Emporia Vue2 3 Month Update
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- Опубліковано 18 січ 2021
- Going through a few examples of how I've used power readings to try and save some money as well a few thing I like and don't like about the app. This is a quick a dirty recording (no editing) so I can get something out there for anyone who wants to check it out without spending much time on it.
- Наука та технологія
Great review and details :)!Thanks for taking the time to make the video! Hope that the company will be able to solve the points you mentionned.
Great review, thanks for sharing so much detail.
If you want to get really nerdy with your statistics, Home Assistant integrates with Emporia Vue and can provide detailed statistics over time.
Thanks for the updates! Going to get one of these
I'm glad I bought the Vue, but so much to be improved upon. Ability to combine two 200A panels (very common in mid-size homes), better ability to manipulate data through the interface, ability to access data externally, ability to graph the "Balance" group, and so on. Emporia seems slow to make improvements.
I just picked up a Vue 2 a few weeks ago. Very nice for the price. I hope they incorporate some of your suggestions. I too would like to run two Vues to capture more circuits, but I won't until they make elegant aggregating an option. I don't know how important it is to you, but you can sum the two water heaters by running a line from each heater through one CT. They just have to be from the same leg so they sum and not subtract. I've tried this on couple of light circuits.
All of my 240V are monitored via a single sensor and just doubled in the app. You lose some accuracy, but its not much. That most likely also leads to my 1% variance on what Vue says I use vs power company. Initially all breakers had a monitor, but after a few weeks of pulling data I changed all dual breakers to single monitor. Most appliances pulled equal power between both 120V feeds, but a few were not (clothes dryer comes to mind). In those instances, I left the sensor on the 120V side the historically pulled the most power.
Hopefully they come out with the aggregation this quarter. I was impressed that the power company was within 1% of the total kWh Vue reported for 3 individual months. Between the billing start/stop time frames and doubling the usage on dual breakers, 1% could easily account for the discrepancy.
Overall it appears to be very accurate and helpful making real world decisions on determining where power is being consumed. It does take a decent amount of effort lining up what breakers feed what lights/outlets as, at least in my case, as the circuit breaker panel descriptions were not great. I have one breaker off (and has been for months) that I'm not sure what it services.
Thank you for the videos! I am going to use the fact that these have a lot of loops to watch all of my circuits. I'm going to get an automatic transfer switch to put on one circuit. On that circuit will be an inverter, LiFPO4 pack, and PV array.
The battery must be sized to match the load of the circuit--the market isn't quite right so that you can do this for a large house like mine. That would require pack and inverter that can do 20+kW--it's a lot and all the parts get complicated. Starting smaller is definitely the way to go.
I need an auto transfer switch because my evil utility--and every utility in Alabama--actually penalizes folks straight up for installing solar, so feeding the grid is just not an option. With a transfer switch, the circuit (and later the whole house) can draw from the pack when it is above minimum threshold charge and switch off the back and onto grid when below threshold charge. All this so that my PV (or the battery or generator or whatever) ever sets foot on their bloody precious grid and forces them to punish me for it.
That is a good idea. I've also looked at SunnyBoy and other grid feedback systems. Power companies are in a tough spot. They have to provide enough power for everyone. If many are sending power back into the system the overall power generation may be low. Then cloudy day(s), snow, no wind, etc and power demand is high as home owners are not generating power and pulling from the grid. So whether or not individuals generate their own power, the power company has to meet peak (think Dallas freezing due to not enough power last winter). Then they are paying individuals for the power they generate, but they still have to develop/maintain the infrastructure to meet peak whether individuals create power or not. Its tricky and not sure what the right answer is. There's also the safety issue of power going back in the grid and having people work on the lines. I'd like to see some credit (monetary) going to force power companies to start installing battery systems or perhaps credit for home owners installing battery systems to store power generated on good days and allow for power consumption for days when it cam not be generated. There must be some equal ownership between individuals creating power and holding a power company accountable for enough power generation when individuals stop generating power and pull from the grid.
thanks for the update mate!
Hey Bud. We have a very similar set up. I have to sub panels inside with 16 sensors when additional main panel outside and a separate sub panel off of that 1 which will eventually have a total of 4 Units in operation. I also have to hot water heaters Which were using a tremendous amount of power. I just wanted to let you know 2 things. 1st if you are going to shut off one of your hot water Heaters be sure that it is the one That is number 2 in line to feed your house. I had tank A and B And I found if I shut off a, Then the power from B Doubled. But when I shut off B,Then a Only increased Slightly. This saved a bunch of money but not as much as what I did next. Secondly, I eventually replaced hot water heater a with a Hybrid 80 gallon tank from RHEEM. That used significantly less, and was the best investment I made in power savings.
Thanks. I did have the 2nd tank inline powered. Great note for viewers.
A friend also told me about the hybrid. I need to get some estimates on moving to gas water heater, instant or hybrid. It has to end up saving money and not something to do when there's no hot water (after it breaks).
@@forayfog2276 i have roughly 7 years worth of data with my Current Cost energy monitors. I can tell you with electric water heaters (conventional) vs Tankless electrical- there is no difference. Its a matter of preference and pros and cons. They will use the same amount of energy. It cost X amount of electricity to heat X amount of water. Tankless option draws ALOT of power only when you use hot water. This can be an issue if you have 200 amp service and its really cold outside. Your incoming water will be real cold and will make the unit draw the max amps. Remember most units only do like 45 degree rise so if your water is coming in at 50 degrees- you MAY get it to 95. If water is colder- do the math.IF you have heating elements for your hvac and they are on when tankless kicks in-it will trip your main breaker (happened to me) They save space and are WAY easier to clean. You plumb it with shut off valves and hose bibbs and you basically turn it off- shut off valves and hook a sump pump to a hose to feed vinegar to INLET and hook another hose to return water to a 5 gallon bucket and run the pump for about an hour or so. Regular tank will turn on when you use hot water as well but will only draw around 4500 watts. As cold water enters the thermostat kicks in and element turns on. During high demand you may run out of hot water though. These are impossible to clean completely but you can clean annually. I tried TANKLESS and TANK and a combination and i came to the conclusion that i stated above. It will cost the exact same amount. If you are like me and like to NEVER run out of water you can run your tank output into your tankless inlet. I did this with tank set at 80 to preheat so that tankless will always receive warm water and never draw the max amps. I tried with water heater at 125 as well. SO if I set the water heater at 125-tankless basically never did much. when at 80- tank used less- tankless used a bit more but in the end it doesnt matter how you do it- 7 Years of proof. However with the tank flowing into tankless we NEVER run out of hot water. 8 people living here (me,gf and 6 kids) and we have had company like for a funeral with up to 18 people in the house showering back to back and we never run out of hot water by using the dual setup. If you use one tank into another tank im confident the results would be similar. Im curious to try the 80 gallon Hybrid on my new house. Im sure it will save but idk how long it would take to recover my investment vs using 2 50 gallon tanks in series
Great video. Thinking of getting this product. In your installation video you wired the unit into two dedicated breakers. Do you need to wire them that way or can you tap into existing breakers???
You can tap into existing. I just added them as I had extra space and extra breakers from adding additional power circuits.
Good stuff. Looking at the emporia, and your video was very helpful. Regarding your water heaters, I’ve always wondered if it would make sense to set the first heater in-line to a lower temp to moderate the incoming, and the second to the higher final desired temp. Perhaps wouldn’t save much. Ultimately I chose a 75g power vent to keep my 4 girls happy. Does the app monitor the smart plugs separately. How many can you add to the 16 circus monitored at each vue?
Thx for sharing.
I also tried setting the 1st water heater lower and the 2nd inline heater higher so the water was 'conditioned' warmer before getting to final tank that fed the house. Power didn't seem to change much and hot water ran out faster (warm water fed into hot tank and brought over all temp down).
I don't have any smart plugs, but I've thought about trying them out. They should be in the same app as another device. I've had Wemo's and they are horrible. Scheduling doesn't work (goes on and off on its own time), doesn't see home mesh wifi - see's each individual access point - so wifi doesn't always work as signal strength changes (won't connect to different AP then you setup on and phone as to be on same AP as well) and the app crashes on different phones. Just overall bad and would never use again. I had 4 outlets, 2 different models, all the same issues.
Each Vue2 can handle 16 sensors or monitor 16 circuit breakers. The overall power usage of the panel will be monitored by a single unit and any power usage not picked up by a sensor is placed in the 'balance" category. So you can monitor total power usage on a panel, but only individual usage on up to 16 breakers per Vue2. You can have as many Vue2's as you want on a single feed as long as there's room in breaker panel and its neat - no chance for shorts/electrical issues. I have 2 Vue2's in a single breaker panel monitoring 36 circuit breakers. The 'balance' is off as each unit totals the entire power usage from the feed (which they are both on) and subtracts their own usage from their sensors. IE
Vue2A sees 16Kwh usage from its monitors/sensors but 20Kwh usage from feed - balance = 4Kwh
Vue2B sess 4Kwh usage from its monitors/sensors but 20Kwh usage from feed - balance = 16Kwh
This makes it look like you are using 20kwh on Vue2A and 20Kwh on Vue2B when you are actually just using 16Kwh on A and 4Kwh on B. When they update the app for allow for aggregation, you should be able to but VueA and B on the same feed allowing for total usage accuracy.
Hope this helps.
@@forayfog2276 why not hook up to only one leg with each unit? so 1/2 goes to one unit and 1/2 to the other?
Have not set it up yet but you can divert data to home assistant then to influxdb then to grafana. Then you can graph whatever you want to
Very true. I setup excel sheets with templates so I just need to import the raw CSV data to create the graphs. Higher automation would be beneficial.
Good news! The Emporia app v2.5 allows you to 'nest' sub-panels!
I set this up and it does allow sub panels, but not for two panels to co-exist on the same feed. It helps and messes me up. As shown in several videos I have a pass through panel outside that feeds AC Compressors and then it comes inside to a panel. That panel has ~30 breakers and I have two Vues on it. So we have two sub Vues on a panel. After going in the app and listing both Vues as a sub panel, I have negative totals in different areas. It would be nice if Emporia can get dev to allow mutliple Vues on the same feed.
I just spoke with support and the ability to merge two Vues monitoring a single panel should be available this summer sometime, which means available in the fall.
Thanks for your videos, i just ordered one! I was curious, if you have more than one Vue, could you not hook up the main feed sensors to not duplicate the totals? Or are you saying that even the individual circuits will add up to more than the main feed? So like 1 Vue sensor with the main 200amp feed being monitored, and Main box has 16 sensors. then sub box has another Vue in it, and I don't monitor that main feed (which is 100amp), so then it wouldn't duplicate? I have 1 main panel, with two sub panels, each sub is 100amp. Sorry hopefully that makes sense, hard to explain without drawing it out.
Until the app update allows aggregation, I don't see anyway around it.
The Feed clips register total power usage of the panel - those clips go around the top incoming power lines.
The sensors clip around the 'hot' wire of an indivdual breaker.
The 'Balance' that shows up in the app is the total power usage (feed calculations) minus the total of the power usage on the sensors. Power used by some breaker(s) that do not have a sensor on it.
If you have a sub panel with Vue(#2) in it, the feeds will register total power usage by the sub panel. If you have a Vue(#1) in the main panel that feeds this sub, Vue(#1) will register the total power of the panel, including the feeds that go to the sub panel. However, Vue(#2) is also registering power used by this sub panel. The only way to correct it is to combine Vue(#1) and Vue(#2) or say #2 is a child of #1 so that only the total power usage of #1 is used and the 'Balance' is the total usage minus the sensors calculated power use for Vue(#1) and Vue(#2). Just throw out the feed usage on the subpanel (Vue#2) as the total power usage is already pulled from Vue(#1)
Hopefully that makes sense...
@@forayfog2276 Yep, could you just not hook up the feed clips on the Vue #2? Basically the vue 2 will only have sensor clips that is calculating power, but wont have a 'total' on the 2nd Vue. so only the Vue #1 in the main panel that registers total power consumption from the main 200amp feed into the house.
My understanding in your case is you have two 150amp feeds to your house, so you'd only hook up the feed clips to each 150amp supply, so your 3rd vue would not have its feed clips hooked up?
I also have more than 16 circuits in my main breaker panel. If I get a 2nd Vue 2 to cover all the circuits, can I see all my loads listed in a unified view on the app, or do I have to pick between of the 2 Vue's - showing only loads per Vue? Hoping everything would show up as one list.
you have to pick the Vue and then the breaker you want to check. I'm still waiting for the ability to combine two Vue monitors on a single breaker panel so the totals match up correctly.
Was your problem of combining the balance evwr solved? I bought one to try and so far like it even though its been off on the mains by alot. I plan to buy two and work with chat over the accuracy. Can the data from two be combined now?
As far as I know you can nest the Vues' (one under another as in a sub panel), but you can still not have them side by side, IE two Vues in a single panel to monitor all breakers in a panel.
How about trying 1.5gpm shower heads. Less water flow = less kwh right?
Thinking about getting one of the whole home ones without the extra sensors. I only need to monitor a 220 so wouldn’t the single sensor with the $60 home one work? I don’t need al the other sensors
Correct. If you just want to see total power consumption, you just need the main unit. Individual sensors only show you what specific breakers are using the power.
I think I have close to the same setup as you do, 2- 200amp services into two panels. However, in the one main service entrance panel they decided to add two breakers for two AC compressors. I planned on doing the installation with 2 Vue2s in the two distribution panels, but now I am afraid I am going to need 3.....My question is, would you have done anything differently if you did it again?
There really isn't anything I could have done differently, that I know of. I'm happy with the setup. It is just really annoying I can't combine the the outside AC breakers with the inside panel it feeds. I can download the spreadsheets from Emporia and do the math, but its a pain. I generally just look at individual circuits and the power usage from those versus the whole house, but it would be nice to have.
Add insulation over water heaters, especially at top, more importantly put water savers on showers, I have 1 gpm. You can disconnect aux heat via thermostat provided you can get by without, HP is 3x more efficient.
HP can be more efficient, but it just gets too cold where I'm at. As soon as it gets below 40 it just runs all day and can barely keep it at 70 inside.
The shower heads have the water savers in. I took mine out as I couldn't stand the water flow. I actually had the shower head off the other week soaking in vinegar to remove calcification and took a few showers without a shower head and thought about not putting it back on. Like standing under a waterfall. It was awesome ;)
Have you looked at the CSV file that you can export to see what each Phase is running?
yes. In the CSV each phase is listed and you need to total it to get total power usage. When you export from the app you get an email with a link from Emporia and it downloads the CSVs. There are 4 CSVs. second, minute, hour and day averages. You can now select the time range for the download as well. They did send a notice that the 1 second history is limited to 30 days. I suspect the other data will get limits as well as it gets expensive to store data and they are not charging for it. Perhaps some subscription plan in the future for how long to keep historical data (I would).
The output for second looks like this:
Time Bucket (America/New_York) Panel 1A_1 (kWatts) Panel 1A_2 (kWatts) Furn Gar (kWatts) Cook Top (kWatts) Wtr Htr 1 (kWatts)
3/5/2021 7:03 0.409 0.416 0.008 0 0
3/5/2021 7:03 0.409 0.416 0.008 0 0
3/5/2021 7:03 0.409 0.416 0.008 0 0
3/5/2021 7:03 0.409 0.416 0.008 0 0
What would happen if you put the main connectors for the sub panel on the lines that feed the subpanel instead of the outside line feeding the main panel? Perhaps then you would show the correct total for that panel and not the whole system?
I think you are saying what would happen if I took the outside Vue that is monitoring HVAC and took the power feed cables and took them off the top of the panel (before sensors) and put them on the bottom that feeds the inside panel?
Interesting idea, but that should throw off the total power consumption as the total calculated from all the sensors would not equal the total draw as the feeds would be missing the draw from the HVAC, no?
In my house I have two distribution panels, the application and the system allow me to install two monitors simultaneously?
A single Vue2 allows you to monitor a single panel (or single sub panel) and up to 16 breakers in the single panel. You can not use a single Vue2 across multiple panels. If you need to monitor multiple panels, you will need to purchase a Vue2 for each panel you want to monitor.
@@forayfog2276 I think I did not explain myself well, the question is if I can have several Vue2 (2 in my case) and integrate them to work at home without conflicting with each other using the application and an account or would I have to create an account for each one? ? Thanks !!!
Sounds like you might benefit from Natl. Gas water heaters, or get them onto an Off-Peak plan.
Hi FF
I hope you may be able to offer some advice. I’m in the UK and have 2x Consumer units in my Garage with between 8x and 16x Breakers in each which supply Upstairs and Downstairs Lights, Upstairs and Downstairs Power Sockets, Elecrric Underfloor Heating in two areas of the house, a Doorbell, Outside Front and Back Garden Lighting, a Hot Tub in the Garden and that’s pretty much it.
I’m happy to provide an email address and can send photos of the Consumer units, and wondered if you could give me any advise on suitability of the Emporia Vue Gen 2, which I’m guessing I may need two of ?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Regards
Paul
If the second panel has its own incoming feed from the street and not from panel 1, you definitely need 2 Vues to monitor both panels. If the second panel is fed from panel 1 (panel 2 is a sub panel of 1) you can use a single Vue for both, IF they are close enough to plug in all the sensors to a single Vue. The cables are not too long, perhaps 2.5 feet. Support could give you the exact size so you can see if it works.
Separate power feeds for 2 panels = two Vue2
Single power feed, second panel is sub panel of primary panel AND they are close enough for the sensors to reach the Vue2 AND you don't want to monitor more than 16 breakers at once = 1 Vue2 (you don't have to have the Vue2 inside the panel)
Hope this helps
@@forayfog2276 Thank you, this does help.
Geez, is your house like 10k square feet or something???
hey bro. my company gives me free nights there is an option where you can select free nights. there is an option for you to select the schedule you want to monitor
There is no schedule option. You would either just need to add up via graph mode or download the raw data in CSV and total in Excel
get ESPHome; these complaints will be solved with that
your complaint about exported data and "time selection" is a non sequitur as the data you receive is all data and you can massage the data yourself
I love small UA-cam channel. Why don't you just disconnect the main extras will that even the math out...
Because they are separate Vue2 boxes, I don't believe the box will work correctly if it has no incoming power feed monitor connected.