After I bought my house a while ago, I wanted to get more grip on my electricity usage. I knew it was higher than average, as I’ve got several equipment running 24/7. I had some z-wave power plugs to monitor some device, yet not al off them. I know someone from tweakers.net, quindor, who’s created his own WiFi LED dimmer. Recently I saw some of his videos about cheap energy meters running on esphome. He wrote a blog about it.
So I ordered some of those smart plugs and used his information to get esphome on it. I must say, they work a lot better and more accurate than the Neocam z-wave I already had. After placing them for my heating, fridge, dishwasher, wash machine and dryer, I noticed that the fridge wasn’t working anymore. So I decided to check what was wrong with the plug.
Meten is zeker weten!
Measuring is knowing for sure
“Meten is zeker weten”, that’s what my teacher used to say (Measure is knowing for sure). So after opening the plug I located the fuse (on the right of the relay) and was fine. After checking all the leads and traces, I wondered if the relay was getting power. And yes, after measuring the pins, there was 5V on the relay. So conclusion: faulty relay.