#Untracked energy

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

ionic whale
#

Hey folks.

I realise the answer to this may well be "no idea", but figured I'd ask anyway in case someone has some ideas.

In my home, I have two consumer units, downstairs and upstairs, I name my circuits DXX (downstairs) and UXX (upstairs). Every single circuit is monitored by an esphome flashed emporia vue. Every device that is tracked has its upstream device set to one of the clamps.

I still seem to get a lot of untracked usage. Is it just going to be because CT clamps are inaccurate? Perhaps it's power loss over the length of the cable? Or is there something I can be doing better here?

Thanks 🙂

Screenshot_2025-06-10_at_11-50-31_Overview_Home_Assistant.png
#

I do also get some bizarre data, eg it often claims that the circuit my living room lights are on consumed negative energy. Maybe it's something to do with:

Device 1: Living Room / Kitchen lights (Emporia Vue Clamp)
Device 2: Living Room Lights (Downstream of Device 1)
Device 3: Kitchen Lights (Downstream of Device 1)

If Device 2/3 reported higher than Device 1, would that result in negative untracked consumption? 😕

dusky wharf
#

You are tracking every device behind the upstream device individually in HA?

ionic whale
#

I don't have every single device in the house tracked individually, so I expect untracked usage on some circuits. But the devices that I do track are downstream of a vue clamp in all cases. (Apart from an EV charger, which is currently unused)

#

So for example, I'll have:

D03: Garage Sockets
And then Dryer, Washing Machine, Server Rack are all on that circuit, so they all have upstream set to D03. But, there are also other devices on D03 that I don't have individual tracking for

#

That's why I also mentioned living room / kitchen lights as an example, because in that case, every single device on that circuit is individually tracked:

D14: Kitchen / Living Room Lights (Vue clamp)
Kitchen North/Middle/South/Lamp are all SM323s with energy monitoring
Living Room North/South/Lamp are all SM323s with energy monitoring

So in that case, there should be no untracked energy, but I guess I expect some because the two devices should never be 100% equal

ionic whale
#

Can definitely see at least part of the problem, the docs for the vues say:

To calculate new calibration value use the formula <in-use calibration value> * <accurate voltage> / <reporting voltage>

I calibrated to garage input voltage, but clearly, one of the 3 things are lieing here, and I'd expect all 3 to be well calibrated (ones a solar inverter, the other 2 are APC UPSes)

2025-06-10T1232537581165430100.png
dusky wharf
#

could just be voltage drops across the lines between the measurement points. Best to measure voltage close to the device itself, with a multimeter or something

ionic whale
#

I thought this, but that's a ~1.2% difference best case, a calculator online says that 2A over 20 meters should drop 0.028%, which is obviously very different

ionic whale
#

I have an idea what might be causing it.

Some of my devices, like my heat pumps, only report in 0.1kwh increments, while the heat pump itself is on a circuit.

If the heat pump in a given room is off (which it often is), then it will rip power, less than 0.1kwh per hour.

So, at some point, that 0.1kwh has to tick up.

Meanwhile, the vue has been monitoring the circuit.

could explain it 🤷

jolly wyvern
#

also, your devices may not be reporting immediately when power usage changes. how often do the clamps send updates?

#

if a downstream device reports increased power draw before the clamp does you would end up with untracked energy being negative

vague thorn
vague thorn
slim topaz
#

That's a custom card

vague thorn
vague thorn
#

I'm trying to make my power page better but I don't know what cards are out there

ionic whale
ionic whale
vague thorn
ionic whale
vague thorn
ionic whale
#

Funny enough, I also have APC UPS's, are you using NUT or APCUPSd?

vague thorn
#

nut

#

my energy page looks like this. I don't know how to add the fancy graphs like on the original HA page or what I've seen others do

ionic whale
vague thorn
#

I tried an automation but it was still stuck at every 60 seconds even through I tried to do every 10 seconds

ionic whale
#

but with just a UPS, surely you don't have any of the data needed to have a page like mine, I have grid monitoring, solar monitoring, individual devices everywhere, etc etc

vague thorn
#

no, I only have grid

image.png
#

that's what my page looks like

#

I'm trying to make it look prettier but I have no idea what exists out there. Still new to HA

ionic whale
#

I'm not sure I'd define that as a WTH, this is home assistant, make your own dashboard. I don't use the stock energy dashboard, mine is my own dashboard

#

😄

vague thorn
#

That's what I'm trying to do lol. I jsut don't know what my options are or how to do it. I was only just able to figure out that little live watt meter that you have but no graphs

ionic whale
#

what do you want to graph?

vague thorn
#

kind of like that. HA's built in card only updats every hour and I wanted to see more grandular data

vague thorn
ionic whale
vague thorn
#

I would have never guessed the name of the second

ionic whale
#

I know because I'm using them myself 🤣

vague thorn
#

oh lol

#

no visual editor? damn

ionic whale
#

yep, apexcharts are pretty advanced user territory, home assistant does have simpler cards like statistics graph, but obviously less flexible

vague thorn
#

I'm surprised there is no visual editor

ionic whale
#

I'm not, it's just passing through ApexCharts.js, and tbh that's a good thing

vague thorn
#

ah

ionic whale
#

example of another one of my pages, can see I make a lot of use of apexcharts 🤣

2025-06-10T1834242050492270100.png
vague thorn
#

would you mind helping me out with it?

ionic whale
#

Sure, maybe drop me a DM though so we aren't relentlessly pinging the people in this thread 🤣