Octopus Tracker

pete-20-11

I’m with octopus and my IHD shows live usage including export.

it’s on the screen called “usage now”

wasn’t immediately obvious what export vs import was, but after a little while, I realised if there was a picture of an electric pylon on the screen it meant it was exporting and the numbers e.g. 420w meant it was exporting 420w not importing 420w.

Slinky

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Slinky said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

More use / relevant for Agile people than for Trackers??  For the latter all we are concerned with, if we take the time to check, is having a quick and easy check that the values invoiced on a given day are or were accurate without this necessarily being in real time.

I have found it useful to able to see usage of certain appliances in real time without having to be physically near the IHD (which since I've been confined to my bedroom for the past 2½ months is not even possible right now) and it's useful to see usage in the app at the end of a day rather then being to wait for Octopus to pull it, by which time I'll have forgotten what happened the previous day to tally up with the usage.

It's not been life-changing because we'd already made all the major energy saving changes long before it arrived, but I do like it.

Sorry to hear you've been confined to your bedroom, but can't you get the IHD moved there if you want to check it?

I was under the impression they only work if they're close to the meter.  We need a wifi extender up here and I thought the range for zigbee on the IHD was smaller than wifi?

Regardless, we got the Home Mini before my unexpected health crash (just as well, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to set it up).  It's simply proved itself more useful in that regard than anticipated

I think it's a case of try it and see what happens. Ours is about 25 feet from the meter and works fine.

Telegraph_Sam

Mine appears to work OK once it gets woken up and it must be a good 25 ft from the main meter. However the "useful" info is limited to the current meter reading, and the cost of the consumption over various time periods. Plenty of lightning symbols but no pylons and nothing I can see to indicate export. I've a feeling that you can fiddle about with the smart meter to show import and export, but doing this would be a pain.

Telegraph_Sam

Correction to my previous post. I have now unearthed a "usage now'" screen showing £/hr and w. But no sign of pylons or export. This is a 100% Octopus IHD.

Alnat1

Telegraph_Sam said:

Correction to my previous post. I have now unearthed a "usage now'" screen showing £/hr and w. But no sign of pylons or export. This is a 100% Octopus IHD.

The model I have is IHD7-PPMID and this does show export. Did you check that screen when you knew for sure you were exporting at that time? Only your post was at 9.15pm and it was dark then.

Telegraph_Sam

Fair point. It looks like my meter is an IHD6-CAD-PPMID 2.0.2 according to the software designation. The point is that nowhere on the screen is there a "location" earmarked "Export" even if the figure is zero. I have never seen this in daylight either.It is all geared around current and past consumption. If I use the electric lawnmower, which is not a mickey mouse, on a sunny afternoon I can't tell to what extent the power drain is being covered by my solar panels. 

Qyburn

Telegraph_Sam said:

If I use the electric lawnmower, which is not a mickey mouse, on a sunny afternoon I can't tell to what extent the power drain is being covered by my solar panels. 

If it's all covered by solar then consumption will be zero. I assume your solar installation doesn’t have a generation meter, although even that wouldn't tell the whole story.

I wonder how easy it is to get a third party gadget with two CTs to read generation and overall import/export. There must be a market. 

But not really related to Tracker so might get more input on a separate thread.

Alnat1

When my IHD is showing the "usage now" page you described, the pic where the lightning symbol is switches between just a lightning symbol and a lightning/arrow/pylon symbol.

I think you have the older IHD6 version and mine is a newer IHD7. Try chasing Octopus up for a Home Mini which hopefully would show the info you want.

pete-20-11

This is what I see on the usage now screen when exporting

You might notice the colour circle thing is missing too (the bit that is green when consumption is low and orange/red when high).

Telegraph_Sam

Yes that is different from mine (my export goes through underground power cables).  Is this what you get from the Home Mini?