Arlec Grid Connect Smart Switches - With and without Energy Monitoring
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- Опубликовано: 5 авг 2024
- Arlec Grid-Connect Smart Switch unboxing and review
** Links **
Grid Connect: grid-connect.com.au/
Smart Plug at Bunnings: bit.ly/32mpP43
Smart Plug with Energy Metering at Bunnings: bit.ly/3sz6CqA
** Support the Channel**
Buy Me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/HiveMindAuto
** TIMESTAMPS **
0:00 Intro
01:49 Unboxing and First Impressions
05:10 Setting it up
08:16 Adding it to Home Assistant
10:37 Summary
13:34 Outtro
** Helpful Links **
Home Assistant: www.home-assistant.io/
Raspberry Pi: www.raspberrypi.org/
Balena Etcher: www.balena.io/etcher/
Home Assistant for iOS: apple.co/34JATce
Home Assistant for Android: bit.ly/30VUsNh
** CREDITS **
Music: www.purple-planet.com 
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This is an awesome channel mate. Love your content.
Glad you enjoy it! Thanks
I have one and its been great. I use it via the Arlec app so l can monitor the energy flow and daily usage. It has helped me schedule Electric Car charging on night tariff as well. Only wish they would produce a 15amp grid connect smart switch
They do the job they were built for admirably I agree.
I have been curious about a 15A Smart Switch. It would certainly be interesting to see.
I tend to use the built-in timer on the car for EV charge timing, because we've got a Type-2 Charger in the Garage which is far from being smart.
There's a Smart Charging and Vehicle to Grid Charging trial happening in Victoria that we're hoping to take part in, but there's limited places. It would be good to be able to use the car as a home scale battery to store our excess Solar Energy.
Just found your great channel. I just bought a 4 pack of Arlec Grid Connect energy meter switches and they appear to have reduced the size significantly so that they can now sit side-by side.
My question is can they be ganged or grouped so that 2 or more can be switched at the same time with one switch?
Also, my Harmony Elite universal controller unfortunately doesn't recognise or control these, which is what I really need in my home cinema.
Do you know of any WiFi AC switches that can work like that? Tried the TP-Link Tapo P100 alternative and my controller doesn't know that one either.
I'm not familiar with the Harmony Elite, but there is a Logitech Harmony Hub integration for Home Assistant, and then Home Assistant can trigger the Tuya based Arlec Grid Connect Smart Switches.
With the Harmony integrated into HA, you could then trigger scenes/automations in HA from the Harmony Remote.
As for grouping, in the Tuya Smart app you can create device groups easily enough, Or, you can create device groups in Home Assistant too and trigger them in sequences or all at once.
Thanks for the video. I've been using mine to control my instantaneous hot water for a teenager. The GRID app is super limited. I can get it to time off using a count down triggered by watt level going above standby but cant get it to time back on after a different period.
Sounds like you might need a more sophisticated management platform.
Might I suggest Home Assistant?
if you schedule the plug to turn on from 8am to 8pm. What if you got black out and power is back during 8am to 8pm. Will the plug be back to ON status? or it will be OFF?. Thanks
it would be an automation based on the trigger time, not a "Desired State" where it polls with the current state and compares it to the desired state.
By default it will return to the state it was in prior to the power outage. SOME smart switches allow you to define the state you want to return to after power outages, so you can return to either on or off, but the automation won't run if the switch is offline.
Have you looked at the twin outlet arlec smart plug at all, and know if it's Tuya based? To be able to run Tuya local with it would make it a nice jigger
All Arlec Grid Connect gear is Tuya. I've not specifically looked at the dual output unit, but I can confidently tell you it'll be Tuya based.
@@HiveMindAutomation thanks, might grab one and have a play with it then 👌🏼
The Arlec GRID software allows their smart sockets to be used in Scenes and there are options to trigger on Voltage, Current and Power. I've set up a scene to trigger when Power > 0, however the event never gets triggered. Does anyone know if the Voltage, Current and Power events are supposed to work on Arlec smart sockets?
I just solved it. The problem is that the "Power > 0" event can take a long time to fire after you start drawing power through the smart socket. I was assuming it would be more or less instantaneous, however it turns out that it can take over 30 seconds to fire the event.
The refresh rate of most of these devices is pretty slow.
I have used tuya convert OTA on the $17.50 plugs
I also like the look of the wall mount twin wall plugs at $50 from Arlec but havn't got one as yet
Apparently they're using Newer Firmware these days that block TuyaConvert.
@@HiveMindAutomation yes I believe its hit and miss as to which ones you get,
I did two just last month the worked fine.
@@HiveMindAutomation have you looked at the in wall power points, I like the look of them. but as for a youtube video I guess its difficult as technically you need electrician to install them.
I've got a Deta Light Switch to test out, and I might take a look at the GPO's too. I've had some trouble with the light switch with Tasmota, so I might give ESPHome a crack.
is there any better smart plug that can tell the power in $$$ via a app?
I've not seen any Smart plugs that show the consumption in $ Values at this time
When the mains power goes off and then on again, do the units remain off (e.g., lamps off). If one is away for a few days, one wouldn't really want all lamps to be running all day and night?
Just tested this with the Power Monitoring unit, which I'm going to assume means the non PM one operates the same:
The "AC Return" State for the smart switch appears to be OFF. So if you have a power failure, when power comes back on it should not turn everything on.
If you had a smart switch that defaulted to "ON" An obvious solution here would be to setup some advanced automations - say in Home Assistant - to use some presence detection, and if nobody is home, switch the lamps off.
If you're worried about energy consumption, at
No what i am worried about is if one has something electrical - say a fan, heater, or a simple light - and forgets this. They then leave for a week, 2 or 3, and the mains power goes off and eventually back on, the trouble if all items turn on and stay on. Lets look at crazy but not impossible examples - one forgets to unplug even one of these smart plugs, and then goes away to a place where there is no signal (bush cabin), or fly's overseas and forgets, and even unimaginable scenarios - becomes sick in hospital for weeks etc etc. We would not want those electrical items to be left on?!!! Where we live sometimes the power resets and temporarily goes off - especially in windy conditions.
okay, that all makes much more sense. Seems these switches default to "Off"
Some devices allow you to customise the "AC Return" state as well.
The Brilliant Smart Plug with Energy Monitor for example has "Relay Status" settings for Off, On, or "Remember last status" as options inside the Tuya App. I just checked and the Arlec ones do not have this setting available.
I just checked - apparently, the Arlec Grid Connect Black/White Smart Plug have settings for Off, On, or "Remember last status. Set it to off and when power is out and then on, again, it seems to returns to an off state.
Ah yes, I believe those are more or less the same device as the Brilliant plug mentioned above. They look like the exact same device side by side, except for the black option.
Love the video, but could I request that you go into the automation section of the app so we can see what kind of triggers we can set up for the plug, eg. When device status changes trigger turn on/off style of thing
I'll take a look at doing a Deeper Dive of the Tuya Smart App.
Seems very inaccurate - was going to purchase one as it’s not too expensive, but the watts it’s showing does not match up with 247.4x0.03.
There's a couple of things at play here
these cheap commodity units aren't going to be as accurate as a dedicated device designed for energy monitoring and energy monitoring only.
It's only going to give a "Ballpark" figure and I suspect theres some rounding errors in the output data.
The other thing I've noticed is that it lags. Quite a bit.
It can take several seconds to display any changes in voltage, milliamps, and the calculated watts.
If you RELY on the accuracy of the data then I'd look at something else, but if you can live with just a ballpark figure, these would be just okay.
For Home Assistant, the Tuya Integration doesn't store long term statistics so you can't use the data in the Home Assistant Energy Dashboard without adding a Riemann-Sum helper.
This plug is not good at all. After being plugged in for a while, it gets very hot, too hot to be considered safe. I have never had a plug that gets this hot after being plugged in. I don’t dare to use it any longer than this. I don’t trust it at all and feel unsafe.
All my Grid Connect devices have failed.