Hey everyone! I’ve been diving into the world of smart home automation lately, and one of my recent projects has been setting up energy monitoring for different areas of my house. I came across CT clamp sensors and thought they’d be perfect for tracking energy usage in real-time. However, I quickly realized that while they provide live kW readings, accumulating daily or total kWh usage was a bit tricky.
I decided to tackle this by creating a virtual sensor to act as an accumulator. Every 2 seconds, it adds the current kWh value to a running total. The challenge was figuring out how to set this up without overwhelming the system. After some research, I stumbled upon a solution using Home Assistant’s input_number and template sensors.
Here’s a quick rundown of what I did:
- Created an input_number entity to store the accumulated kWh.
- Set up a template sensor to calculate the daily kWh by referencing the input_number entity.
- Configured a time_pattern trigger to reset the daily counter at midnight.
The setup worked like a charm, and I was thrilled to see the daily energy consumption updating in real-time. It’s been a great learning experience, and I’m now more confident in tackling similar projects. If anyone has tips or alternative methods for energy monitoring, I’d love to hear them! 