (0x06) = 25 (25W)
13 (0x0D) = 5 (5%)
101 (0x65) = 32638 (individual channels only 1-6)
111 (0x6F) = 600 (10 minutes)


Last automatic report has been sent on 5:55PM. At 6:00PM I turn on TV. When is signal that Wattage on Channel 1 has changed by more than 25W or 5% is going to be sent? Immediately at 6:00PM, or at next scheduled interval at 6:05PM?

Answer:

It should be almost immediately sent out instead of the report time of 10 minutes when it has passed more than 25W of change.

The 5% is for kWh which is an accumulation of watt/1000 by the amount of time it has been recording power draw.

EDIT: Tech support has agreed to test strip with HomeSeer and report back their findings. Lets hope they can pinpoint the issue.

[crab987]

To follow up after a month. Aeon Labs tech support has gotten their hands on a smart strip, and first one did not work at all. Took them few days to get another one. Since then, they are MIA. They do not answer to repeated pings in their ticketing system, and they ignored new issue I opened to inquire about status of the first issue. This tells me they have encountered exact same behavior as us "mere mortals". Smart strip does not work as advertised. It does not report change in wattage (when it happens) unless polled or provided in their scheduled report.

If you are looking for power strip with immediate notification in wattage change, look elsewhere. This one is glorified on/off switch with periodic energy consumption report.