Hello everyone,
I have a question for the owners of the ZEN04.
I have a pretty dumb TV, but I want to use it for house automation, like turning lights and other devices on or off. Is the ZEN04 fast and reliable enough to register a power change when the TV is turned on/off and use that to create a rule/trigger in Habitat?
Does anyone have experience with this device?
Thanks!
Yes, assuming that the ZEN04 can be configured to post an energy event upon significant change. If it is like the ZEN15 and every other power monitoring plug I've seen, it can.
There are certainly less expensive energy monitoring plugs out there, but perhaps you specifically want one that is Z-Wave LR.
Great to know thanks for replying.
If you have any, I'm open to suggestions for other plugs that could do the same function with hubitat. The decision on this device is far from final.
Just as an example, and not to be construed as a recommendation (because I don't personally have one), there's lots of Zigbee energy monitoring plugs like this one .. less than $10 in pack of four. Search this community for this and other options and read what others have to say.
I have a ZEN15 on my TV, but since I would never turn the TV on/off with that plug, it is probably rated much more rugged than it needs to be for that. I just use it to tell me when the TV is running.
Part of what you should consider is whether you want to build a stronger ZWave or Zigbee mesh in that area of the house. A smart plug will be a repeater, and if you have many Zigbee battery devices and few mains powered ones, have the Zigbee plug would be a plus.
Welcome to the community!
Sengled plugs have a better reputation for respecting the power reporting frequency settings than the chatty Thirdreality versions.
Another option to minimize ZigBee/Z-Wave network traffic is using the Wi-Fi based Kasa Matter plugs.
Yeah, I had originally suggested the Kasa/Tapo Matter plugs (below) until it occurred to me someone new to this may need to be building a mesh. I bought a bunch of these when effectively $7.67 each in a pack of three .. they still are. They work OK, although they seem not to like getting on then off within a few seconds of each other. [Edit: OOPS .. I just realized the reason I deleted mention of these is that they do not have energy monitoring. Never mind.]
I currently have 2 Kasa Matter plugs with no monitoring capabilities, but I'm disappointed with how often the Matter Plugs randomly die, and I have to re-do the whole pairing. I am just getting started with either ZigBee or Z-wave, slowly moving away from Wi-Fi devices.
I was thinking about the ZEN04 or now the ZEN15 since I am planning on purchasing Z-wave switches from Zooz and start replacing my dumb switches with those, and maybe a continuation of that z-wave network would be more reliable
I have s-loads of ZEN04's and like them. @jtp10181 has a handy feature in his driver that's called "auxiliary" on/off, or something like that. Which is, the TV consumes some amount of watts being turned off, what with reporting your conversations and what not, so you can make that amount the threshold for the TV being "on" or "off". I used it just the other day, works great. Better make the threshold higher than too low. It'd just have to be some value less than when the TV is in operation.
edit: I don't think I've read of anyone with experience with the latest LR version of the ZEN04. You'll have to tell us what you think of it.
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