We are only able to get DSL connection to WiFi, and we have frequent “drops”; many every day. I read a power outage results in a one hour delay in data recording. What will the loss of DSL - WiFi have on the measuring, collecting, and reporting of power consumption information? Is my situation a lost cause and I should look for another way to monitor our power usage?
You need an internet connection during the initial install so IoTaWatt can set the world time and check for any firmware updates. After that, it is used to synchronize the time and check for firmware upgrades when available. Even a brief weekly connection would be adequate.
Continuous WiFi connection is recommended, but that is provided by a local router, which should remain connected despite loss of a DSL connection to the internet.
IoTaWatt records all data internally. Accessing the data locally is possible without the DSL connection.
If you also choose to upload data to a cloud server like Emoncms.org or PVoutput, IoTaWatt will do that whenever the DSL is available, and will send all data lost during an outage when service is restored.
So I think IoTaWatt is probably one of your better choices in this situation.
Thanks for the quick and assuring call. Glad to know that continuous DSL connection is not required and that IoTaWatt will work for me.