Anyone got a free energy monitor from eon?

[dennis]

They are giving away energy monitors

to existing and new customers. Anyone recognise which one it is and is it any good?

[Dave Liquorice]

Stupid web site needs flash to see anything other than the basic text. The small image next to "See a demo of the monitor" looks very much like a CurrentCost Envi but it might be a Trec, have a look at currentcost.co.uk.

I have an Envi it works well and squirts TTL level serial data out the back. I built my one TTL to RS232 convertor from the junk box or you can buy a TTL to USB adapter from CurrentCost. Though as Eon supply software one assumes they also supply the USB lead. The data stream is XML and the formating is published. There are various other bits of software available for other platforms.

[dennis]

It looks like the envi to me now I have seen both. I will have to wait and see what its like as I have just ordered one.

[Dave Liquorice]

The image in the "see a demo" flash is of an Envi. Good bit of kit, especially for free. In the FAQ answer to the question "what's in the kit" say it's an "Envi R".

[Dave Liquorice]

Forget to add this. It's a fun thing, I can't say it's saved us any energy but you can use the data to plot things like this:

highlighted the coffee machine which does get turned off a lot quicker now but the cold coffee (but at least it's not stewed) then gets nuked...

[Andy Dingley]

Do you get energy consumption figures from this thing, or just power? It's dificult to accurately integrate from power to energy if the readings are discrete, much better if the device can do it for you continuously and export the integrated figure (which is after all the way you're billed).

[Dave Liquorice]

[Andy Burns]

Anyone had the energy monitor arrive from eon?

I was originally told 28 days delivery, which is now overdue, I contacted them and they said they've extended the delivery period to 90 days ...

[Dave Starling]

I'm not surprised tbh. It quickly got mentioned on the moneysaving websites and this no doubt swamped them with orders. I too ordered one

- as an existing customer it gave the option when you logged in. I haven't seen or heard anything yet either. On the login page it just acknowledges the fact I ordered one.

On moneysavingexpert there is an npower offer of a free fridge/freezer for 900 people. You have to agree to have them monitor the energy usage of it over a year via broadband connection and then its yours to keep. The webpage to sign up was down yesterday but apparently its not on a first come/first served basis. They ask you questions to determine your eligibility for different household types.

[Andy Burns]

Mine arrived today (via royalmail) battery powered transmitter with single phase clamp, 2x cheapo alkaline D cells, receiver/display unit with wall wart, USB cable (looks like it has embedded TTL-RS232 to USB converter), CD of software.

The plastic around the screw holding the battery door had snapped off in transit, but a bit of insulating tape will do, I'm hardly going to send it back ...

[David Hansen]

On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:44:22 +0100 someone who may be Andy Burns wrote this:-

From the photo on their web site it looks like a Current Cost one

seem to under-read the electricity consumption (according to a small sample) but otherwise are fine.

[Andy Burns]

website claims the Envi-R has curved barchart display, like this, which I suppose that must be an Envi-R-MkII

They seem to under-read the electricity consumption (according to a

A quick test with the kettle (rated 2400W at 240V) showed an increase of

2345W, which tends to agree with the under-reading, especially but my voltage is closer 250V

[Andy Burns]

it has icons for gas, oil and water. I did see this DIY project ...

meter seems to have provision for a proper clip-on sensor, rather than using blutack, the Actaris/Itron website doesn't seem to have any details, anyone know of an official gas sensor?

[Andrew Gabriel]

Transco can fit one if you have lots of dosh. It's a box with batteries in it (D cells, IIRC) and provides electrical isolation from the meter connection.

They also have a standard price list item for disconnecting unauthorised circuits from their meter's electrical sensor.

[Bob Eager]

All I need for my gas meter is a camera, some image recognition software (just numerals), and a display! .-)

[Andrew Gabriel]

These devices cannot produce a true power reading - they simply aren't monitoring the right data in order to generate that info. Use them as a rough guide to show increases and decreases in consumption. Some items (such as CFLs), they usually well over- estimate the consumption, but that's due to the strange current waveform a CFL draws. You real meter gets this all right though.

[Andy Burns]

By inspection, it's not an electrical connection to begin with, the meter is "Pulse Ready" with an L shaped cavity and clip arrangement in the lower right corner of the index plate designed to take some form of reed-switch/hall-effect/opto-sensor.

See top of page 3

I'm sure they do ... perhaps blutack *is* the answer ;-)

[Bob Eager]

I'm just going to count the flashes. No connection at all.

[Andy Burns]

Yes, I'd considered using a camera, but the meter cupboard isn't convenient for a USB webcam, and using a capture card with a coax fed camera seems a faff, when the meter is designed with a non-contact pulse built in ...

[Andrew Gabriel]

It's usually much easier than that. There's often a disc or a pointer with high contrast or reflective areas which can be picked up by an optical proximity sensor, and gives you much higher resolution than reading the numbers.