[Release] IoTaWatt Power Monitor Driver v0.1.20220723

Still working fine for both of my IoTaWatt devices.

That’s a strange error. Can you still browse directly to you IoTaWatt device? There was a firmware update to the IoTaWatt recently. Just trying to rule out a problem with the IoTaWatt versus your Hubitat hub.

Definitely strange! IoTaWatt itself is working fine, last activity on IoTaWatt was right before I updated HE firmware this morning.

Restoring to Hubitat firmware 2.1.9.117 makes it functional again. There were two IoTaWatt child devices for IoTaWatt outputs that I deleted back in June, so I'm removing those and trying the new HE firmware again.

Annnd no go. Still get the error.

Strange. I’ve been on 2.2 since the early days of the beta. No issues whatsoever.

Since you have backups...and can easily restore... What happens if you delete the Parent device altogether and create a new one?

I’m having an issue removing the iotawatt devices after removing the driver. Any idea?
i posted in IoTaWatt cannot remove drivers

I replied in your other thread...

Returning to my issue described above after updating to HE 2.2.x. After I rolled back to 2.1.x, I decided to re-update to 2.2.x and added a new IoTaWatt device. I made no changes to the driver code, simply added a new device and it works.

However, the problem I'm having (as of HE 2.2.x) with this and a few other apps and automatons that do periodic refreshes randomly stop refreshing until manually "restarted." For example, the IoTaWatt driver was updating every 30 seconds yesterday until exactly 9pm. Anyone else having this specific problem?

It seems the HE update broke something across many apps and drivers, but perhaps there's something unusual going on with my combination of apps and drivers. HE staff are quick to place blame on user created apps/drivers despite the only change being HE updates, so I've hesitated to even bother posting my issues.

Have you updated to my very latest and greatest IoTaWatt Driver? I made some changes to ensure that the periodic scheduling works better now. One of my recent changes broke the scheduling any time the hub was rebooted. I have resolved this issue in the latest version in my GitHub repository.

I have three Hubitat hubs (two production and one development) and I have never seen a platform update break any of my periodically scheduled apps/drivers. I have seen plenty of community code, my own included, that had bugs in it that resulted in poor behavior after a reboot (which also coincides with a Hub firmware/platform upgrade.)

Hopefully my latest driver will help. After upgrading the driver, be sure to go into the Device Details page and click SAVE on the user preferences.

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Great catch, I had updated the driver but that was before rolling back to deal with the strange 404 error. Just re-updated, assuming it will fix the problem but will edit this if it persists. This is still one of my favorite drivers, turns an expensive solar array into a light sensor :joy:

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That is an interesting use-case!

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After using power factor to successfully troubleshoot a failing AC compressor run capacitor, I now have a rule to send an alert if power factor dips below a certain threshold. Certainly some interesting use cases beyond sending alerts when the dryer is finished!

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General question here -- but does anyone know if IotaWatt can create an 'output' that is based on more-complex calculations? Example being, I would love to have a dashboard tile of "Today's total kWh usage, with cost."

The output builder within the device doesn't seem to support this, and I think that's the only way the driver can pull in data. Unless the driver can somehow take in graph/graph+ creations?

edit: might be able to modify the driver to make custom API requests. Query API — IoTaWatt 02_03_20 documentation

You could very easily modify the Child Power Meter driver to allow the entry of a per kWh cost rate, and then add the Energy Meter Capability as well. Just add a little bit of simple math and a daily reset routine, and voila!

It would not be as accurate as having the IoTaWatt due the calculations, though.

Another option would be to use Grafana to do the math, with a rolling 24 hour cost trend per IoTaWatt output. I only send power values to InfluxDB/Grafana from my two IoTaWatt devices, and I let Grafana display some charts in kWh to show my son just how much energy his gaming computer is using! :wink:

My main purpose for this integration is to monitor the power usage of our washer and dryer to trigger notifications when the laundry cycle is complete.

The Query API was added to the IoTaWatt firmware after I had written my original Hubitat driver. I have thought about changing things up to use the IoTaWatt Query API, but I have not really found a need. If you're a programmer and can refactor this driver to use the new API, I am supportive of Pull Requests - or please feel free to publish and support your own IoTaWatt driver. I believe that there is quite a bit more integration with Hubitat possible, however I just don't have the time to work on it. It would be great to what you come up with! :slightly_smiling_face:

I'm curious how you got all those CTs inside the panel. Granted, they must be smaller than my old The Energy Detective (TED) CTs I use to monitor total and occasional generator load, but still, it must get congested, I don't think I'd have enough room.

Here is my "Main Panel" (240VAC loads) install photos

And here is my "Secondary Panel" (mostly 120VAC loads) install photos

I looked at that thread carefully before I posted. I didn't see an "after" interior shot of the panel with all the CTs, unless I'm not realizing it.

You are correct, I somehow failed to take that photo before I buttoned the subpanel up.

I used the 50A Solid Core CT's for almost every branch circuit. I am not sure if IoTaWatt is still selling those or not. These CTs are small, reliable, and accurate. Here is a picture of one of my spare CTs, next to a SD card adapter for size comparison.

Here is another picture from that same thread that shows another user's installation. The interior of my panel is very similar with respect to the CT installation.

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Is this like Emomcms? I currently push to that service, but I haven't found any tangible benefit. Maybe there's some upside to having the data stored externally for when the SD card inevitably gets corrupt (happened once already,)

I'm not a purebred programmer, but I can wrestle my way through writing ~10k-line software. I played with Groovy back in the early ST days, but haven't touched it since. I'll have to try my hand again.

I was surprised how small the CTs were as well. The accuracy appears to be really good. I also use it to track my washer/dryer. It's nice to see my A/C costs as well. I also had someone leave a stove on all night once because they were drinking and baking, so I can avoid stuff like that too.

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Can’t seem to find the 50A version, but AccuEnergy still seems to be selling the related 100A and 200A versions of this same part:

I would recommend you reach out to @overeasy (Bob) in his IoTaWatt forum before buying any CTs for use with the IoTaWatt device.

Here is a close up of the 50A CT. I also use 100A and 200A CTs, but these are split core for easier installation.

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Is there a way to combine 2 inputs? I have 2 CTs, 1 for each 120v leg. I would like to display the usage combined.