Help - Eon Energy Monitor Apparent Errors

Phil&Julie · 24 September 2017 at 11:46AM

Does anyone have a link to the instructions for an Eon Monitor please?
# It's the old monochrome type and has SED v3 on the rear
# I can't find this manual on either google or the EON website - only the colour version

REASON:
# Whilst it seems to work for consumption (not £ obviously), I can't reconcile the values shown in weekly consumption and those derived by summing 7 daily readings. Sometimes they coincide, but they can sometimes differ by up to 10 KwH.
# Electricity seems to coincide more than gas.
# I'd like to know which, if any, is correct. I'm hoping I'm doing something wrong that the manual will identify.

# It was installed in Oct 2015 but I left Eon in Oct 2016 for BGas (What a mistake that was!!!)
# It's not been switched on since I left Eon so it's not had any updates - and I'm guessing EON wouldn't update an ex customer's monitor anyway.
# Having just switched suppliers again (to Avro) (and after my horrendous experience with BGas) I want to monitor usage in detail for a while - hence I am being a bit anal about it and have discovered these apparent errors

Thanks in advance
Phil

earth1986 · 25 September 2017 at 1:24PM

By any chance do you own an induction hob? My experience is that energy monitors will read high when an induction hob is installed. Relates to "Power Factor" and the difference between true power and apparent power. If you don't have an induction hob then there must be some other explanation.

matelodave · 25 September 2017 at 5:25PM

Most energy monitors as opposed to Smart Meter In hOme devices just measure the magnetic field around the incoming mains cable and try to work out how much current that equates to, however they cannot take into account the voltage variations or other variables like power factor which affect their accuracy.

As said above some stuff with electric motors (fridges, freezers, washing machines etc) or induction hobs and even fluorescent lights do not have purely restive loads and so need to be calculated in a different way.

A normal electricity meter should be able to compensate for most variancies as it can measure the voltage as well as the current but a fairly crude clamp type energy monitor can't.

I reckon that if you are within about 10-15% then you are doing quite well.

We've got an inverter driven heat pump and it shows quite marked differences between our electricity meter and my energy monitor (the energy monitor actually over reads).

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc · 28 September 2017 at 4:33PM

Phil&Julie wrote: »

Does anyone have a link to the instructions for an Eon Monitor please?
# It's the old monochrome type and has SED v3 on the rear
# I can't find this manual on either google or the EON website - only the colour version

REASON:
# Whilst it seems to work for consumption (not £ obviously), I can't reconcile the values shown in weekly consumption and those derived by summing 7 daily readings. Sometimes they coincide, but they can sometimes differ by up to 10 KwH.
# Electricity seems to coincide more than gas.
# I'd like to know which, if any, is correct. I'm hoping I'm doing something wrong that the manual will identify.

# It was installed in Oct 2015 but I left Eon in Oct 2016 for BGas (What a mistake that was!!!)
# It's not been switched on since I left Eon so it's not had any updates - and I'm guessing EON wouldn't update an ex customer's monitor anyway.
# Having just switched suppliers again (to Avro) (and after my horrendous experience with BGas) I want to monitor usage in detail for a while - hence I am being a bit anal about it and have discovered these apparent errors

Thanks in advance
Phil

Hello Phil and sorry for the late reply. Missed your post.

I'm guessing this is the monitor we gave away free a number of years ago. As matelodave says, the ones that use a clamp around the mains cable. We stopped sending these out quite a time ago and no longer support them. That said, there is still some information about them on our website. This includes a user guide that can be downloaded. It's under 'help' at the top of the page, then 'help and support' and 'energy monitors.' Sorry but MSE don't like company reps posting links to external websites.

These monitors were designed to highlight areas of usage (and more importantly wastage). I agree with matelodave, they weren't totally accurate and were designed to raise awareness of possible energy waste. Meters have always been the most accurate measure of usage. Also, there was a delay in the monitor receiving the information whereas meters continually record usage.

Hope this helps Phil and sorry if I'm barking up the wrong tree.

Malc

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc · 28 September 2017 at 4:39PM

matelodave wrote: »

Most energy monitors as opposed to Smart Meter In hOme devices just measure the magnetic field around the incoming mains cable and try to work out how much current that equates to, however they cannot take into account the voltage variations or other variables like power factor which affect their accuracy.

As said above some stuff with electric motors (fridges, freezers, washing machines etc) or induction hobs and even fluorescent lights do not have purely restive loads and so need to be calculated in a different way.

A normal electricity meter should be able to compensate for most variancies as it can measure the voltage as well as the current but a fairly crude clamp type energy monitor can't.

I reckon that if you are within about 10-15% then you are doing quite well.

We've got an inverter driven heat pump and it shows quite marked differences between our electricity meter and my energy monitor (the energy monitor actually over reads).

Nice one matelodave. Glad you remember these monitors too. I haven't had a question about them in a long time. Had to trawl the memory banks and just hope I'm talking about the same thing as the OP.

Malc

Raxiel · 29 September 2017 at 10:23AM

Neither Phil or Julie have been back to comment further, but wonder if their point has been missed?

I read their post as saying the weekly total doesn't equal the same as the sum of it's days. So if each day used exactly 5 units, the week should say 35?

If that's the case, my first guess would be a rounding error, and that the individual days totals would be the more accurate figure. 10 units seems a lot for that though. Only real way to check I can think of is to take a reading from the meter itself at midnight and then another a week later to compare.

ASavvyBuyer · 29 September 2017 at 11:19AM

We use one of these monitors for indicating our total electric consumption.

Usually find that the daily readings displayed are rounded down to show just the integer (missing off any decimal places).

But the weekly and 30 day reading is the sum of the last 7 or 30 days respectively and includes all the bits missing from truncating the daily readings.

Therefore, the weekly & 30 day reading is always slightly more than the sum of the daily readings, as it includes all the missing bits.

We have found that over a week, the difference is usually no more than 2 or 3 units, but over a month can be upto 10 units.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc · 29 September 2017 at 11:24AM

Raxiel wrote: »

Neither Phil or Julie have been back to comment further, but wonder if their point has been missed?

I read their post as saying the weekly total doesn't equal the same as the sum of it's days. So if each day used exactly 5 units, the week should say 35?

If that's the case, my first guess would be a rounding error, and that the individual days totals would be the more accurate figure. 10 units seems a lot for that though. Only real way to check I can think of is to take a reading from the meter itself at midnight and then another a week later to compare.

Totally agree Raxiel. The meter is the surest way of keeping track of usage. As I posted in reply to Phil, these old monitors were meant to raise awareness of energy usage. They were free and we stopped supplying/supporting them quite a time ago. That is, of course, if I've interpreted Phil's post correctly and we're talking about the same thing.

Malc

Phil&Julie · 29 September 2017 at 11:36PM

Sorry about disappearing for a while but Mrs Phil&Julie has had a bit of a medical emergency. All on hold now until the NHS can do some scans so am returning to where I left off.

I'll try and deal with all of your comments in order:

Earth1986 - No I don't have an induction hob.

matelodave - Sorry, calling it a "Monitor" has led to a number of misunderstandings by respondents. It is not a monitor - it is the remote display associated with my smart meter. What should I have called it? I'm a newby so I'm not allowed to post a link - I did try.

E.On Company Rep - ditto. Your guess is wrong and you have indeed found the wrong tree to bark at. It doesn't clamp around the cable - it is a smart meter. Not the colour version (which appears to be different to my SED3 monochrome version)

Raxiel - good shout. I'll try recording the actual readings and report back but I may need to stay up until midnight every day (see next point).

ASavvyBuyer - I now think the 'weekly' total on my display is actually the total usage from the previous Monday morning starting at 1 second past midnight - and not the total of the last 7 days as you say. Depending if we are talking about the same bit of kit as per above ;-)

I hope that covers everything though it is quite difficult to keep going back and forth, and I'm desperately trying to suppress my anger that a selection of multi-national companies cannot design a standard Smart Meter that is actually useful, has commonality across all of the companies and is intuitive - so it doesn't need a set of instructions.

Which is still the main purpose of my post.................

Thanks everyone for having patience

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc · 3 October 2017 at 10:52AM

Phil&Julie wrote: »

Sorry about disappearing for a while but Mrs Phil&Julie has had a bit of a medical emergency. All on hold now until the NHS can do some scans so am returning to where I left off.

I'll try and deal with all of your comments in order:

Earth1986 - No I don't have an induction hob.

matelodave - Sorry, calling it a "Monitor" has led to a number of misunderstandings by respondents. It is not a monitor - it is the remote display associated with my smart meter. What should I have called it? I'm a newby so I'm not allowed to post a link - I did try.

E.On Company Rep - ditto. Your guess is wrong and you have indeed found the wrong tree to bark at. It doesn't clamp around the cable - it is a smart meter. Not the colour version (which appears to be different to my SED3 monochrome version)

Raxiel - good shout. I'll try recording the actual readings and report back but I may need to stay up until midnight every day (see next point).

ASavvyBuyer - I now think the 'weekly' total on my display is actually the total usage from the previous Monday morning starting at 1 second past midnight - and not the total of the last 7 days as you say. Depending if we are talking about the same bit of kit as per above ;-)

I hope that covers everything though it is quite difficult to keep going back and forth, and I'm desperately trying to suppress my anger that a selection of multi-national companies cannot design a standard Smart Meter that is actually useful, has commonality across all of the companies and is intuitive - so it doesn't need a set of instructions.

Which is still the main purpose of my post.................

Thanks everyone for having patience

Morning Phil&Julie and hope Mrs Phil&Julie recovers soon.

Ah! I see, you have a smart meter. As you say, a totally different tree to bark up. We've had a few types of In House Display with our smart meters over the last few years. From your description, this sounds like the Chameleon 3. You're right, there's very little on our website about this and certainly not a manual. There is a YouTube video, though, that might be of interest.

Our smart teams also have information they can send if you give them a call (contact details are on our website).

Hope this helps point you in the right direction.

Malc

Help - Eon Energy Monitor Apparent Errors

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