Monitor Your Home's Power Usage On The Cheap

12/ 13/ 12
M oni or your hom e pow usage on t he cheap t s er
Hack a Day Fresh hacks every day
Smart Metering Solutions

siemens.com/Smart-Metering Metering And Energy Information Services By Siemens. Learn About It
Ads by Google
Energy Usage
Power Meter
Electricity Meter
Remote Monitor
Home Submit a tip forums Shop

Search this website Search
Monitor your homes power usage on the cheap

May 13, 2011 By Mike Nathan 53 Comments ir_power_meter
[Paul] was pretty sure that he and his family used a lot of electricity throughout the day. Admittedly, he enjoys his creature comforts, but was wiling to try living a little greener. The problem was, he had no idea how much electricity he was using at a given time. While some power companies offer devices allowing homeowners to monitor their energy usage, [Pauls] did not. After a bit of research however, he was ready to build a power monitoring system of his own. He found that his meter emits a small infrared pulse every time a watt-hour of electricity is consumed, so his system counts how many flashes occur to measure usage. The counting circuit is pretty simple consisting of only an AVR, a resistor, a capacitor, and a phototransistor. The data is fed to a computer where the results are graphed with gnuplot.
hackaday. com / 2011/ 05/ 13/ m oni or - your - hom es- pow - usage- on- t he- cheap/ t er 1/ 17
12/ 13/ 12
Its quite a useful little hack, and undoubtedly far cheaper than purchasing a whole house power monitor. SPRIME controlled AC outlets UK Power meter monitor Monitoring home energy consumption Temperature and electricity monitoring Home power monitoring
Share this:
Reddit Google +1 Facebook Twitter More
Like this:
Like Be the first to like this. Filed Under: home hacks Tagged With: AVR, electricity, ir, power meter, whole house meter
Electric Power Meters

www.ccontrolsys.com
Pulse Output Watt-Hour Meter Accurate, Easy Install, UL Listed
Comments
1. andy says: May 13, 2011 at 4:34 am first post, woo! now if only i could find a meter like that, Jim Reply Report comment Fernando SIlva says: March 21, 2012 at 12:52 pm Everyone can have an easy to use power meter. Look up WattVision, it gives you second by second live graphs and readings of how much energy you are using and how much money is being spent! Look it up!! Reply Report comment pgf says:
12/ 13/ 12
March 22, 2012 at 5:35 am we did look it up. last year. see below. it costs $250, and has a $9/month service fee. how is that supposed to be economical? Reply Report comment 2. FirefighterGeek says: May 13, 2011 at 4:38 am I love this hack. The new smart meters are being deployed here and they dont seem to (as yet) be consumer friendly. This kind of hack represents the very best of hacking nature. Its empowering to the end user, causes no damage, destruction or interference, and exploits a previously unpublished (or at least little known) functionality in a way that others in the hacker community can build in. Bravo. Reply Report comment 3. IceBrain says: May 13, 2011 at 4:45 am Very simple yet useful hack, I might build one of those (thankfully, my meter is inside my house). 500W of background consumption is pretty high, though, and now that even desktop motherboards can sleep theres usually no reason to leave them on. Reply Report comment 4. raidscsi says: May 13, 2011 at 4:52 am He is just lucky he has a new meter. Anyone think you can request a meter like this from the power company? Reply Report comment 5. Nick says: May 13, 2011 at 4:52 am Imagine if you were able to design a sensitive system that could monitor your entire neighbourhood? There was a discussion going around the web about privacy concerns with sending consumption data off to your power company, but a hack like that could map the behaviour of many people quite easily. Reply Report comment 6. Strofcon says: May 13, 2011 at 4:53 am Very cool! Id be a little worried that the power company might be upset that I blocked the IR transmitter, though seems like it would make them go back to manual meter readings, which most companies seem to be trying to avoid. Then again, Im pretty ignorant of this type of stuff, and maybe hes not actually completely blocking the signal.
hackaday. com / 2011/ 05/ 13/ m oni or - your - hom es- pow - usage- on- t he- cheap/ t er
3/ 17
12/ 13/ 12
Either way, very cool idea, and seems nice and simple. :-) Reply Report comment 7. Bill says: May 13, 2011 at 5:06 am I would liked to have done it this way except my meter is 3 floors down, a few hundred feet away on the flip side of my building and behind a gate. Thats why I had to use current clamps instead, and it told me a lot more about my electrical system. http://hackaday.com/2010/12/21/clamp-sensor-power-monitoring/ Reply Report comment 8. IceBrain says: May 13, 2011 at 5:11 am @Strofcon: At least in my model, the LED that blinks for every Watt-Hour consumed is not the same that allows for actual communication with a device. My company still reads the numbers, though, instead of using a reader. Reply Report comment 9. vlad says: May 13, 2011 at 5:15 am Not the first time Ive seen this: http://www.avbrand.com/projects/powermonitor/ Reply Report comment 10. Morgauxo says: May 13, 2011 at 5:51 am Id be a little concerned that somebody will see it and thing you are trying to slow down or reverse your meter. Reply Report comment 11. some guy. says: May 13, 2011 at 6:19 am Its a good device. A lot of meters have some type of IR port but be careful because some meters communicate internally within its own components over the IR port, which will cause your circuit to accumulate additional pulses. Also, not all of the meters are 1 pulse every watt-hour but the one you have is. Most residential meters are. Reply Report comment 12. Beef says: May 13, 2011 at 6:20 am They do have commercial units that do this. They clip on the meter and watch the IR like this hack. This one (for about $99) uses batteries and wireless to send up the readings: http://www.bluelineinnovations.com/Products/PowerCost-Monitor
4/ 17
12/ 13/ 12
Ive worked with this one, and its ok. It only sends to their IHD but could be hacked to give it more useful functions. Reply Report comment 13. GameboyRMH says: May 13, 2011 at 7:02 am It should be possible to do something similar for the old spinning disk type with just a few hardware modifications to this system. Youd just need to add an infrared transmitter LED and have it reflect light off the edge of the disc and into a receiver LED (similar to a cell phones IR proximity sensor). When the IR light dips, thats the same as an IR flash on the newer models. The aiming of the transmitter and detector could be tricky, although you could look through a digital camera to make it easier. Reply Report comment 14. fartface says: May 13, 2011 at 7:04 am If you want more accuracy and realtime load monitoring you need to move to a different scheme. thats putting coils around your incoming lines and monitoring the load draw Sadly its cheaper to buy the device to do this than build it. http://www.theenergydetective.com/ted5000-g I love it because the data is in XML format so I can do whatever i want with it. and I dont do the google integration. the expensive one with zigbee and the remote display is nice but a useless expense. Also many meters cant do the IR function. the smart meters they rolled out here they disable the IR output until they come to read it, which is never as it has a RF transmitter box on it. and yes I have needle probed their wires, no data that I can glean that is constantly sent, it only transmits when it wants to. Reply Report comment 15. IceBrain says: May 13, 2011 at 7:30 am @fartface; why is it more accurate? Isnt that essentially what the meter is doing? Reply Report comment 16. nes says: May 13, 2011 at 7:48 am Great hack. And presumably far more accurate than the type which clips around a meter tail which my power company gave me. Reply Report comment 17. fartface says: May 13, 2011 at 7:57 am @icebrain: reading it every second actual power draw. and I have never seen those pulse counting meters be
12/ 13/ 12
100% accurate as you cant completely shroud the meter to get rid of any light interference a windy but sunny day can cause issues when the sun is at the right angle Remember the sun is 90,000,000 more power of a IR source than the puny led in the meter. Reply Report comment srobidoux says: July 13, 2012 at 2:16 pm This thread may be too old, but What can be done and what I intend to try is an optical filter similar to this that blocks out anything thats not IR. http://www.amazon.com/NEEWER%C2%AE-850nm-Infrared-Filter-Canon/dp/B003U66HEE I may need two instead of one but its worth a shot. Reply Report comment 18. pff says: May 13, 2011 at 8:22 am imagine if people just turned things off to save energy rather than pretend they are saving energy by using more energy to monitor how much energy they use and keep track of a meaningless number and fumble around their house turning things on and off while watching the number change while instead they could just look on the thing thats plugged in and read how much energy each thing uses and then know how much energy each things use or just turn things off after they are finished using the thing they were using. power usage monitors are a gimmick made by power companies these are bad and you should feel bad Reply Report comment srobidoux says: July 13, 2012 at 2:28 pm Monitors consume negligible power compared to what is wasted by not paying attention to usage. And nothing says you have to leave the monitor on once youve analyzed your situation. Reply Report comment 19. IceBrain says: May 13, 2011 at 9:02 am @fartface: reading it more times doesnt make it more accurate. Youre right about sun interference, though. Luckily mine is completely enclosed by a wooden box inside my house ;) @pff: this kind of monitor uses a negligible amount of energy; the chosen uP uses 0.0047kWh *per year*, probably less than what our PC, the Hackaday server and the routers in between used to post your comment. Not to mention that this is way more useful than simply saving energy. Reply Report comment 20. pgf says: May 13, 2011 at 9:19 am
12/ 13/ 12
thanks for all the comments. i certainly enjoyed building the monitor. @IceBrain i agree, 500W is high. im working on it. :-) @Strofcon meters like this also have radio capabilities. theres no one walking up to the meter they read it from the street, from a van. @vlad thanks!! i hadnt seen that project before. looks like he did a better job on the UI than i have. ill bet getting in touch with him @some guy from what ive read about the Itron meters, the IR led is a Test LED. its highly doubtful it pulses at anything other than its specified rate. (which as you say, is 1 w-h/pulse for mine its printed on the front of the meter.) Reply Report comment 21. pgf says: May 13, 2011 at 9:43 am btw, i think the current probe method probably is indeed more accurate for instant readings. having to average the pulse intervals means that theres a 15 or more second lag until the reading catches up with reality. and of course, if you miss a pulse, youll be off by 1 w-h. but my installation doesnt lose pulses due to sunlight. and certainly not wind. (windy but sunny???) @pff im not sure i should feel bad about wanting to know how much power im using. i can absolutely guarantee that this device will save me power in the long run. Reply Report comment 22. Nardella says: May 13, 2011 at 11:52 am You should contact your power company before attempting anything like this. Nice hack! Reply Report comment 23. pgf says: May 13, 2011 at 12:07 pm @texas toast i dont know why it got deleted. i was about to reply earlier, and then saw that it was gone. i dont know the subtleties of hack vs. mod vs. project. i didnt open the meter that would dumb, and probably cost me fines. what i did was create a detector for the IR pulses that the meter emits, and code for interpreting and logging the results. Reply Report comment 24. Standard Mischief says: May 13, 2011 at 12:17 pm Ive got the same meter. It was installed after I noticed my power company had been (over) estimating my bill for eight months in a row. The new meter is read by short-haul radio when the meter reading van comes by. The old meter was read by
12/ 13/ 12
pressing an inductive sensor up against a port on the outside wall. My actual meter is inside my garage. since theres no longer a wheel that turns under the glass face, theres a lame-ass simulation using a small LCD display, and this blinking led thing. I confirmed that it blinked by using a cell-phone camera and then tapped into it (outside the glass) by using a photo-diode connected to a parallel port pin. Beside that, theres just a few simple scrips to keep track of the total blinks per day. I recall someone doing something similar using a laser points that was aimed at the holes in the rotating plate, but I can no longer find the link for some reason. Reply Report comment 25. pgf says: May 13, 2011 at 12:17 pm @texas didnt think you were bashing. the meter does contain RF, which is how the utility reads it. detecting an IR pulse is more within my skill set than reverse engineering a probably-encrypted radio protocol. :-) Reply Report comment 26. pgf says: May 13, 2011 at 12:23 pm @standard i wish my meter was inside the garage. instead, its on a westward-facing wall, so most of my effort was being able to detect the pulses both in darkness and full sun. for people with inside meters, the job is much easier. theres code in my git tree for using a serial port to read the pulses if you set the baud rate right, the pulses appear as break conditions, and can be read as zeros from the tty. Reply Report comment 27. Andres says: May 13, 2011 at 1:37 pm Good implementation. However you should be careful with how you are touching the actual device. In Florida it is illegal to alter or mount anything permanent on the meter. You may want to make sure your solution does not violate the power companys guidelines or your governments rules. Because i knew i could not attach anything to my meter, i used a flexible PVC pipe to connect my IR sensor. http://andres-leon.blogspot.com/2010/02/measuring-my-electricity-consumption.html Reply Report comment 28. pgf says: May 13, 2011 at 1:54 pm @andres i love the servo-controlled meter! i was thinking of doing something similar with a D/A converter and an old voltmeter, but the plywood and hand-drawn gauge are perfect. my meters read remotely, and the detector is only bungied to the bubble, so im not too worried. but your cautions are well-taken. im surprised i didnt find your or avbrands projects when i was googling
8/ 17
12/ 13/ 12
Reply Report comment 29. Taylor Alexander says: May 13, 2011 at 2:01 pm @texas Because this is not a hack is an extremely tiresome argument on this website. We *know* some people may not consider something a hack, its been said 1000 times on 1000 posts. The point of this website is not to debate the use of the word hack over and over again, its to show off neat projects that people have made and discuss them. So I dont really blame a mod for deleting your comment if it was off topic. I totally understand you may not have realized it, but those discussions are just really annoying here. Reply Report comment 30. Wattvision says: May 13, 2011 at 4:09 pm Were surprised no one has mentioned our product yet. This is how we started in September 2008 and weve since expanded to an easy-to-set-up end to end system that anyone can get (including non-hackers). Reply Report comment 31. n17ikh says: May 13, 2011 at 4:31 pm Funny I did exactly this a few months ago and was planning on writing it up for HAD. My IR photodiode is in a radio shack project box hooked up to an attiny85 plugged into my NSLU2 via USB with some custom code using google graphs to get me some pretty charts. To those talking about accuracy, this is exactly as accurate as the meter itself is. Ive never had problems with IR noise from the sun (or the wind.. Wind causing IR? Now Ive heard everything.) The pulse is very bright and consistent, and it is easy to filter everything else out with some simple debouncing code. The sun doesnt cause 10ms pulses. As for being an instantaneous reading you dont have to average over 15 readings or anything like that, you time the interval between the last two pulses seen and you get the reading for average power over the last second, which is close enough to instantaneous for me. Accuracy using this method is as good as the timer on your microcontroller, or PC if youre using that. Since even at very high power draws the pulse happens on the order of hundreds of milliseconds, its easy to time the pulse within microseconds if you want to. If you do your timing on a PC you have to deal with the fact that your operating system is probably not hard real-time but for this application the added preemption latency probably doesnt matter. Reply Report comment 32. n17ikh says: May 13, 2011 at 4:35 pm Forgot to mention, the Black and Decker device that does this has become very cheap. If it had been its current price when I built mine, I probably wouldnt have DIYd.
9/ 17
12/ 13/ 12
Black & Decker EM100B Energy Saver Series Power Monitor
Reply Report comment 33. Jeditalian says: May 13, 2011 at 4:38 pm i would occasionally stroll up to your meter and press a few buttons on a universal remote to make you shit your pants. Reply Report comment 34. cmholm says: May 13, 2011 at 5:26 pm My analog meter was recently swapped out for a digital model, so Ill do a bit of recon to see if this hack might work for me. Allowing my imagination to go overboard for a moment: Im wondering if a currently unused Axis webcam and remote OCR might be able to reliably pull it off? One issue would be the need for nighttime illumination (IR or visible), and preventing glare. Reply Report comment
12/ 13/ 12
35. Andrew says: May 13, 2011 at 6:42 pm After testing this, my meter emits the same IR pulse every kilowatt hour. But after loading a simple IR reader on my Arduino at each pulse it sends the value on the display of the meter. Reply Report comment 36. CameronSS says: May 13, 2011 at 8:52 pm I mounted a commercial version of this on my power meter hose clamp attached it to the glass bell, and an arm reached around front and watched for the black stripe on the spinning disk. It worked brilliantly until someone from the power company spotted it and demanded removal. At that point it became a hazard and a barrier to any of their people if they needed to get to the meter. Because we trust these people with high voltage but not with a flathead screwdriver? Reply Report comment 37. geeknizer says: May 13, 2011 at 9:24 pm O yeah, bring it on Reply Report comment 38. jukus says: May 14, 2011 at 2:00 am @pff you cant manage what your not measuring Reply Report comment 39. jukus says: May 14, 2011 at 2:06 am I tried this simple approach too works a treat. Phase 2 hack a cheap wireless doorbell into it for wireless monitoring to a(eth-sheilded)arduino that runs my x10 network. Reply Report comment 40. ZeUs says: May 14, 2011 at 4:09 am Why would it send an IR signal? Weird. Neat trick though. Reply Report comment 41. pgf says: May 14, 2011 at 6:42 am @n17ikh re: accuracy there will always be some delay when using the pulses to measure consumption. that delay isnt present with current probes. but i agree that for real-world use, using the pulses is completely accurate enough.
11/ 17
12/ 13/ 12
i will say that either my meter puts out weaker pulses than normal, or my phototransistor is the wrong one i wouldnt call my pulse bright in terms of the edge levels im seeing. Reply Report comment 42. pgf says: May 14, 2011 at 6:44 am @Jeditalian not all IR signals are created equal. your IR remote wouldnt have any effect on this detector. Reply Report comment 43. pgf says: May 14, 2011 at 6:47 am @Andrew im not sure i understand what you mean. Reply Report comment 44. pgf says: May 14, 2011 at 6:53 am @Wattvision perhaps no one has mentioned it because your product costs $250, and involves a $9/month service fee. im planning on writing a blog post about other power monitoring alternatives, and will probably include some commercial links. ill be sure and mention that you spammed these comments. ;-) Reply Report comment 45. Bharath Kishore says: May 14, 2011 at 3:41 pm In India we have power meters that have a rotary disc. It has a marking to know its in motion and at any point of time its angular velocity is directly proportional to the amount of power consumed at that instant. A stop watch, pen and paper would do the trick for me. Reply Report comment 46. pgf says: May 15, 2011 at 10:48 am @bharath we have those meters in the US, too. its only in the last 5 or 10 years that some areas have switched to fully electronic meters. the reason is that they can be read remotely, without someone needing to walk up to the meter to read it. pen and paper would work, of course, but youd be standing at the meter a lot in order to make logs. :-) heres a project where someone is attemhttp://letsmakerobots.com/node/23875pting to automate reading a meter like yours: Reply Report comment 47. pgf says: May 15, 2011 at 10:49 am oops. pasted in the middle. that URL should be: http://letsmakerobots.com/node/23875
12/ 17
12/ 13/ 12
Reply Report comment 48. pgf says: May 16, 2011 at 7:54 am ive added a new blog post at the irmetermon project page listing many of the similar projects mentioned here, and others id found earlier. please add more in the comments on that page itd be good to have a more complete list. -paul Reply Report comment 49. John L. says: May 17, 2011 at 9:43 am I did something similar to this for my water meter. I used a pic processor and an xbee transmitter to send the info to my pc. I used google charting software to display the data. Checkout http;//watermeter.limewebs.com I count the revolutions of the magnet inside the water meter. With an IR sensor, I should be able to use the same hardware on my XCEL energy power meter. Charts for water usage are at http://watermeter.limewebs.com/html/may.html Reply Report comment
Leave a Reply
Enter your comment here...
Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:
Email (required) (Address never made public) Name (required) Website
You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )
13/ 17
12/ 13/ 12
You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change ) You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change ) Cancel Connecting to %s Notify me of follow-up comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email.
Post Comment
Never Miss a Hack
HACKADAY on
Follow
+8,864 Follow @twitter Categories

Select Category
In case you missed it
14/ 17
12/ 13/ 12
[Staci Elaan]s awesome portable tesla coils.

37 Comments
Pixar-style lamp project is a huge animatronics win

38 Comments
RC truck has working windows, steering wheel, and much more

19 Comments
USB Keyboard Becomes an AVR Programmer

18 Comments
Google Books team open sources their book scanner

32 Comments More Posts from this Category Recent Comments valdas on Converting a Chinese laser cutter to work with Mach3 Kaz on Arduino Esplora makes a great controller Tom on Converting a Chinese laser cutter to work with Mach3
12/ 13/ 12
DarkTherapy on Garage door opener using Siri and Raspberry Pi Per Jensen on Converting a Chinese laser cutter to work with Mach3 Kaz on Arduino Esplora makes a great controller SWHarden on Observe a satellites Morse Code message today! Willrandship on Macro assembly for AVR chips Chris C. on Twitter radio Csaba Bleuer on LiPo internal resistance measurement tool Find Hacks by Date May 2011 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Apr Jun
16/ 17
12/ 13/ 12
Compare Electricity Rates

Electric.com Compare Electricity Rates in Texas. Research Multiple Energy Providers!
Switch to Bounce Energy

www.BounceEnergy.c Get an Additional $25 Bill Credit Use Promo Code "comeback25"
Do You Live in Texas?

ChooseEnergy.com/ Save up to 37% on Your Energy Bill. Compare Energy Rates & Start Saving
Reliant Energy Business

www.Reliant.com/Busi Get a free customized quote for your business. Visit Reliant today!
Return to top of page Copyright 2012 Genesis Framework WordPress Log in
17/ 17

Monitor Your Home's Power Usage On The Cheap

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Monitor Your Home's Power Usage On The Cheap

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

12/ 13/ 12

M oni or your hom e pow usage on t he cheap t s er

Hack a Day Fresh hacks every day

Smart Metering Solutions

Home Submit a tip forums Shop