#Dryer monitoring

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

sonic cove
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Looking for a way to monitor when my dryer is running so I can send a notification when it’s done. For context, I’m in the US so the dryer is plugged in to a larger 240v higher amperage plug, so a normal smart plug doesn’t work for this purpose.

I got a ThirdReality vibration sensor, but even at the maximum sensitivity my dryer doesn’t vibrate enough to trigger it consistently. Any thoughts on other things I could try?

Requirements:

  1. Ideally able to monitor power directly (but ok with monitoring proxies as long as they’re responsive enough, like vibration)
  2. Don’t particularly care about control, so don’t need a switch, just a monitor
  3. No modification to the cable or unit since its a rental
fleet drum
sonic cove
silver gorge
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These are OK if you get a zigbee one. Basically a Zigbee CT clamp.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805583985176.html
Then you monitor the current and watch for when it is on and off.
https://github.com/SirGoodenough/Home-Assistant-Config/blob/6a8a0c95406dd218dac1f7ec0e27350c19d7d030/templates/trigger/Machine_Status.yaml#L50
For the sensor and this for the automation
https://github.com/SirGoodenough/Home-Assistant-Config/blob/6a8a0c95406dd218dac1f7ec0e27350c19d7d030/automation2/Basement_A2.yaml#L40

fleet drum
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the shelly EM is also a popular option.

sonic cove
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To clarify, my confusion is more about where this is installed and where the probes go

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Would this be at the breaker box level

fleet drum
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it could be but it doesn't have to be, it can be at the device. however to be fair if your asking these questions it might not be the route for you (or at least not without an electricians help).

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trying to find a more sensitive vibration sensor and/or changing its placement to somewhere that vibrates more

mellow gazelle
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Maybe a micro switch on the flap of the drier vent?

tacit grotto
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I have an energy monitoring system and can confirm that it works well, but that being said, if you don't know what you're doing, please keep your filanges out of the breaker box.

kindred falcon
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I just use a wifi plug adapter (tplink tapo thing) with power monitoring. Allows me to power off the dryer and washing machine completely (one plug for each) so I dont have standby consumption too.

fleet drum
stable mason
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1>agreed , 2>agreed even more, 3>agreed

kindred falcon
# fleet drum 1. if you read the initial post it says why a smart plug is not an option in thi...

I have to disagree with you on 2. When you turn on or off a dryer or washing machine it is under very little load - it's not like it suddenly runs the motor or a heating element (unless its some industrial always on thing?). When there are high loads the relay will be closed and there is little chance of arcing.
As for 3 - they have been troublesome sometimes but the integration is marked as Platinum - does whether devices are actually usable have any bearing on this rating ?

fleet drum
# kindred falcon I have to disagree with you on 2. When you turn on or off a dryer or washing m...

you are right about the main risk comes from switching under load. however the magnetic field from AC (specially with inductive load noise) can sometimes cause false relay switches. also if something goes wrong in software etc... accidently turn off the relay and it burst into flames (yes I am probably exaggerating a bit but stranger things have happened)

the integration quality scale details can be found HERE but its mostly to do with the integration itself and its documentation rather than the hardware. tp-link are actively messing messing with stuff and proving they cant be trusted. which is not the fault of the integration.

Integration quality scale | Home Assistant Developer Docs

The integration quality scale is a framework for Home Assistant to grade integrations based on user experience, features, code quality and developer experience.

sonic cove
tacit grotto
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I presume you're talking about their smarthome stuff, because I've heard nothing but praise about their network hardware up until now.

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As a matter of fact, I have a few of their network components in my system and have never had any issue with any of them

fleet drum
# sonic cove What r they doing lol

you have to log in to their app and switch on "3rd party control" so when the device gets a local command and it checks with its server to see if its allowed to accept it then it works. although sometimes it doesn't work anyway. also they will randomly switch it off and you have to go back and switch it back on.

on some of their devices if they cant talk to their server it will reboot every 10 minutes.

loads of random stuff like this is getting added slowly. they are slowly making it harder to use. and eventually may just make it impossible to use. thats why i encourage people to not buy and to move away from existing devices when convenient.

fleet drum
fleet drum
tacit grotto
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Never touch that stuff anyways. We have a saying where I come from that goes "Cobbler, stick with your tacks and leather", and TPlink has always been a networking company first.

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I'm not at all happy that suddenly everybody seems to think they can do anything.

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Philips hue does security and cameras, switchbot does robovacs, tplink does smart home, what's next?

fleet drum
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they launched tapo and it didnt do too well so they bought kasa out and bascically made the tapo stuff a worse version of kasa with more cloud. now they are phasing out the kasa branding alltogether.

tacit grotto
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Yeah, like that ever worked out in the long run...

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Amazon bought out ring and blink and ruined both.

fleet drum
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to be entirely fair. they now have a matter version which might be better as its the matter stuff keeps it local. but some places are trying to lock some features behind their app even still.

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e.g. you can switch on/off by matter but power monitoring is by their app only
or something like that.

tacit grotto
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It's always the same. Little startup creates something great, grows bigger, gets bought out and turned into just another money cow.

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It is to weep.

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I think I'm going to eliminate tuya from my system next. Never been too happy with relying on their cloud services.

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As soon as I find some power metering switchable plugs that work entirely locally.

fleet drum
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we have double tangent hijacked this thread at this point though 😛

tacit grotto
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We're still KINDA talking about power monitoring and stuff 😉

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It's just how it is. If you ask a bunch of greybeards a question, they'll get into an argument and you just have to sit there and listen, and try to glean what you can.

sonic cove
sonic cove
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Where else would you expand

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When the shareholders demand unlimited growth

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Nobody is ok with just making consistent ARR anymore

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I just wish it didn’t come with the loss in quality

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I don’t care if Philips does security / cameras if they work well yknow

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But it feels like a lot of companies want to have a product in every space

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Even half baked products

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I think to some degree that’s one of the few things I can respect Apple for

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Like, at least their products can be relied on to work

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And they only really release things that are ready for mainstream (well, except Vision Pro 😂)

hot shore
sonic cove
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it has neither

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it just has a timer on a spring that rotates slowly until it reaches 0

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and a press button to turn it on and start the timer

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i guess it would be possible to proxy the state of the dryer based on those but i prefer a concrete method of knowing when its running vs not running

hot shore
sonic cove
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Anyway FYI I found a different solution

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The aeotec multipurpose sensors seem to be a lot more sensitive

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Not configurable afaik and it does occasionally pick up movement

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But with enough tuning I was able to find a good threshold for saying “dryer is running”

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Basically just, did the sensor read vibration for more than 80% of the past 5 minutes

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Seems like the behavior is roughly, every time vibration is detected it switches to On for like 10 seconds

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And it stays on so long as any more vibration is detected in the past 10 seconds

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After investigating I feel like the “best” vibration solution probably involves an esp board with a vibration sensor or accelerometer that you can read raw values off of and do your own processing (like a FFT or something)

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To tune it exactly to your appliance

sonic cove
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Unfortunately the only issue is that it’ll never be as responsive as a custom solution or just monitoring power, since you need to have some kind of “average” over time to make sure you don’t trigger on false positives

rocky tundra
rocky tundra
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So when it changes from 0 Watts to let's say 80 Watts I know it's working

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And the same to know when it has finished, if it does not has power consumption for 5 minutes

tacit grotto
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their stuff works 90% of the time, but no more. And whenever you need a replacement part, you find they've discontinued that product

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I'm not getting into thread either. So far the only thing the ha website has to say on thread border routers is essentially "buy our stuff", so until that's developed into a true ecosystem where I have a choice of products, no touchie.

rocky tundra
tacit grotto
rocky tundra
stable mason
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most dutch ikea plugs do power meter

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running automations for that

rocky tundra
# rocky tundra I'm in Spain, and then I'm very lucky, no problem with plugs or door sensors. I'...

Mira este/a INSPELNING de IKEA

Aquí tienes un poco más de información:

Enchufe macho, inteligente/monitor de energía

https://applink.ikea.com/tY8M9r9M4w--00569836--es--es

IKEA
INSPELNING enchufe macho, inteligente/monitor de energía

INSPELNING enchufe macho, inteligente/monitor de energía Controla cualquier electrodoméstico a distancia con este enchufe inteligente. Con las funciones de control de energía, te resultará más fácil saber tu consumo eléctrico y ajustar tus rutinas diarias para ahorrar energía y reducir las facturas.

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And I also use a lot of Ikea ZigBee remotes, and no problems, integrated in HA 🤷‍♂️

stable mason
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i find that ikea produces reliable hardware compared to e.g. aqara or even worse, Tuuuuyaaah

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but might differ per country

rocky tundra
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Yes, cheap, reliable and of good construction quality

stable mason
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if zigbee is running, it runs.. interference is the enemy here

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e.g. peoples not using extension cables or plugging it in the usb3.0 port. Especially the pi is a known source for interference

rocky tundra
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Well, I always say that I live in a flat, in a crowded area, lot of WiFi everywhere and as of today, zero problems with ZigBee

proud heath
rocky tundra
tacit grotto
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The mystery of the Ikea plugs is solved. They actually sell two different kinds that look absolutely identical, and for some reason they only displayed one of them on the website. Maybe they got confused themselves.

stable mason
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hehe

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Könvuzett by IKEA

tacit grotto
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... It's called INSPELNING here..😖

stable mason
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Gesundheit 🙂

tacit grotto
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No, that's the other one without the power metering.

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Why they even DID make two that are only 2cu apart in price is utterly beyond me...

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Anyway, time to find out if it will chooch...

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And it does! It even has a built-in power sum counter. I won't even have to create an integral sensor to compute daily usage. Happiness!

stable mason
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this one does power metering tho

tacit grotto
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You sure someone didn't stuff the wrong one in the box in the shop or something? Did it report as Tretakt when you first installed it? Because the Tretakt don't do that.

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Unless they NAME them differently in different countries too...

stable mason
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well, since it is ikea... nope, mine is the tretakt

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just looked to be sure 😉

tacit grotto
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See? THAT is why I normally try to stay away from Ikea.

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Anyway, I'll test this one for a few weeks and see how it performs.

stable mason
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i didnt know that other countries would have the same name and diff options... lol

tacit grotto
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Just where in the world are you mate?

stable mason
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dutchie

tacit grotto
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That makes no sense at all, we're neighbours.

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In retrospect, I should have tossed a Tretakt in the basket just to test it.

stable mason
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tretakt and inspelning here..

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so weird, ai says tretakt no power metering... haha just getting weirder.. so maybe misprint or diff firmware thingie

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wait, maybe im wrong, re-checking..

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i am mistaken... previous photo was a diff plug. Confirming tretakt has no power metering...

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so you're 100% right..

tacit grotto
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Wait you believe the AI but not me? I'm hurt!

stable mason
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oh lord what have i done lol

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was looking at the wrong plug in z2m 😉

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soooo sorry neighbour

tacit grotto
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It's called confirmation bias. If you're convinced of something, your brain will do strange things to make it be true.

stable mason
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bet ya

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de or be?

tacit grotto
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de

stable mason
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200 meters from be and 200 meters from de, then you know where..

woeful prawn
# sonic cove Looking for a way to monitor when my dryer is running so I can send a notificati...

What is the maximum current? I think the plug without a relay below might be suitable for you.

https://www.athom.tech/blank-1/no-relay-consumption-monitoring-eu-plug-for-esphome

AthomTech
No Relay Power Monitoring EU Plug for ESPHome | AthomTech

No Relay ESPhome EU Plug , Automatically detect by Home AssistantNo Relay HLW8032 consumption monitoring chipset build in, NO calibration neededSuitable for monitoring the energy consumption of devices that are continuously powered on The measurement error of active power about 0.2%The measurement error of effective current is 0.5%The measureme...

woeful prawn
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The advantage of using the non-relay version of the plug is that you don't have to worry about the relay malfunctioning and rendering the device unusable.

stable mason
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If the load does not exceed 3500 watts at peak moments (heating), it will be safe to use. Max load stated as 3680watt, but always take a safety margin.

woeful prawn
tacit grotto
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Wow. Useful. Didn't know such a thing existed. I'm ordering two for my refrigerators right away.

hot shore