The smartest meter
May 8, 2017 9:37 AM Subscribe
Now that Comed/Exelon has installed a smart meter at my place, I'd like to get a device to read detailed information from it. Comed has a list here. Is there a particular device on there mefites recommend? Is there some other good way to get round-the-clock data? I mostly want to know when we might be using more electricity than expected and fix it.
We have used a Kill-a-watt adapter to read what specific plug-in devices use, from irons & steamers to mini-fridge consumption as an a la carte data gathering process. We have BGE and my partner is an energy engineer, so JZ has more info.
posted by childofTethys at 4:53 AM on May 9, 2017
posted by childofTethys at 4:53 AM on May 9, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
When the meter was installed I purchased a Rainforest Automation RAVEn. This is a little USB stick that connects to the meter via Zigbee. It's not on ComEd's list, but they will let it in. It's pretty much an Eagle Gateway without the ethernet connection.
You can query these things continuously and get XML text in response. If you don't query it (at least on the USB stick version), it also chirps data out the serial port all day long with things like current consumption rate and other things. The current usage is updated every 4 seconds with about 10 Watts of resolution. You can turn lights on and off and see the change.
ComEd warned me, though, that the meters are not updated with real-time pricing information. So the pricing data that comes back from the meter is bogus. Which was pretty sucky back then, but now they have an official API to let you retrieve that data as well. Just not through the meter.
If you don't want to glue that all together yourself, you might want to look into the EMU-2 (although the pricing info will be useless). Long story short, go with the Rainforest equipment. It works very well with ComEd gear.
Feel free to memail me if you have more detailed questions.
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:59 AM on May 8, 2017