Workshop Energy measurement = knowing the budget

John Vanderaart

GOOD TOOLS
Everyone knows: good tools are half the battle. And in the case of this workshop, an energy meter carefully selected by HCC is that good tool. It works extremely simple: you place the energy meter between the wall socket and the device on duty to be checked for power consumption. That means you can individually test everything you can plug into that socket: the computer, the monitor, the printer, the router, the NAS, and so on. To really find out how much power such an individual device really uses.

OFF IS NOT OFF
Anyway, a device that does not consume power – correction, a device that cannot consume power – is a device that is not plugged into the wall socket. Once a plug is plugged in, you never know. You would think that a computer without a visible (!) lit LED would not draw power, right? And then the term ‘standby consumption’ must also be mentioned, because that is the leaking use of electricity without benefiting from it. Many devices do not actually shut down and are on standby. For some manufacturers, standby equates to off. That is not true! In the meantime, take a look at the invisible part of the computer, towards the back. Isn’t the Ethernet port LED on there? For the possible Wake on LAN? Furthermore, the power-button not a rock hard switch at all, but a kind soft button which is in direct contact with the motherboard. There are also USB ports where (to charge your smartphone) power always remains, even if the computer is optically switched off. And so on. Yes, all of that – even if it is little – really involves electricity.

It seems so small, but it is big (s): the Woox R6113 smart plug & energy meter

TO WORK
From this moment on, your self-motivation is required, whereby we assume that you have access to the aforementioned tool: the energy meter. And also immediately take an analog notepad and pencil, because there is no Excel at hand if the computer cannot be used. You can control and read this smart plug via WiFi using an app. On the one hand to switch the equipment connected to the smart plug on and off, on the other hand to be able to measure the energy consumption of equipment. Two birds with one stone!

	The current power consumption. It’s up to you to play with it a bit

WOOX HOME
The pivot of this workshop is (in this case) the Android app Woox Home, which can be found in the Google Play Store (but it is also available for iOS). came from the mentioned Woox R6113. After you have registered (with two-step verification), add the smart device. To do this, plug the energy meter into a wall socket. Press the power button and wait for the LED to flash. Make sure that WiFi and Bluetooth are activated on the smartphone.
In the Woox Home app, indicate that you want to add a device and press Auto Scan. The Woox R6113 is then almost immediately found as a ‘Smart Plug with Power’. The app then picks up the (2.4 GHz) WiFi network, for which you still have to enter the password. The app syncs with the energy meter and you are connected after one to two minutes.

GAME ON THE CAR
From this point on, the game is on the proverbial wagon. Everything you are going to do now, research and experiment, runs over the button Electricity. The subsequent screen shows you what the power consumption is at that moment and mentions three items:

• powerwhich is power in watts;
• Currentwhich is current in amperes;
• Voltageor voltage in volts.

Think of two calculations:
(1) Power = Voltage x Current and
(2) Energy = Power x Time.
And it is ultimately the energy that you pay at your energy supplier. So the trick has now become clear in one go: as few watts as possible for as much time as possible!

PLAY WITH THE HARDWARE
In the meantime, let the Woox Home app run for a while, because then a log is built up that tells you at which times you use the most power. And in the meantime you can play around with the hardware. Switch off faster, use less, fall asleep earlier, and so on. The energy meter then tells you online and continuously what is going on. You might also like: you can switch your devices off and on via the internet. Also good to know: you can use multiple Woox devices at the same time.