Energy Meter (Pulse Sensor)

Software

You can download the Arduino sketch ​here.

This sensor counts pulses from a house meter and converts it into watt/kwh. There are a few parameters that needs to be tuned before everything works. On your meter it is usually specified how many pulses/kwh. Set PULSE_FACTOR to this value. You can also set SEND_FREQUENCY (how often you want the sensor to report values). Default is each 20 seconds.

If you want the vera device to show your current meeter value. Update Variable1 value under the vera devices advanced tab to your meters current kwh-value * PULSE_FACTOR.

The sensor sketch has two modes:

SLEEP_MODE = true

Use this if you run the sensor on battery. In this mode the sensor will report KWH but cannot report any Watt-value. This is because when sensor sleeps it will lose track of time and therefore it is impossible to calculate a correct Watt-value.

SLEEP_MODE = false

In this mode the sensor will always be awake. Watt value will also be reported to Vera. You should probably not rund your sensor on batteries in this mode.

Wire things up

Follow the instructions in ConnectingRadioModule to connect radio module.

Connect the digital DO (Digital Out) of the light sensor to digital pin 3 of the Arduino board. Connect VCC to +5V of the Arduino board. GND to GND.

Hardware - Purchase guide

To build this sensor you'll need one arduino + radio specified in the base kit found here:
http://code.mios.com/trac/mios_arduino-sensor/wiki/WikiStart#Buyingguide

With the following additional parts:
1x ​Light sensor

TOTAL SENSOR PRICE: $7.6 (arduino + radio) + $2.8 (light sensor) = $10.4

Here is me trying to simulate meter pulses with another LED when testing the code.