A few questions as a new user to IoToWatt

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Hi all… So I’ve had my IotaWatt installed since the 12/18/21… and mine isn’t quite installed as well as I’d like… I’ve got an odd setup due to my multi-panel layout in my home… I’ve got Main #1 in my garage which is the real main… I’ve got main panel #2 on the side of my house. This was the original main when the house was put together back in the mid 80’s. But at some point the power company came and changed the neighborhood from overhead wiring to underground and so they installed a new panel on the house with wires coming underground. That panel has a huge cable that runs off a few breakers to the other panel on the side of the house.

For now due to ease of installation and wanting to try this thing out… I installed the CTs on the garage main… Two big ones on the incoming mains from the street and then two 50A CTs on pair of lines going to a garage sub panel which powers only garage items (lights, washer/gas dryer, garage door, a few freezers)…

So… what I’m finding after running this config for about a week now… is that the mains (from the street) are drawing at odd times, some high watt values being eaten by something…

Without having this thing properly installed on EVERY circuit its hard to tell what is eating the power due to the lack of granularity… This is just an artifact of my particular installation and is NOT a complaint in any way…

In reviewing tonight’s data — over the course of the past week I see some peaks that are considerably higher than I was expecting… For instance, an hour ago I had a new high peak — 2.52kW drawn for a brief period of time. I know more or less the devices in this house. Our furnace which is only 3 years old seems to suck about 200W when running which I find interesting… We’ve got the dryer running a few tv’s,etc…

Anyway… at some point I’ll have to move this setup to the other panel on the side of the house and install my remaining CTs on EVERY circuit.

So… my questions are :

  1. Ive got my house panel exposed inside the house — drywall removed on that wall. I can run new wires into the panel or out of it. I’d like to figure out how to install the IoTaWatt on this panel and have the electronics inside the house instead of somehow shoved inside the panel due to possible rain issues on that side of the house. Has anyone created a small box or something on the inside of the house to hold the IoTaWatt and its power dongles? I doubt I’m the only one that wants to do this…

  2. Is it possible to have a notification system message me by some means or another when some watt/amp threshold has been exceeded? Right now I’d never know without reviewing the graphs

  3. Has anyone tried to write some code to dig through the logs over the past month and make an estimated electric bill “guess” for the cost based on some price per kWh? Seems like it would be a nice feature to try to have it estimate what your month is looking like cost-wise — even if it’s about 75% accurate as most power companies use different sorts of calculations, fees, etc…

Thanks all!!

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There are many examples of user installs in various enclosures in this forum. One of the most popular is the “orbit” box. Try searching for that or just “enclosure”.

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One of the great things about IotaWatt is the ability to report to other services.

For about 10 dollars a year you can use pvoutput to monitor and report consumption. The tariff section can cope with peak and flat rate unit charges. Once a week they send me an email with the previous 31 days consumption and cost.

You don’t have to have solar to use pvoutput.

Alternatively you can build your own. Capture the data for iotawatt into influxdb running on a pi or similar always on machine. Then use grafana for dashboards or use the influx instance to report to one of the home automation projects.

The alert if power too high functionality might come from linking if this then that or similar to the home automation system.

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Thanks Overeasy! I hadn’t even considered something as simple as that! I love it! I guess I need to do more snooping around here and maybe see some photos of what others have done… Awesome!

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Thanks Philrob… Good idea… I’ve got a Pi at home so that’s certainly an option. I’ll check both out. Thx!!

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Brett Beeson in Australia has some good examples of installs with enclosures and dashboards.

https://phisaver.com/

https://brettbeeson.com.au/architecture-for-iotawatt-aws-influxdb-and-grafana/

Info is slightly out of date now (influx has been updated and continuous queries are done differently) but principles are sound.

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