An energy monitoring plug can tell you when a device is not drawing power.
I use Zooz Zen15 plugs to monitor my washer, gas dryer, and backup sump pump which only runs when the primary cannot handle the full flow. These are Z-wave devices. These devices report voltage, amperage, and wattage.
There are not a lot of Zigbee plugs that report power. I have an Innr SP234 which will do so up to 15 amps. It works with the built-in generic outlet driver, but only reports wattage.
Remember that such a plug can only alert you if the plug itself is receiving mains power. Unplugging a cord, or turning the device on or off will be reported. But if there is a power outage, a main breaker trips, or a GFCI detects a fault, then you won't get an indication.
I think this is a safety/liability issue. By saying the ZEN15 devices are not suitable for space heaters relieves Zooz from liability should the space heater start a fire.
I have a friend who is retired as a chief in the fire department. After seeing far too many house and apartment fires started by space heaters of various types, he argues that nobody should ever purchase one.
There are various safety measures such as tilt sensors built in, but having a space heater start up by automated control is a bad idea. There are just too many opportunities for something to go wrong. I can understand why Zooz does not want their devices used in that manner.
I have a similar issue with a recent purchase of a Traeger pellet grill. I can change temperatures or shut the grill down from a remote app. Startup, however, cannot be done through the app as it is necessary to visually inspect the grill before startup to make sure it is safe to do so.
I think, like may have been mentioned, you are probably looking more for monitoring of when the device is no longer reporting. The kasa app / drivers I linked in my last post poll the wifi plug periodically, so you won't see an off or drop in power be necessarily, more so an indication of a communication error. Likewise I would expect for a ZigBee plug, if you pull the power you won't get that reflected in HE as such. You need to look for a lack of connectivity or activity, which is possible.
How you go about that will depend on the plug you choose.
Due to this specific requirement, I would choose the plug that gave me what I needed. Unfortunately I don't know which plug that is! As they say on the Apprentice (in the UK anyway) "The search... continues"
As they say on the Apprentice (in the UK anyway) "The search... continues"
