Real time energy monitoring

MouldyOldDough

I am with Octopus and noticed that the Smart Meter Display is usually inaccurate - it is a few hours behind and the amounts shown are wrong - it generally corrects itself by the next day.

Is there an app that I can use to show accurate REAL TIME usage ?

bagand96

Ask Octopus for a Home Mini https://octopus.energy/blog/octopus-home-mini/

matelodave

You can get whats called a CAD - Customer Access Device which communicates with your meter, heres one from Hildebrand - https://shop.glowmarkt.com/products/display-and-cad-combined-for-smart-meter-customers or AFAIK there's a CAD from Chameleon.

The Octopus home mini is a similar device but I dont think it has a screen it uses wifi to send data to an app on your phone

My IHD gives me instantaneous consumption and todays cumulative consumption as well as history in hourly chunks back to midnight. It also gives daily weekly and monthly history going back around 13 months in varying degrees of granularity., The Bright app that I use, can give me half hourly data going right back to November 2020 although it only updates once a day so although I can see what I used in half hour chunks yesterday I can't see today until tomorrow.

There are other similar apps that get data from the DCC but it will only be in 30min chunks and will only be as up to date as the data gets transferred, probably only once a day. 

FreeBear

matelodave said: The Octopus home mini is a similar device but I dont think it has a screen it uses wifi to send data to an app on your phone

Octopus claim (as I recall) electricity is updated every 10 seconds and gas every 30 minutes. There will be some lag as data is transferred to the meter, then on to the Octopus server before getting updated on the app. Delays should be minimal (like under 1 sec)...  All well and good until the internet or the server goes down.

The_Green_Hornet

matelodave said:

You can get whats called a CAD - Customer Access Device which communicates with your meter, heres one from Hildebrand - https://shop.glowmarkt.com/products/display-and-cad-combined-for-smart-meter-customers or AFAIK there's a CAD from Chameleon.

The Octopus home mini is a similar device but I dont think it has a screen it uses wifi to send data to an app on your phone

My IHD gives me instantaneous consumption and todays cumulative consumption as well as history in hourly chunks back to midnight. It also gives daily weekly and monthly history going back around 13 months in varying degrees of granularity., The Bright app that I use, can give me half hourly data going right back to November 2020 although it only updates once a day so although I can see what I used in half hour chunks yesterday I can't see today until tomorrow.

There are other similar apps that get data from the DCC but it will only be in 30min chunks and will only be as up to date as the data gets transferred, probably only once a day. 

I also have the Hildebrand Glow CAD and the Bright app shows half hourly (and minute) data in real-time.

Sea_Shell

My IHD sometimes gets out of sync with actual historic gas use.

The days can suddenly duplicate/shift.   Did this with Eon too, so not an Octopus issue as such.

They usually sort themselves out again.

Phones4Chris

matelodave said:

You can get whats called a CAD - Customer Access Device which communicates with your meter, heres one from Hildebrand - https://shop.glowmarkt.com/products/display-and-cad-combined-for-smart-meter-customers or AFAIK there's a CAD from Chameleon.

The Octopus home mini is a similar device but I dont think it has a screen it uses wifi to send data to an app on your phone

My IHD gives me instantaneous consumption and todays cumulative consumption as well as history in hourly chunks back to midnight. It also gives daily weekly and monthly history going back around 13 months in varying degrees of granularity., The Bright app that I use, can give me half hourly data going right back to November 2020 although it only updates once a day so although I can see what I used in half hour chunks yesterday I can't see today until tomorrow.

There are other similar apps that get data from the DCC but it will only be in 30min chunks and will only be as up to date as the data gets transferred, probably only once a day. 

Not so I'm afraid. You can (try to) refresh the data at any time, either by a downward swipe on the relevant screen, or going to Settings, bottom of the page, "REFRESH DATA".
Now, a note on "try to". How quickly it actually updates will depend on a number of things, usually how busy Hildebrand's servers are, then DCC and Network. Sometimes a whole or part day can be missing and you then have to wait for their systems to do a "catch-up". This doesn't happen very frequently, it's usually pretty well up to date, often within hours of real time if not actual. I also suspect that sometimes it may also depend on region if comparisons with others are anything to go by.
For example, after a refresh I have today's data upto inc. the 0200 bucket but a large gap after the first 3 buckets to the last for yesterday, the rest of the week being complete. Earlier in the week everything updated to the nearest bucket.
Checking with a friend, different region, he's got everything from Friday 1300 missing and earlier in the week had Tuesday missing (now caught up). However using n3rgy, he's fully up to date until midnight.
As I said, this doesn't happen that frequently, but can do.

As far as the IHD goes, I get instantaneous consumption (standard 10 second delay) for electricity. Can't comment on gas - no smart meter but would expect it to be the standard 30 minutes behind. The only time I've found the IHD to "get confused" is in the first half hour of a new day (0000-0030) after which it's fine, can recover similar data to @matelodave

Edit: make sure your IHD has adequate signal, if weak, it can lose info until the signal picks up.

matelodave

Interestingly - its now just after 9am on Sunday 25th and there is no data on the Bright app for either Friday 23rd or yesterday 24th but complete 30 minute  data for today from midnight to 08:00.

Phones4Chris

Just refreshed mine, Saturday now complete and today right upto the 1330 bucket.
My friend still has nothing from 1400 Friday on Bright (he was ok upto midnight on n3rgy last night).
Probably doing lots of server work, and of course they'll give priority to their CAD customers.