An app for good real time electricity monitoring? Hugo? Bright? Loop or what?

lohr500

Literally clips around the insulated live wire from the meter. No electrical skill needed , other that identifying the live wire which should be labelled.

A bit like this one : 



If the heat pump has a single mains cable going to it with live, neutral & earth all bundled in the one cable , then a CT clamp won't work. The live cable needs to be seperate for the clamp to work. (As far as I understand it).

molerat

stripling said:

molerat said:

stripling said:

Is it easy to fit the clamp? Or would I need a spark? I looked at the Shelly EM but couldn't afford the extra £120 call out for our local electrician.. 

The clamps simply clip round the live out meter cable.

Lol... I'm always wary when guys say 'you simply'... As in "you simply copy the GitHub code and blah blah blah... ". 😵‍💫 😂  
 
Thank you. Literally like a clothes peg over the top of the cable? No paring wire covers off or exposing metal or opening boxes? Could I clip it straight onto a heat pump live out? How do I identify the 'live out'? 

Most yes but some are 2 piece and you push the 2 parts together.

Nothing to do with a heat pump, purely for use on a meter.

QrizB

stripling said:

British Gas? I just did a wee search.  They do look antique but may be really helpful if I don't have to risk electrocuting myself. Thank you.

There was a time when you could pick one up for less than a tenner, new in box. Prices seem to have crept up since then, but try not to pay too much!

Some include a USB connection to let you download data. Here's an example (and relatively reasonably priced).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235946288797

FreeBear

Problem with any device that just clips over a cable - It can only ever report the current being drawn. If you want to know the power, you also need to monitor the voltage. For my sins, I use several PZEM-016 and log the data via a small computer every 30s or so. Did use an Eastron device mounted inside a consumer unit, but found it wouldn't register anything below ~5W. The PZEM modules will record 0.4W (maybe less).

If you just want whole house consumption, you could use a Hildebrand Glow - This has the option to send data from your smart meter to a computer where you can log it and display at your leisure.

Phones4Chris

masonic said:

I use Bright, and also signed up for Fuse so that I can download consumption data via N3rgy.

@masonic Does the Fuse app work with any supplier or only if you are with Fuse? How up-to-date can the data be? Is it half-hourly or hourly?

lohr500 said:

I guess it depends how much real time data you need. 

Bright is great if you can live with a few hours delay in the consumption reporting, but no good for real time data. 

Do you still have the original IHD?

Our IHD has never worked since switching to an EDF tou tariff years ago, with subsequent switches to Tomato Energy and UW since.

I ended up buying a cheap 2nd hand wireless real time monitor off eBay for £15 that uses a CT clamp around the meter live wire. It is fine for seeing the real time total consumption.

It depends on how busy Bright's servers (and the DCC) are at any given time. Right now mine and my friend's are both up-to-date to the previous half hour (after doing a quick refresh). At other times it can be hours/24hrs (or even more!) behind.
Hugo, every time I've checked seems to have the previous day in full, whereas switching to today it's about 4hrs behind atm, and I don't find the App as user friendly as Bright.
I've no idea about Loop, perhaps someone who uses it can say.

None of the Apps are any good for absolute "real-time", you'd need a working IHD, one of Hildebrand's gadgets (or similar or an Octopus mini if with Octopus) or a clamp on type device.

TroubledTarts

stripling said:

TroubledTarts said:

What deal did you get with fuse and was it better than trying Cosy with Octopus?

Real time data is via an in home display or Octopus mini which obviously won't work now 

Er yes, I know what/how real time data is and how it works, which is why I'm asking about the apps. 😁

I have been running the 🐙 Compare app in various permutations. The Cosy tariff wasn't going to do me any favours - I don't have batteries or solar and I'm not playing on/off games with my heat pump. 
Fuse beat nearly all of them except for the more lairy deals. It had ok reviews too.
(I started a thread on this last week if you are interested?) 

My apologies new here, didn't know your level or that you have another post already on most of this just replying to what I read and then would have expanded that we moved to cosy, didn't turn off the heat pump, don't have solar or batteries and just setback back during peak and advanced during cheap with other big energy tasks into he cheap windows and averaged 17.3p kwh in our first month on Cosy. House nice and warm 21-23oC. 

Our calculations on a spreadsheet and compare app came out at over 20p kwh but in reality we beat that by a lot once on the tariff and it works well for us.

Scot_39

There are several aftermarket CAD ( consumer access device) type that might give you mini type true real time data if you need it. (10 sec electricity updates etc)

Including Hildebrand, GEO etc - which potentially pair with their own IHD.

See

https://www.smartme.co.uk/meter-data.html

Not sure but the ivie bud / ivy app - may also give relatively real time updates - the snapshot of the app talks about 10 min update - but also shows a reading at 10:58 for a phone at 10:58 - so not sure of the granularity / frequency of data.

https://ivie.co.uk/ivie-app/

Any user here any experience of any of these or other aftermarket solutions ?

masonic

Phones4Chris said:

masonic said:

I use Bright, and also signed up for Fuse so that I can download consumption data via N3rgy.

@masonic Does the Fuse app work with any supplier or only if you are with Fuse? How up-to-date can the data be? Is it half-hourly or hourly?

Oops, meant to say Loop, not Fuse. Fuse is OP's energy supplier. For Loop it's anywhere from last half hour to a couple of hours behind most of the time. It's been the most up to date of any of the services I've used. Though nothing rivals local measurement in real time.

stripling

@TroubledTarts
No worries, no need to apologise. 
I've gone to Fuse Energy now after being with 🐙 for years.  Just need to nail down the monitoring. 

stripling

masonic said:

Phones4Chris said:

masonic said:

I use Bright, and also signed up for Fuse so that I can download consumption data via N3rgy.

@masonic Does the Fuse app work with any supplier or only if you are with Fuse? How up-to-date can the data be? Is it half-hourly or hourly?

Oops, meant to say Loop, not Fuse. Fuse is OP's energy supplier. For Loop it's anywhere from last half hour to a couple of hours behind most of the time. It's been the most up to date of any of the services I've used. Though nothing rivals local measurement in real time.

@masonic
Do you still use Loop? Is it free?  I ask because the IOS app store reviews are a bit critical. 
I have registered with the Bright app but have to wait for it to be processed. The Fuse app says it's connected to my Smart meter - it has the correct ID - but it isn't showing anything yet which is a bit annoying. Fuse customer service say it can take a few days. Dunno why, it was instant with 🐙. 😏