Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between power and energy?
power is measured in Watt (W) and represents the instantaneous power your device is consuming. energy is measured in kWh or Wh and indicates how much power is used over time. When you have a device is 1000 Watt and you leave it one for one whole hour you have used 1000 Wh or 1 kWh. Powercalc also uses this terminology to name your sensors. It creates a _power and _energy sensor by default.
Why is no power sensor appearing for my light?
Make sure you have powercalc: entry added to your configuration.
Check if your light model is in the supported models list)
Check the HA logs for errors
My light is in the supported model list but not discovered. What can I do?
Powercalc scans your HA installation for all devices having a manufacturer and model information. It tries to match this information against the model_id and aliases shown in the supported models list. Some integrations return different product codes / model id’s for the same light which may cause a mismatch. For example Hue and Zigbee2Mqtt. To have a look at which model was discovered by powercalc you can enable debug logging. Now look for the lines Auto discovered model (manufacturer=xx, model=xx) in the logs, and see if the model id matches. When it does not match something powercalc known an aliases might be added. You can create an issue for that or better yet provide a Pull Request for the changes.
I don’t see energy appearing in the energy dashboard, why is that?
It can take up to an hour for HA to gather statistics for the energy sensor. So when it is not appearing immediately just wait for a bit.
How can I setup an energy sensor for a device which has no entity in HA?
You can use /daily-energy for that.
My device is not supported, what can I do?
The built-in power profiles in powercalc are created by taking measurements using a smart plug. These profiles are submitted by the community, and the actual hardware (light, switch, smart speaker) is needed. Powercalc includes a script to automate this process. To run this script you’ll need the bulb itself, a smart plug , some technical affinity and some time. See Measure for some documentation how to do this.
When you can’t contribute for whatever reason you can request a new light model on the discussion section. However it is no certainty if and when it will be added.
Alternatively you can use the Fixed or Linear modes for manual configuration to get an approximation.
Why does Powercalc create additional power sensor for my smart plug?
Powercalc provides profiles for some smart plugs which don’t provide their self usage. Even though their consumption is very small, they will add up to your total consumption in your house. So you’ll get a power sensor so you’ll know how much the smart plug itself uses. Hence the naming _device_power and _device_energy.
When you don’t want these in your installation you can simply ignore the provided discoveries.
My YAML power and energy entities are not listed in integrations or devices. But they are listed in the global entity list. What’s up doc? 🐰
Adding a sensor using the YAML method will not add the Powercalc integration page. Only entities created with the GUI will appear there. The sensor will functionally be the same, and you can find it in the global entities list.