Re: CurrentCost Vs Owl

[James Fidell <james@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

mwgardner2000 wrote:

> Simple question! Which one is the best? Does anyone have a view?
>
> OWL seems popular on here, but CurrentCost seems easier to connect to
a
> PC to extract data which I would like to do.

TBH I don't think there's really much between them.  They both have
features the other doesn't and which one is best for you depends on
how you want to use it.  If all you want to know is your current
(excuse the pun) electricity usage then either will do.  The Owl will
also tell you how much CO2 it thinks the power you're consuming will
generate, the currentcost will give you a bit of historic data.

If you want to get the data into a PC, I'd go for the currentcost.  They
are selling USB connection cables on ebay at the moment for £8, IIRC.
Far less costly than the RFXcom receiver unit, which is the only way I
can see to read the Owl data into the PC.  Personally I've also found
the currentcost easier to grab the data from, as it just spews out
XML packets with all the data in, whereas the RFXcom unit generates
some not very well documented bitstream.

OTOH, if you want it to work with HA software, I think a few packages
currently understand the RFXcom stuff, whereas I'm not aware of any that
read the currentcost data.

I have a second head unit for my currentcost, bought when they were
offering the newer version on ebay cheaply, so I have one on my desk
where I can see it and the other connected to a server in my rack.  One
of the nice side-effects of this is that I can then also track the
ambient temperature in the rack using the currentcost data, though I
guess if anyone were that worried about it they'd have a 1-wire probe
in place anyhow.

(FWIW, I have both the currentcost and the Owl/RFXcom kit hooked up to
a server at the moment and am graphing the data from both as mentioned
in a posting a couple of weeks back.  I also have the second currentcost
head unit connected to an NSLU2 with Linux installed, which is creating
the graphs and punting them up to a website.  I'm still waiting for the
actual RFXcom current/voltage unit to arrive so I can test that.
Fortunately someone else is paying for all this :)

James

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