Like many in my area, I have a Radon extractor fan installed to extract Radon laden air from beneath my basement slab. By design, this fan (here: RN2 - Fantech RN2 - RN Series Inline Radon Fan, 4.5" Pipe (220 CFM)) runs all the time. It's an AC fan pulling a mere .58 Amps (67 Watts).
It is presently controlled by a Dumb Switch, which works, but I replaced it last year because it died. Unfortunately it died some unkown period of time ago. So what I'd really like is a switch that monitored current/power so I could set up an alert through a rule or HSM for when the fan isn't pulling current (is dead).
As far as I can tell, none of the Zooz or GE switches seem to record power, and the Remotec Relay (which is what I'd originally intended to use), doesn't seem to either.
Thanks for the suggestion, however I wasn't really clear on my situation! Apologies.
The present switch is a standard switch in a box in the ceiling of the basement (well, the notional ceiling anyway, it's studs and insulation, but I digress).
The fan is basically wired like a light. On/Off are the only states. It's not plugged in, it's direct wired.
So what I need is a relay, or light switch with power monitoring that can be hardwired in to replace the existing switch, or supplement the existing switch.
The Enerwave Switch seems relatively expensive, and I've not used any of the Aeotec Nano's or Enerwave Smart relays, so I was hoping someone had done this already...I don't mind reinventing the wheel, but if I can take advantage of an existing wheel...so much the better.
You can use the Qubino 1 relay behind your existing switch. It's officially integrated with Hubitat and will report energy use. One thing to remember with fans and other motors is that they don't work as resistive loads, pulling current whenever they're on and vice versa. You'll see many spikes and drops which may present a challenge when creating the rule for notifications but you should be able to work around it once you observe the reporting patterns for a while.
Support at the Smartest House will be able to assist you with wiring and Z-Wave set-up if needed
Agnes, it came in today, and works great! Only issue, is I bought a "pilot" light switch to go along with it. Sort of a visual indicator that the fan is on...unfortunately, the switch and the Qubino don't really seem to work correctly together. The Qubino works perfectly, but the Pilot light remains on all the time, even if the switch is off!
Not an issue really, just not as useful as I had intended it to be.
The Qubino works great though, and I can see both current and power, which should allow me to build a monitoring rule! Great stuff. Thanks for the suggestion.
Yeah, that's to be expected. Any Z-Wave relays or switches can only work with simple mechanical wall switches. Once you add any type of electronic component to it, like a LED indicator, the electronics on the Z-Wave side will not accept it. So unfortunately, there's no way to use that pilot switch with a Z-Wave component, to our best knowledge.
Glad you like the relay, they're great little devices!
Yup. I just need to swap the "Pilot Light" switch with a standard switch really. And frankly, I don't even need to do that. The Qubino is sufficient on its own, I could just eliminate the switch entirely and trust the Qubino.
However, the switch does allow me to quickly rewire if the Qubino were to fail...AND it does give me a local override for temporarily shutting the fan off should I have need to...
Yeah the Common is neutral. Interesting. So you think the LED is on the other side of the switch e.g. on the load side. Makes sense. I'll try that this evening or tomorrow.
That's really a cool idea. Monitoring the power is easy, but not terribly useful without some sort of monitoring over time method, but this could generate an almost immediate alert.
The 1PM can be used as a switch and power monitoring. Although I do think if you have a pressure mat and can wire that to the 1PM to turn the fan on/off.
