Home energy management

[sfurman]

I've been trying to monitor my home energy usage.

 

In my fantasy world, each Insteon load controller would measure real power consumed. Since Insteon devices can't do that, I would instead like to associate a (manually-entered) nominal "On" power consumption with each load device.

 

Then I would want the ISY to:

 

• 
  1) Plot power used by a device (or the total power used by all devices grouped within a folder) versus date/time for a specified time period
  2) Plot average power used by device(s) versus time-of-day for selected days of the week
  3) Display a list of devices ranked by energy usage for a specified time interval.
  

 

For bonus points:

• 
  4) Have the ISY use the Brultech to automatically populate the power usage of each lighting device within the ISY's database, by detecting the change in whole-house power consumption when each Insteon lighting controller is power-cycled.
  5) Provide an option to display the ranked list in terms of energy cost rather than energy consumption.
  

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello sfurman,

 

The portal module provides you with most of these capabilities in conjunction with the http://www.check-it.ca portal.

 

You might want to contact them for more information.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[fitzpatri8]

The .com address leads to a parked domain. I think the one you want is http://www.check-it.ca

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Tom,

 

Yes, you are correct and thank so very much!!!

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[fitzpatri8]

That site looks interesting, but it is vague on pricing. Are any lurkers here currently subscribed?

[sfurman]

The portal module provides you with most of these capabilities in conjunction with the http://www.check-it.ca portal.

 

Thanks for the pointer, Michel.

 

The portal website is very nebulous with respect to both minimum hardware requirements and costs, but it appears that they expect one to install either whole-house or branch-circuit monitoring. The primary features I was requesting (numbered 1-3 in my message) would not require any additional hardware - just the ISY and the Insteon devices.

 

I am hoping that someone from check-it.ca is monitoring this forum and can provide more details, such as:

 

1) How does one sign up for an account ?

2) What are the subscription fees for using an account ?

3) Is the energy monitoring performed at the granularity of individual Insteon devices or only at the branch-circuit level ?

3) What is the level of integration with the ISY ? Will the portal automatically import ISY folders/devices ? How do portal rules interact with programs running locally on the ISY ?

4) What are the minimum hardware requirements for access to the different portal features ?

[fitzpatri8]

I'm curious about their offerings as well. I just dropped an email to their sales & support addresses asking if someone can drop by the forum to tell us more about their services, especially in the context of people who already have functioning ISY + Insteon hardware installed.

[jim3342]

Hello All,

 

I apologize for the tardy reply as we have been traveling with several projects across the US and Canada.

 

The portal module will automatically connect to our load balanced servers and avoids the need to enable port forwarding. We have full integration with the ISY including the existing folders/programs/scenes. In addition, we have integration with as many ECM-1240's that are installed in one location. The only requirement is firmware 2.8.4 or higher on the ISY and the module installed. There is no way we can monitor the actual usage of each Insteon device but I believe the question is more related to the running time of each device?

 

We are just finishing our automated activation process for existing owners of the ISY or Brultech ECM-1240 or both. We are happy to offer a free 30 day trial for any existing ISY99 owners to try out the portal module and our energy monitoring/historical trending.

 

If anyone is interested in the free trial to see all the available features please send an email to sales@check-it.ca and someone will help you out.