InfluxDB and measure naming

Support
1

So I’ve been searching for notes about using Influxdb and Iotawatt, and found a bunch, most from Brett Beeson, for example here:

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

That one, on the preferred section (#4) shows a table like this (hopefully ok to reproduce here from that page):

> select * from elec10s limit 10
name: elec10s
time                 ct      device    mean_current mean_pf mean_power mean_reacpower mean_realpower mean_v
----                 --      ------    ------------ ------- ---------- -------------- -------------- ------
2018-11-20T01:29:50Z cooking emontxa33 0.005        0.005   0.005      0.005          0.005
2018-11-20T01:29:50Z dhw     emontxa33 0.007        0.007   0.007      0.007          0.007
2018-11-20T01:29:50Z fridge  emontxa33 1.183        0.663   286.713    216.083        188.453
2018-11-20T01:29:50Z garage  emontxa33 0.008        0.008   0.008      0.008          0.008

Key to this is that the same ct name (tag) is showing different measurements, but you can’t enter it that way in the outputs. At least I can’t seem to.

I’ve seen other postings with similar, but I cannot get Iotawatt to do that, without cheating. Now I can cheat and edit config.txt and give the fields the same name for the data to extract.

> select * from iotawatt limit 4
name: iotawatt
time                Watts  ct            kWh
----                -----  --            ---
1584133200000000000 0      MasterBedBath 6e-7
1584136800000000000 463.17 MasterBedBath 0.4631756
1584140400000000000 457.51 MasterBedBath 0.4575044
1584144000000000000 340.51 MasterBedBath 0.3399592

Ignoring the time issue which is just CLI formatting, this works fine. The issue is this requires duplicating a name that the UI doesn’t permit. Probably with good reason?

duplicated
duplicated712×436 48.8 KB

Now it’s not all that hard to do that in the config editor, but… am I breaking other things?

Honestly as I get further into this I’m not sure I need anything other than watts, but I was trying to follow the lead of others and…

Am I just misunderstanding how to get what’s in that first table?

If not, does anyone have a screen shot of the UI that does so? One that shows both tags and measurements?

2

As it happens I fielded another inquiry about adding multiple measurements with the same name last week. It was the first time anyone brought it up.

You are right that the limitation is imposed in the configuration app and the IoTaWatt will accept such like named measurements if you can specify them, as you say you have done by manually editing the config.txt file.

I removed the limitation in that other case by providing a modified configuration app. Those changes are merged into the staging file for the next release. If you find you need the capability sooner, I can send the file, but I would prefer to put it out in the next release. Probably in a month or so.

3

Interesting; good to know it’s not going to make anything explode, that was my main concern. I’m old school enough I actually prefer editing text files to GUI’s so I’m good for now, I just need to get far enough along learning grafana and influxdb to see if I actually need anything more than watts anyway. It’s interesting seeing PF and volts but I think the fascination will wear off really quickly since they are not exactly actionable, and I’m assuming I can integrate to energy more easily there (or at least in multiple aggregations there easier).

Others: Are you bringing over energy and power or just power? Any experience-derived wisdom to share?

4

Influx can do the integration to get energy from power. That said, a year or so ago a couple of people reported problems with it when power goes negative in a net meter setting. I did not look into it and have seen no follow up. If you are doing that, and you look into it, can you update the forum on the status of that effort?

5

No such luck, I’m in the sunshine state, but no solar. Yet.