Tapo P110

BooJewels

Thanks @getmore4less - I was going to ask you more about your arrangement in the other thread and I was just looking up what the Home Assistant was.  I don't want to go to that much trouble or expense for my particular needs,  but you would think if the P110 is capable of recording that data, the app would be set up to record/display rather more of it.

To me, it feels like it's relatively trivial in programming terms - just draw x time - so I am rather disappointed in how vague the app is in presenting the data.  I wouldn't even mind if they had a paid for extra app with better data that you could upgrade to.  I only got as much information on my washing machine test yesterday as I was within earshot doing some paperwork, so just jotted down some numbers and times at different stages.  But that's not something you want to be needing to do.

getmore4less

BooJewels said:

Thanks @getmore4less - I was going to ask you more about your arrangement in the other thread and I was just looking up what the Home Assistant was.  I don't want to go to that much trouble or expense for my particular needs,  but you would think if the P110 is capable of recording that data, the app would be set up to record/display rather more of it.

To me, it feels like it's relatively trivial in programming terms - just draw x time - so I am rather disappointed in how vague the app is in presenting the data.  I wouldn't even mind if they had a paid for extra app with better data that you could upgrade to.  I only got as much information on my washing machine test yesterday as I was within earshot doing some paperwork, so just jotted down some numbers and times at different stages.  But that's not something you want to be needing to do.

If you have a PC then there is no expense for home assistant, it is not straight forward to set making it a bigger project than most would want,  even bigger if not got a bit of background in computing or know someone that can help.

Once I worked out what was needed and set that up,  it found my two plugs on the network and was up and running quickly.

Going to try the node-red platform and see what people have done with that, the initial setup is much easier I am using it with my heating.

The way these plugs work requires some setup steps to access the data, which is not trivial.
To create a standalone program/app will need digging into the work others have done.


to get an idea I found this which is an example of what the device spit out, there is more, this is just the energy data bit.

{'today_runtime': 740, 'month_runtime': 18675, 'today_energy': 337, 'month_energy': 16210, 'local_time': '2021-08-21 12:23:45', 'past24h': [29, 73, 62, 78, 61, 28, 28, 27, 29, 29, 29, 29, 27, 26, 26, 27, 26, 26, 27, 27, 29, 27, 28, 12], 'past30d': [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 311, 914, 1127, 1690, 1559, 1631, 1683, 1478, 1484, 1347, 837, 833, 979, 337], 'past1y': [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16210], 'past7d': [[61, 61, 61, 57, 62, 61, 61, 62, 63, 62, 63, 63, 62, 63, 62, 62, 62, 62, 63, 61, 61, 61, 61, 61], [61, 62, 61, 62, 61, 62, 61, 63, 69, 32, 32, 58, 32, 27, 73, 92, 75, 75, 74, 71, 70, 71, 69, 71], [70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 70, 71, 71, 78, 72, 64, 69, 44, 58, 82, 30, 49, 38, 33, 25, 24, 25, 24], [25, 25, 24, 22, 24, 25, 30, 25, 26, 60, 48, 61, 38, 52, 43, 53, 53, 50, 31, 25, 24, 24, 24, 25], [25, 25, 25, 24, 25, 24, 26, 27, 28, 54, 56, 45, 39, 42, 55, 66, 40, 46, 28, 28, 26, 26, 27, 26], [26, 27, 26, 27, 26, 29, 27, 27, 31, 76, 52, 69, 63, 29, 73, 62, 78, 61, 28, 28, 27, 29, 29, 29], [29, 27, 26, 26, 27, 26, 26, 27, 27, 29, 27, 28, 12, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]], 'current_power': 40320}

The device stores the data in hourly chunks.
To do the finer resolution tracking you need to capture the intermediate points more often  and plot them.  

This is not top of my list of jobs so i drop into it a bit at time.

BooJewels

Many thanks @getmore4less - I've been watching some vids on setting it up - I think it would be very worth doing if you have a lot of devices you want to either control or get data from, but at the moment, the Tapo app suits my control of the lights I have attached to P100s well enough. There's only my 2 x P110s that it isn't really good enough for the task in hand - I suspect my interest in their data will be moderately short lived and they'll revert to being smart plugs to control lamps, longer term.  It would work well enough for my own purposes if it gave consumption in smaller increments - even 2 decimal places would be an improvement - and allow you to easily reset the device and start again with new data.

But it's a project my son and I could perhaps work on together, if we ever get any quality time together - but when we do, there's always lots of tasks I need help with - he lands to visit me and I present the poor love with a list.  I really should finish some of the projects I already have in progress before finding something new to distract me.  

EssexHebridean

Quick and possibly silly question on the P110 - could I effectively use it as a regular timer switch - for example for setting random timings for lights on/off when we’re away, or for regular timed events like for example powering on our bathroom heated towel rail - we currently use a standard mechanical time switch for this but that can be a faff to alter. We were considering upgrading our mechanical timers for further digital ones anyway - if I could double up with the advantage of energy monitoring as well, and get the info via an app, that would make the small difference in costs well worth it. 

As a point of interest Amazon was showing me a price of £19.48 for a twin pack of 110’s earlier this afternoon. 

BooJewels

Yes you can @EssexHebridean - the P100s are just smart plugs with exactly the functionality you're outlining.  The P110 is the same, but with the added energy monitoring.   My P110s are likely to be reassigned as just smart timers longer term.  They're significantly easier to use and much smaller than some digital timers I got.

I absolutely love their functionality as smart plugs - they're like a mechanical timer on steroids and that you can control from your phone - like a remote control for your devices - and without the annoying sound and time drifting. 

For example, I have 5 different lamps in my lounge - some on the same mains block controlled by a P100, and I have them programmed to come on at sunset and off at 11:30pm.  Today, they'll come on at 18:13 the app tells me.   In the past, on timers, it was a real faff to get behind furniture and change them when the clocks changed.  But I can override my schedule, if I go in there now and decide it's too dark - or put them off earlier. If I'm not going to be in the lounge this evening, I turn some of them off.  I got up early one morning and just lay in bed and popped lights on upstairs from my phone.  You can have different schedules for weekdays and weekends or holiday periods - including an away mode when things switch on and off at random.  I absolutely love mine.

facade

I had a look at the TPLink site, and rather lost the will to live, (I love the "Google turn on the toaster after two minutes" - think about it, they clearly haven't actually tried to use it with a toaster).

I can't find the power rating anywhere, is it 3kW?

BooJewels

I thought that about the toaster and figured maybe I was really out of touch with the latest toaster technology.

Power rating of what - I think the P100 and P110 are about 1 Wh each.

facade

BooJewels said:

I thought that about the toaster and figured maybe I was really out of touch with the latest toaster technology.

Power rating of what - I think the P100 and P110 are about 1 Wh each.

I meant what load can it handle, it plugs into a 13A socket, so it ought to carry 13A, which is just over 3kW.

The specifications at argos  seem to be just "nice and shiny".

I went back to TPLink, if you ignore the hype and click through to the actual product there are specifications, the answer is 2990W, 13A.

I will pick one up.

matelodave

We've got several P100 and one P110 and although we dont use Alexa or Google Assistant they work well as timers, especially on some of our side lights and in the hall where they switch on at sunset and off at 10:30. 

In the summer the lights come on for about ten minutes and now they come on at around ten past six. They were really good with the Xmas lights last year. It saves leaving stuff on and switching can be randomised if you want if you aren't at home. The one feeding my 3D printer allows me to shut it off when it's finished (I can watch progress with a webcam on a raspberry pi)

getmore4less

EssexHebridean said:....

As a point of interest Amazon was showing me a price of £19.48 for a twin pack of 110’s earlier this afternoon. 

Not sure they really have them, ordered Wed promise next day 1pm Thurs,  still waiting.