Compare to emporia vue 2?

1

i’ve been thinking of getting the emporia vue 2, but have been reluctant since it doesn’t have a good story for programmatic data access, and it looks complicated to pair multiple of them into one data stream (i have a lot of circuits in a very large house).

got interested in the iotawatt, but it ends up being a lot more expensive. the vue2 comes with 16 sensors for $150, while an equivalent iotawatt would end up costing about $300. curious about why the sensors on the vue2 are so much less expensive? it almost makes sense to buy a vue2, discard the device, and use it’s sensors with the iotawatt for cost savings.

2

I can’t compete with Vue for CT price (or unit price for that matter). IoTaWatt is manufactured in the USA, and the CTs come from Canada. The AccuEnergy CTs are 0.5% accuracy, Emporia states their CTs are 2%.

IoTaWatt uses 50mA output CTs. Emporia states their CTs are 333mV, so not compatible with IoTaWatt.

2x200A and 12x50A AccuCT is $137.20 in the NA bundle, so probably wouldn’t be worthwhile to buy a vue for the CTs anyway.

3

thanks for the reply, i went down a very deep rabbit-hole of ali express, ebay, digikey, and finally straight to the source of alibaba to try to find less expensive CTs. the best place i could find with a list of pre-supported CTs is in the code:

but i couldn’t tell which ones are the smallest – too many chinese datasheets, or no datasheet at all – and space is a premium in my panels (isn’t it always?). considered getting solid-core CTs and soldering in protection diodes and TRS jacks, but (a) couldn’t find any pin-outs for the TRS jacks. the forums seem to suggest you only need the tip and sleeve, and i guess if you wire them backwards you just click the “reverse” button in the UI? also (b) it seemed like a huge pain.

ended up just buying the recommended kit from the website, will see how it goes!

4

I ended up here after doing some emporia-related searching… The problem with the vue2 is that you are locked in to their app and their cloud service, and if they have to cut costs in their cloud service (like they seem to be doing) you are short of luck. No open API on the device.

I bought a vue2 anyway just to poke under the hood, but wishing I had found this first as open accessibility for the data (and keeping it local)!

Let me put a different spin on your cost question - if emporia has to start charging a subscription for data retention, or some other features, how many months/years will it take to become the more expensive option?

(that said, I don’t have an iotawatt… yet… so this is not speaking from experience per se)

cheers!

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5

Thanks for the link. Saved me $150. I was worried about that and no further confirmation is needed.

6

Hi
do you have more info on this - is it still the case
can Empria Vue CTs not be used with IoTaWatt device ?

7

I don’t have any Emporia CTs to evaluate for compatibility.

8

Hi all

I have disassembled a Emporia CT - there is a 20 ohm resistor across the coil - if you move this to a IoTa box then I think you could remove this

The coils are specified at 0.333mv for either the 50A clamp of the 200A clamp

9

A 20 Ohm ballast would be producing 333mV (assume it’s not 0.333mV) at a secondary current of 16.67mA. Assuming that is the 50A CT, the “turns” ratio is 3000.

If you remove the CT ballast, try configuring as a CR3110-3000 and see if it works. Remember that once you remove the internal ballast, the CT has no protection against unplugging and needs to be removed from the primary if not plugged into the IoTaWatt.

The 200A clamp probably has a different configuration.

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