Smart Electrical Panels, Yes?

[tangent]

Yeah Those Arc fault breakers are junk. They get very hot compared to traditional GFI breakers or regular ones. I've had to replace a ton of them between 2019- current. My parents house had Seimens breakers which they had a recall on I believe.
I personally feel they should have left ARC in the bedrooms instead of expanding the code through the house.

I haven't had the best track record with Siemens AFCIs. Lightning and other power spikes seem to have killed a couple of mine.

Had to replace our Eaton ARC Breakers; they would trip way too easily, actually one circuit, our Master Bathroom was tripping all the time, it was a pain getting up at night with no lights. Ended up unplugging everything off the circuit, replaced all the plugs/switches, still had false trips. I contacted an Electrical Supply and they said the first generation of most all brands of ARC breakers, not just Eaton, were designed bad, I bought new Eaton ARC breakers and never had any problems after that. Should of replaced in the first place but since the others only tripped maybe once or twice a year I focused on the Master Bathroom tripping monthly.

I thought Eaton's AFCIs had a decent reputation. BR or CH?

If I were choosing right now, I'd probably go Square D. Just a debate between QO and Homeline.

 

[tigerwillow1]

Yeah Those Arc fault breakers are junk.

A bunch of years ago I decided to test the AFCIs in our house. I plugged in a cord with stripped ends and did all sorts of sparking them together, never could get the thing to trip.

 

[tangent]

A bunch of years ago I decided to test the AFCIs in our house. I plugged in a cord with stripped ends and did all sorts of sparking them together, never could get the thing to trip.

I will say I've gotten my share of legit trips out of my siemens AFCIs. Also, if you short neutral to ground they should trip.

 

[David L]

What I hear the most is Hair Dryers and Vacuum Cleaners like to trip the ARCs most...Maybe a Blender too , definitely would not want these in a Work Shop...

Funny story, had a girlfriend that had a Sparker of a hair dryer, you could light a cigarettes from the sparks coming out the side of that thing, LOL Of course we called it Ole Sparky, this was before GFCI and ARC breakers...

 

[David L]

Why millions of Americans give up control of their thermostats

HOUSTON - Last September, in the final days of what was then the hottest summer in human history, scorching temperatures threatened to knock out the Texas power grid. As air conditioners around the state strained to keep homes and businesses cool in 100-plus-degree heat, the state’s grid...

www.yahoo.com

To my understanding, or I can speak for Nest since we had a Nest Thermostat in our old house, if you sign up for the Energy Saving program,. think they offer $25 , then you are giving them control your thermostat. Here I have a Z-Wave Thermostat, no WiFi Thermostat for anyone to take control of.

 

[Teken]

As it relates to AFCI / GFCI and lightning. Everyone knows these devices are extremely expensive and depending upon when you first received them.

The performance and quality vary quite a bit as was the case for GFCI’s years past. With endless stories of nuisance tripping on everything!

I personally have never experienced a false trip on a GFCI.

Nor have I experienced the same on my AFCI besides a real breaker trip due to a portable AC unit drawing too much current during the height of the heat wave!

Regardless, a tiered SPD system that is properly Earth grounded to the single point must be in place especially if we are talking about these so called Smart Breakers!

Type 1-3 are the minimum in any home / commercial building. Industrial / Enterprise should have Type 1-4 in place along with the proper insurance coverage.

Lastly, pay special attention as to what type of loads these Smart Breakers are designed to handle.

There are breakers that can (Dim) the load. Same with any dimmer it can’t be used on standard motors or none dimmable light fixtures.

Those who are heavy in HA know the pains of LED and dimming! You don’t want to endure flicker, pulsing, strobing, hum / buzz just because you installed a very expensive smart breaker.

Worse, light your house on fire because the breaker is trying to dim a motor / fridge, freezer, sump, insert whatever!!

 

[spuls]

i would build a good old breaker box in the classic way and put in a system like iotawatt: IoTaWatt Stuff

works also with any actual smarthome solution like home assistent.

 

[David L]

i would build a good old breaker box in the classic way and put in a system like iotawatt: IoTaWatt Stuff

works also with any actual smarthome solution like home assistent.

In their Documents it is saying it requires an Internet connection, is this to a cloud? Or is this just Time setting or config. utility? Updates? If it can operate without being connected to the Internet then it looks like a good choice...

 

[spuls]

you can use an external service if you want, but it just works fine without any external service or internet.

Open system, private data.

It's not that other energy monitors are bad, but they are different in that they are mostly closed systems that provide limited data and require that you use their cloud and phone app platforms. IoTaWatt collects many more metrics and stores that usage history locally. With it's integrated web-server you can manage setup, view real-time status or create detailed graphs using the browser on your computer, tablet or phone. It's your data, in your own home, and subject only to your own privacy and retention policy. You don't need the cloud to get a handle on your hot-tub, EV, solar or heat-pump.


IoTaWatt can, however, easily upload usage data to any of several third party databases with associated apps and analytic tools. For instance PVoutput is a free service that connects easily with IoTaWatt and provides world-class solar energy analytics. There is full support for uploading to influxDB. There is also an API interface for those who want to query data for their own applications or to use in spreadsheets, and there are integrations available for home automation software like Home Assistant.