Planning to use a Shelly UNI to monitor a car battery voltage through Hubitat. Now using a Smart Implant FGBS-222 which draws 15-17 mA. The device is on 24x7 thus overall power consumption could be an issue if the auto is parked for 2 to 4 weeks. The Smart Implant is set to update the battery voltage level every 6 hours and will update if the voltage level changes by .1 volt DC.
What is the actual current requirements of the UNI when it is not updating, transmitting data or setting at idle?
And is the UNI a chatty device when compared to the Smart Implant? Thus it may take more power than the Smart Implant within a given time period.
In looking over the specifications, the UNI lists less than 1 watt which could be any value below 80 mA at 12 VDC but no actual current measurement data is presented.
Any real world in service measurements would be appreciated.
My guess is that the Shelly Uni, being a WiFi device, is going to consume more power at IDLE than a Z-Wave or Zigbee device. If the UNI can be configured to go into a Deep Sleep state, and then wake itself up periodically to read the battery voltage and update the HE hub, then it may be a decent solution. If it does not support some sort of deep sleep state, then I believe it will draw quite a bit of power to simply maintain the WiFi connection.
Good point about WiFi vs Z-Wave power consumption. Thus the UNI would most likely consume more power due to its WiFi always on condition vs the Smart Implant with Z-Wave only being used for updates.
May have to purchase one of the UNI devices and test. However, if there is a deep sleep state for the UNI then that would decrease its overall power consumption.
