Aeotec Home Energy Meter 1E,monitor record energy consumption Z-Wave battery powered

I was looking for an energy monitor for "fun" but wasn't willing to pay more than about $50 for it. I decided to give this a try since it was so inexpensive, $30. Turns out to be a very good purchase. I'm relatively new to home automation and monitoring but pairing it my SmartThings hub was a breeze. The instructions are a bit lacking but I think that most people who are interested in doing this kind of thing can figure it out pretty easily. I was concerned about signal strength since my panel is on the opposite end of the house from the hub (about 55' and one floor down) but this wasn't a problem. The connection appears to be very reliable. I ran the device until it accumulated about 100kWh and compared it to my National Grid meter and the device was about 3% high. I consider this pretty good for a $30 monitor and for what I want to do. This test was run during an unusually high period of power consumption for me so I'm interested in seeing how accurate it is during lower load periods. One reason I wanted the monitor was to determine my base load to better understand who's using what during these periods. It will be interesting to see if it maintains accuracy at these lower loads.Anyway, I don't need another one but I would purchase it again.

This product is excellent for the price as long as you're aware that it only measures current and has no means to measure the mains voltage. Perfect if you would like an inexpensive product to help you keep track of your home energy usage, but don't need it to be accurate enough to argue with the power utility about your bill. (If you need more accuracy you can get the Aeon Labs Aeotec Z-Wave Home Energy Meter, 2nd Edition (DSB28-ZWUS) which measures current and voltage for about $70 more.)Be aware that you will need to hire an electrician to install this, or if you are comfortable working in your load center you will need to attach the clamps to the two thick mains wires without getting yourself killed. Turning the main breaker off will NOT make you safe, as these are the mains wires that are always hot. If you are not 100% confident that you can do this you need to hire an electrician or have your electric utility disconnect the power. I did it myself because I was confident that I could but that does not mean it was a smart decision on my part, don't risk your life unnecessarily over a poorly-documented $25 part. Keep in mind the wires from the clamps will need to be routed outside of the box so the module can communicate with the z-wave receiver as the shielding from the load center will severely reduce the device's range. Don't just knock a hole out, use proper fittings or clamps to comply with code requirements (I used an NM cable adapter). Plan on plugging this into a power source as this thing is practically useless with batteries (in fact don't install batteries at all, as it will choose one or the other and will always default to battery power).Also, the documentation is terrible. If you don't mind polling the device constantly it isn't so bad, but if you want it to transmit status updates when the readings change you can easily lose an entire evening reading forum posts and not get anywhere. Be prepared to learn more than you ever wanted to know about z-wave. If you are an OpenHAB user and have Habmin installed I will be happy to answer any questions that I am able to.You know what, if you aren't going to do this yourself and plan to hire an electrician just get the newer more-expensive model. Otherwise, for the time and cost it's not worth the effort.

Worked great for a few months and then just stopped working completely. What a waste of time!Also the firmware is extremely difficult to upgrade and impossible without windows. I had to poll the device for updates which is noisy on the z-wave network.

Very nice product. The product works very well, and pairs well with my Vera Edge. It does need some tweaking to get it work "correctly". I had to seek assistance from the community forums to tweak it an allow it to give more realistic responses of my energy usage. I have mine plugged in so I get quicker polling results gives me the freedom of not having to monitor for batteries.The installation was quick easy. I just mounted the unit to the side of my Electric Box, and just locked the two clamps on the two inbound wires. This is defiantly a easy DIY'er. You do not need an electrician unless you are leery about working near a electric box.Pros :Very Cost effectiveEasy pairing and syncingEasy installCons :NOT accurate out of the box (For me)Have to do research and trial and error to get accurate resultsBulky clamps keeps me from closing my boxAll and all I think this is a great product! I have ordered a 2nd one for my off peak meter.

I installed this about 3 months ago. I did the install myself by removing the over on my panel and applying the clamps. I also installed an outlet next to the panel, tapped off the panel to power the unit. It took me about 45 minutes from start to finish even running the new Romex lines from the panel to a new box for the outlet to power it.I first used the Efergy standalone meter (not Z-Wave), which worked fine, but didn't allow me to get remote readings from outside my home network without purchasing an additional accessory. The Efergy was also limited in this regard inside the house since it only reports to the dedicated base unit. Not with the Aeon, anyone with a smartphone who has access to my Z-Wave system can see the consumption and I can trigger events based upon consumption. I sent the Efergy back and have settled on the AeonSince the Aeon has been installed it has worked without a hitch. My system only records hourly consumption, although the Aeon meter will report much more frequently than that. (Every 10 seconds I think). It provides separate consumption for each phase on the panel so you can sort of see how power is being drawn (at least you can tell which side of the panel the breakers are on that are drawing the most power)As for accuracy, I think it's off by about 10%, which is somewhat disappointing, but I can deal with this since it seems fairly consistent. I'm using this more for relative consumption and to keep my environmental impact in check that to argue with my power company. It could be them that are wrong, but that's a bigger issue than I want to manage. Either way, if it's higher than last week, I know I need to switch the lights off more often etc...The unit has been rock solid on my Z-Wave network. I highly recommend it.

This is a good concept but not quite right.Pros: When this works the electricity consumption is displayed constantly.Cons: The instructions are not clear and it is necessary to find better ones on the internet. When on battery power the sensor does not update very often. This sensor only worked for about a month and then would not pair with my Smarthings hub any longer.Cheap version of a good idea. Aeon labs has come out with a newer model and it does not seem to have as many issues.

I love this Smart Energy Meter. I love the fact that it also can run on batteries and does not require it to be hard wired. Where my breaker panel is located there is not a available outlet to plug the meter into, so it was nice that it runs on batteries. It does come with a power plug, if you do not want to use the 4 AA batteries for your installation. Installation of the meter took maybe 10minutes. The hardest part was removing the cover of the breaker panel. I was able to pair this to my 2gig Control panel very easy. "Tip power it on and pair it to your device first before installing to the breaker panel." That will speed up your install. Overall very satisfied with the product. Good deal for the price!

Using this with the Vera Edge controller. It is supported by Vera and the installation as a device is seamless. I am concerned with the accuracy and responsiveness of the system as a whole. The readings on the dashboard don't represent the real time consumption and don't register KWh at all; For instance, with a 5400 W dryer running I typically see 1-2000 W consumption. The Energy monitoring app that is native to Vera seems to do a fairly accurate job of summing up a 24 hour period but it would be nice to have a real time assessment. One of the main reasons I wanted this device was to make an assessment of the power requirements under different load scenarios so that I could determine what size whole house backup generator I needed. This doesn't seem responsive enough for that purpose. I did contact Aotec about this and they have been responsive. They assessed my installation and made recommendations for the device parameters but I didn't see much change after following their recommendations. I still don't know whether I need more help from Aotec or whether I need some assistance from the Vera people. I had hoped for more and I will continue to play with it and hopefully will get what I want eventually. One thing to note is that the battery life, after the parameter changes recommended by Aotec, is quite acceptable. I may at some point power it from the breaker box since I don't have an outlet nearby and that might make it more responsive.