[Chuck]

Before I got my Vue I installed Solar Panels on my roof, which required an upgrade to my electrical panel.  The Solar installer chose a solar ready box that turned out to be a lot smaller than I thought it would be on the breaker side.  After the solar wires were ran through the box it made it near impossible to install my Vue into the breaker panel.  Although I could have probably done it myself, I ended up having an electrician come out and add a box to mount the Vue in (see photo).  It worked out quite well, but you have to keep something in mind.  The Vue 2 ships with current sensors that have right angle plugs.  This makes it pretty tough to pull these through a 3/4″ conduit to the main panel.  I had originally purchased the 1st generation Vue, and that one had current sensors that had straight connectors, so I used them first.  After that I used the newer ones, except I cut off the plugs to pull them through conduit and then soldered on replacement plugs I bought from Amazon.  You could get around this by using a much larger conduit to connect the external box to the main panel.  Perhaps a 1″ or 1 1/4″  conduit would work.  In any case, this setup works fine for me, although installing the current sensors is a big challenge in this box.  In retrospect I should have asked the solar installer to use a larger box, even if I had to pay the difference from what they originally quoted me.

 

[Chuck]

@msturtz said:

Now the problem, which I think is what your question is actually getting at, judging by the screenshot… On the main screen, it shows Total Usage, and production, and the net of the two. But if you go to Graphs (or tap one of the items on Main), you can only graph Solar, or the Net. You can’t graph just total usage.

 

Actually, in my screenshot it shows MAIN (which in my case is my Total Consumption), SOLAR (which is my Solar Production), and then the APP shows a calculation labeled “Total Usage”, which is a sum of MAIN and SOLAR.  The APP assumes the MAIN is a NET figure, which is why the APP does the calculation TOTAL USAGE = MAIN-SOLAR.  Since SOLAR is reported as a negative figure, it is effectively ADDED to the MAIN, giving you your TOTAL energy consumption.

What *I* would like is for the APP to have an option to designate the MAIN as TOTAL CONSUMPTION (i.e. NOT NET) and change the CALCULATED “Total Usage” to “Net Usage” for those of us who use the Vue in this configuration.

Also, at this time the calculated “TOTAL USAGE” is NOT able to be graphed, it’s just something they calculate and show on the Main page.  However, it would be nice if the APP would allow this figure to be graphed.  It’s wouldn’t require any more storage on the Emporia server, it could simply be calculated on the fly by the APP.

 

[Chuck]

Thanks scrambler, but that was my point.  The app seems to be designed under the assumption that everyone with solar put their CTs BEFORE the Solar tap, so that it reads the NET energy.  Not everyone wants to do it that way (at least I don’t).  I prefer to monitor my total usage and total generation separately, and I was lobbying to have them add an option to the app so the user could specify which configuration they were using so the numbers on the main screen are correctly calculated.

 

[Chuck]

It was doing it to me, also.  I was just about to post a message.  Like you, it cleared up after a while.

[Chuck]

While the Vue Utility was a failure, the Vue Gen2 is great, a big improvement over the Gen1.

That being said, I wish Emporia supported uploading data to PVOutput.  With the Eagle-200 and the information from Enphase I get a very nice picture of my energy production and usage.  Before adding the Eagle-200 I was unable to get my usage into PVOutput.    The Eagle-200 uploads its information (Net usage as recorded by the PGE smartmeter) to my free account on Wattvision, and that is polled automatically by PVOutput.  The data is combined with my Solar generation collected by Enphase and also automatically imported into PVOutput.

If you want to see my site on PVOutput, look here:  https://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=83502&sid=79514

While I have had my Solar since January of 2020, I did not set up PVOutput until late in October of 2020, after I got my Eagle-200, so there is only about 4 months of data there.

 

[Chuck]

Emporia tech support never acknowledged to me it was a known problem, but they did refund me the purchase price of the device without hesitation.  It may be this device was outsourced and they are unable to do firmware updates to fix the problem.  Their market is limited on this device, since it only a select group of utility companies allow it to be connected to their system … I’m sure they sell many more regular Vues and Smart Plugs so their focus is on those products (my opinion only).

 

[Chuck]

I don’t believe the Vue itself stores much data at all.  In my experience, when the Vue looses connection to the Emporia servers for any length of time your actual data is lost and the Emporia servers will just “fill in” the missing data with the last recorded data.  Depending on the power fluctuations in your home you could end up with a small error or large error.  For example, I have a pool.  From 6am to 11am my pool pump runs.  During that time the total load of the pool pump and the pool sweep motors are around 3000 watts.  Let’s say my internet connection goes out at 10:30am and doesn’t come back on until 1pm.  I’m assuming the Emporia server will just use the last figure it was sent (3KW) and fill that in for 2.5 hours.  Of course, the pool pump goes off 11:00am so there are 2 hours 3KW that will show that were really not there.  I know this for a fact because it has happened to me.

To be clear, I understand why Emporia does this and I really don’t have a problem with it.  Like I said previously, even PG&E occasionally will have trouble reading my meter remotely and will just estimate the usage in the time period that was missed.  Most of the time it’s pretty close, but there have been times where I have lost my power for over 3 hours and when I looked on my PG&E account they showed that I used power (estimated, of course) during the time period the power was out.  But they eventually even it out, because the meter keeps a cumulative amount that has to be reconciled eventually.

The Vue Gen2 isn’t perfect, but the figures it gives me are very accurate, even when you factor in the occasional “outages”.  What I couldn’t tolerate before was the Vue Gen1 loosing the wifi connection and not being able to reconnect without a hard reset (i.e. cut power to the Vue).  That was unacceptable.  Also the Vue Utility has a fatal flaw that causes it to go offline every 65 or 70 minutes.  Emporia eventually gave me my money back on the Vue Utility because of this flaw.  To the best of my knowledge this flaw still exists today.

 

[Chuck]

Hello @george98034,

I have since moved on to a Vue Gen2, and it does not appear to have the same Wifi issue the Gen1 had.  In fact, the Vue Gen2 is vastly superior to the Vue Gen1 device.  I have had no issues with it since installing it over 4 months ago.  I highly recommend it.

That being said, if you loose INTERNET (not Wifi) you will loose data during that time.  There is little on-board memory on the Gen2 product so if the internet goes down for longer than a few minutes you will loose the data collected during that time.  This is also true if the Emporia servers are down.  About 2 weeks ago we had some storms go through here and my internet started dropping out because of a Comcast problem down the road from me.  During the time I had no internet the Vue was monitoring the power, but it had no place to send it so that data was lost.  However, nothing is perfect.  Even my PGE meter will sometimes fail to report in and when I look on my PGE online account it will report “Estimated” usage, because they have no real data during that time.

[Chuck]

My experience has been you can clamp the sensor anywhere on the circuit, they do not need to be next to the breaker.  My electrical panel is very tight, so 5 of my 10 circuits I am monitoring use sensors that are located up to a foot away from the breaker.  Everything works fine.

Using an AC clamp meter I can take current measurements anywhere along a circuit and the amperage will always be the same.  For example, for my A/C compressor I can measure the current draw next to the breaker and at the compressor itself (a distance of at least 50 ft) and the readings will be the same.

This would apply to your mains, as well.  However, if you have solar and you install your sensors BETWEEN the solar breakers and the meter, you get a NET reading.  If you install the sensors between the main breaker and your individual branch breakers (as I have) you get your total load and not NET.

Attached is a picture of my install.  You can see several sensors next to the breakers, but there are others located in the box below the main breaker panel that monitor several circuits, including my solar output.  Also note that you can see only ONE main sensor in the picture (I use the optional spring clamps).  The other sensor is located in the compartment just above the main panel, where the main breakers are.  There was just not enough room to put both sensors in either place.  Also note that because my panel is so tight I had an electrician install a nice little box that holds the Vue2 and the associated wiring.  Without this external box there was no way I could fit the Vue2 in my panel.  This setup seems to work fine.

[Chuck]

You might want to take a look at this thread regarding the inaccuracy of the Utility Connect.

Inaccurate Readings from Vue Utility…

[Chuck]

One final update at 4:30pm.

PGE Smartmeter          2.28kw

Emporia Utility             2.57kw

Rainforest Eagle-200  2.28kw

Emporia showing about 12% higher.

 

[Chuck]

Follow up

This morning I checked all three again.  At the time I checked (around 11am) my solar was producing a lot of energy so the number will be negative.

PGE  Smartmeter          -4.44kw

Emporia Utility             -4.43kw

Rainforest Eagle 200   -4.43kw

In this case all three are reading almost exactly the same energy reading.  It would seem the Emporia Utility is more accurate with higher numbers.  I will try and do one last reading later today when my solar production is less and I have more of a load.

 

 

[Chuck]

Even though PG&E said they disconnected my Smartmeter from my Vue Utility I dug it out of my garage and plugged it back in again and it still connected to the Smartmeter.  Apparently the PGE smartmeter will let you connect more than one device at a time.  In any case, since I have two devices that will read the smartmeter, I did a quick test.

Smartmeter = 1.41kw

Emporia Vue Utility = 1.65kw

Rainforest Eagle-200 = 1.41kw

So the Eagle read exactly what the smartmeter readout said, but the Vue Utility reads about 17% higher.  I double checked to make sure the multiplier in the Emporia app was set to 1.0 and it was.  Not sure why the Emporia should read something different than the smartmeter.  I assume the smartmeter sent 1.41kw to the Emporia, so I’m at a loss to understand why it report 1.65kw.

There is not a lot of a load at the moment because it’s 7pm at night.  Tomorrow I will do another test when my pool pump is running and see how they compare at higher energy usage.

 

[Chuck]

Yes, I think every one of the Vue Utility devices has this problem of resetting itself every 70 minutes plus or minus.  You can see exactly what is happening if you plug in the unit into power, wait around 65 minutes and then watch the lights on the Vue.  Within a few minutes you will see the Wifi light begin blinking, indicating it has lost connection.  The light that indicates connection to the meter stays steady.  On my unit, the wifi blinking would take anywhere from 45 seconds to 5 minutes before it would go steady again, indicating it was back online.  During this time the Emporia servers would record a random value over and over again, which makes the reported energy use over time completely inaccurate.  I kept careful records over a period of about 5 months and the daily energy use reported by the Vue Utility was always around 3-5Kwh short of what PGE said the meter read.  I also had an Emporia Vue during this time and it tracked much better with the PGE totals.

My Vue Utility also showed the power “spikes”, which I believe are bogus and could be eliminated in the data collection software used on the Emporia server.  I have since moved on from the Vue Utility and now use a Rainforest  Automation Eagle-200 Energy Gateway that reads my PGE meter and it is spot on, no spikes, no gaps.

As far as showing different power readings than the PGE meter did, I had noticed that too when I used the Vue Utility.  However, I think I used the “Multiplier” in the device management to adjust it to be as close to the actual reading reported by the smartmeter.  In the long run it really didn’t matter because of the 68 minute resets caused the accumulated totals to be so inaccurate that I just gave up.

Now that I have a Vue Gen2 and the Eagle-200 I get very accurate readings and am very pleased.  I have Solar that uses Enphase monitoring so I have started using PVOUTPUT.ORG to graph my power usage & consumption, since both Enphase and the Eagle-200 support automatic uploading of data to that site.  It would be really nice if Emporia would add the ability to automatically upload my Gen2 data PVOUTPUT.ORG as well.

[Chuck]

The stock CTs (200A) that came with my original Vue Gen 1 would barely fit in the space I had available in my panel.  Even so I had to put them BEFORE the solar breaker which gave me a NET energy reading, which is what I didn’t want.  Emporia made available some “slim” spring clamps that worked much better an enabled me to put my CTs between the main breaker and my loads so it would track consumption.  I see they now have “flexible” 200A current sensors that may make it even easier in tight electrical panels.

Yeah, I looked at the data sheets for the ESP32 and I didn’t see any way to easily track down the issue, short of dumping the firmware and reverse engineering it, which is beyond my skills.  Let’s hope Emporia makes an effort to identify and fix the problem, although they don’t appear to be in a hurry to do so (I purchased mine back in April and apparently the problem is still there in the units being sold today).

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