A P1 sensor. I have recently entered the rabbit hole of home automation. One of the things I care about, is to be as private as possible, so I went for Home Assistant.
A P1 sensor is a small thingumabob that you plug into your electricity meter and it measures electricity and natural gas use. It comes with its own webserver and it integrates seamlessly into my HA energy dashboard. I did not have to subscribe to any cloud service and as far as I can tell, it does not phone home.
You can always wire up an ESP32 with an optical sensor that tracks the blinking of the LED. The meter should state how much energy is represented by a blink. Example project
Yep, I’ve got one of those going already! I’m currently working on improving the power consumption so I can run it off a LiFePO4 without recharging every week.
That sucks. Back here, the company that maintains the electrical grid actively stimulates the people to use such sensors. All in the name of saving energy. There’s even a page with vendors on their website.
A P1 sensor. I have recently entered the rabbit hole of home automation. One of the things I care about, is to be as private as possible, so I went for Home Assistant.
A P1 sensor is a small thingumabob that you plug into your electricity meter and it measures electricity and natural gas use. It comes with its own webserver and it integrates seamlessly into my HA energy dashboard. I did not have to subscribe to any cloud service and as far as I can tell, it does not phone home.
Provided you live in a country that cares about transparency.
My meter has a single LED and a propietary optical connection that claims to alarm the supplier if used.
You can always wire up an ESP32 with an optical sensor that tracks the blinking of the LED. The meter should state how much energy is represented by a blink.
Example project
Yep, I’ve got one of those going already! I’m currently working on improving the power consumption so I can run it off a LiFePO4 without recharging every week.
That sucks. Back here, the company that maintains the electrical grid actively stimulates the people to use such sensors. All in the name of saving energy. There’s even a page with vendors on their website.