Inspiration from Masdar, using colored light to show energy stats

Giulio_Giraldi · 2019-02-01T14:50:53.299Z

Hello,

I have an emonpi installed at home, and discovered a great deal of insights about my energy consumption.

I’ve seen a documentary about the city of Masdar, I was impressed with their idea to have a colored light in a position visible from the whole city showing blue color if energy consumption is within range, and red color to show if energy consumption is above.
The idea behind this is that everyone should be always aware of the energy consumption of the system and maybe choose to delay energy hungry activities until the system can afford it, (ie. when they see the light turning blue)

At home I’m having a similar need, I need a super immediate way to make everyone in the house conscious of the real time energy status so they can make informed decisions on how to use electricity (cook, start the kettle, do the laundry, use the vacuum etc.).

I believe that this could lead to significant improvements on our energy consumption and better use of what our panels produce during the day.

A colored light installed in a central position at home would work, but really any other mean would be good too.

Any ideas on how to get that?

thanks,
Giulio

Robert.Wall · 2019-02-01T16:02:04.324Z

The emonGLCD was capable of doing that, but sadly, it is no longer available. But I think it can still be done.

I believe the emonPi has recently been changed to transmit some data via the RFM69CW radio, to use that you would need to add a RFM69CW to an Arduino, then you could use a digital output to drive a LED, or use the same output to switch a larger lamp. You could also add a different graphical display - this post has the details of one that’s been suggested as a replacement:

EmonGLCD replacement Hardware

The EmonGLCD was originally based on the GLCD by JeeLabs here, looks like they still have a kit The JeeLabs Shop - Graphics Board I agree the EmonGLCD was a nice board!

That would also give you a display in numbers.

Alternatively, you should be able to have a script running on your emonPi that takes the values from emonCMS and switches one of the GPIO outputs.

I am not an emonCMS/emonHub/emonPi expert, so I need someone else to help you with the details.

stuart · 2019-02-01T16:20:38.142Z

You can probably do that with one of the many IoT smart home light bulbs commercially available - take a look at Philips Hue - lots on Amazon to pick from.

These can then be controlled over the network, so you could send a command from emonPI to it to control the colour