196
Got myself some energy monitoring Zigbee plugs and made an interesting discovery (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 23 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) by lka1988@sh.itjust.works to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
107 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm in the process of getting my Home Assistant environment up and running, and decided to run a test: it turns out that my gaming PC (custom 5800X3D/7900XTX build) uses more power just sitting idle, than both of my storage freezers combined.

Background: In addition to some other things, I bought two "Eightree" brand Zigbee-compatible plugs to see how they fare. One is monitoring the power usage of both freezers on a power strip (don't worry, it's a heavy duty strip meant for this), and the other is measuring the usage of my entire desktop setup (including monitors and the HA server itself, a Lenovo M710q).

After monitoring these for a couple days, I decided that I will shut off my PC unless I'm actively using it. It's not a server, but it does have WOL capability, so if I absolutely need to get into it remotely, it won't be an issue.

Pretty fascinating stuff, and now my wife is completely on board as well; she wants to put a plug on her iMac to see what it draws, as she uses it to hold her cross-stitch files and other things.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 6 points 22 hours ago

If you want to expand from just monitoring a couple sockets to monitoring the whole house; I'd recommend Iotawatt. I've been using one of these to monitor every circuit in my house for a few years now.

You can use the built in webpages shown below to view it's internal graphs, or setup an exporter to feed the data into external DBs like influxDB+Graphana or Emoncms.

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Very cool! However, my house is a rental, so any monitoring equipment has to be somewhat non-invasive.

Edit: it helps if I actually look at the product before spouting nonsense... Looks promising.

[-] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

I'm in a rental too. It's non-invasive; just gotta pop the panel cover off, clip the transformers over the wires without disconnecting them, and put the cover back. It can all be removed just as easily.

[-] JASN_DE@lemmy.world 7 points 23 hours ago

monitors

Don't underestimate the power draw of multiple monitors.

But while you're at it: simply turn off different devices on the same power strip and check what actually draws how much.

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

The PC itself was drawing ~90 watts. The current draw right now - dual 1080p monitors, HA server, a 5-port switch, and a couple other small things - is about 12 watts. Desk power measurement is the yellow line, freezers are the blue line.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 15 hours ago

I love my old desktops that pull almost nothing.

[-] SweetMylk@lemm.ee 5 points 22 hours ago

Does it clock down when idle?

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 1 points 21 hours ago

No idea. I would imagine it does, but that's something I'll need to check.

[-] amorpheus@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago

You can also test if multiple monitors is having an effect.

Using sleep mode is a good idea anyways, regardless of idle draw.

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 1 points 20 hours ago

The monitors are part of a 12W draw left after shutting off the PC. The plug is measuring everything plugged into the power strip that powers all of my desktop equipment. The PC itself was drawing ~90W at idle.

[-] cygnus@lemmy.ca 4 points 22 hours ago

How is it possible that it draws 100W at idle? What is it even doing?

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 1 points 21 hours ago

The PC was drawing ~90W. All solid state, no spinning rust. Lots of fans though, since it's air-cooled. Not entirely sure what was causing the draw, but it's definitely something I want to investigate at some point.

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Check your GPU power usage, I remember seeing people complaining about theirs not clocking down if they had a second monitor plugged in, and similar bugs

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Worth a look. One monitor uses HDMI, the other uses DisplayPort. They're just cheap secondhand 1080p monitors to get me by until I toss them for an ultrawide 1440p unit.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Windex007@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago

I had a similar revelation. Home assistant has a WOL component, so you can set that up for easy starts. I've had mixed success with mechanisms to get HA to sleep the computer, though.

Ideally I want the machine to be sleeping I'd I'm not using it.

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 1 points 21 hours ago

I use Kasm for remote access, I believe that has a WOL component as well. I haven't set it up as such, but I plan to later on.

[-] Windex007@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

If you get a reliable way to sleep a windows machine via MQTT (not sure if that's a route you'd take) but I'd be super interested in hearing about it.

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 1 points 18 hours ago

That'd be interesting, but I don't plan to integrate my PC that deeply into HA, if at all.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Codilingus@sh.itjust.works 3 points 21 hours ago

It will help some, and will also help temps, but AMD hardware does well with undervolting, especially the 5800X3D. I undervolt mine, and read the consensus that - 30 across all cores should be achievable for anyone, unless they're really, really unlucky. My 6800 XT I also only run @ 92% Voltage, and it runs cooler and faster now, too.

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 2 points 21 hours ago

Definitely gonna check that out.

[-] Codilingus@sh.itjust.works 3 points 18 hours ago

The CPU was done in BIOS on an ASUS x570. For me it was under AI Tweaker > Precision Boost Override > Curve Optimizer.

The GPU was done in the driver software on Windows. Or LACT if on Linux.

[-] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 points 22 hours ago

I bought two “Eightree” brand Zigbee-compatible plugs to see how they fare.

Did you need a Zigbee hub to get them working? I was gifted an Eighttree Zigbee plug with energy monitoring, but it seems to require using a hardware hub :(

[-] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Yeah, anything Zigbee needs a hub of some sort that interfaces with the server. Zigbee is a mesh-like network of its own - it doesn't use wifi or Bluetooth or anything.

I bought Nabu Casa's Connect ZBT-1 dongle; it's like $35 and plugs directly into the HA server. Super simple to configure as well, since HAOS detects it automatically. Plus, the smart plugs act as routers, so as long as there is a path of router-enabled devices that can see each other all the way to the dongle on the server, you shouldn't need anything else.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›
this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
196 points (100.0% liked)

Selfhosted

41828 readers
800 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
HybridSarcasm@lemmy.world
HybridSarcasm@lemmy.hybridsarcasm.xyz