Current Cost Support Forum

Hi there,

I want to monitor Mains, PV, Heat Pump and eventually water.

For the heat pump I believe I can have a cheap electricity meter installed and use a optismart with it. Then 2 others optismarts for Mains and PV meters and eventually a fourth one for the water meter.

So, my understanding is that one needs just on netsmart pro connected to just one EnviR (though I have 2 EnviRs) that will be linked wirelessly to the 4 optismart sensors. And the optismarts can be use any one of the 10 possible channels.

I would still have 2 clamps transmitters that I could use and still would link them wirelessly to the very same EnviR chosen above.

Is it all said above right?

Given the configuration I want to build above can someone confirm to me how many channels I would need: 6 or 10? I ask that because I read here and there that each optismart needs 2 channels. Am I wrong? If not how and why?

Each "channel" (really just an identifier) can receive one type of data. That data is either electricity consumption (kWh) or impulse data (electricity, gas, oil, water). So, if you have an optismart, it will transmit on two channels - one for consumption and one for impulse. You do not have to pair up both channels, so if you just wanted the impulse data, you don't have to pair the consumption channel.

That said, I'd be a little careful with how many devices you try to implement. Each device is equipped with a transmitter on the same radio frequency, and they have no way of knowing if any other device is already transmitting. If two devices try to transmit at the same time, both messages will be lost. The more devices you have, the higher the likelihood of lost messages due to these collisions.

Answering your question - each optismart will use two channels, and if you have four optismarts, you will be using 8 channels. The remaining two clamp monitors would use a channel each, so you'd have used 10 channels.