Each transmitter appears as an "appliance" on your display.  The ENVI supports up to 10 appliances, the first is unnumbered, and the rest numbered 1-9.  To scroll through your appliances, use the up/down arrow buttons.  In most cases, one of the transmitters should be reporting your total electricity consumption (both Light & Power and HydroHeat) and the other any electricity being generated by your solar cells.

This cannot be done as currently installed.  Each "appliance" is really just a distinct channel that communicates with the transmitter(s) in your meter box.  Each appliance corresponds to a transmitter, which measure either your electricity consumption, or generation (if you have PV).  However, if you really would like to monitor the consumption of a particular appliance (e.g. a fridge) you will soon be able to buy an Individual Appliance Monitor.  An IAM goes between the power cord and the mains socket, and transmits to the display.  This will show as an extra appliance on the display.  If you are interested in getting one of these, send us an email and if there is sufficient interest we might be able to get a bulk deal.

Plug the display in, preferably somewhere convenient where it will be easy to see, such as on the kitchen bench.  It should turn on and start receiving data from the transmitter(s) in the meter box.  It will show how much power is being consumed at this instant.  Turn appliances on and off and see how it changes.  It might surprise you to see how much power certain things use!  Try to get the power all the way down to zero by turning everything off.  Can you do it? (It's probably not possible to get down below about 10W - that's just measurement error.)  If not, what could be using power? Try to think of things you can do that will minimise that standby power - perhaps turning off at the wall, or buying special switches to make that easier.

 

Keep an eye on the display over the course of the day, and the week.  With time, you'll get a feel for what your normal power consumption is, and notice when things change.  Think about why that change has occurred (cold weather, visitors, etc).

How do I download data?

A great aid to understanding your home energy use is to download the data from the monitor to your computer.  There are a number of software packages that you can use for this - have a look at the SmartNow site.  Probably the most straightforward is Google PowerMeter - but you'll need an internet connection for this.  To install and use, go here and follow the instructions (please read the help for Google PowerMeter to learn how to use it, before emailing us if you need more detailed help).  Once you've got this up and running, it will show you graphs of your electricity consumption and comparisons with your typical usage.  Although PowerMeter is improving all the time and adding more functionality, if it doesn't do what you want, or if you don't have an internet connection, it might be worth looking at one of the other software packages available.

 
Data can be downloaded in two ways: in real-time, and in history mode.  Real-time download occurs when you have the monitor plugged into a computer and one of the software packages running.  Your energy usage is recorded every 6 seconds.  The ENVI also stores a less detailed history in its own memory.  This consists of averages for every two hours.  It outputs this history automatically at every odd hour.  This can also be initiated manually by holding down the middle and right buttons of the ENVI.  This means you don't need to leave your computer on and plugged into the ENVI, but you lose some data resolution.

No data (or not enough) is being displayed!

A problem can occur when a transmitter (which lives in the meter box) is not correctly "paired" to the display.  THis can result in either no power usage being reported, or either the mains circuit or solar generation being omitted.  To rectify, this, try the following: