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encompass.io – First Impressions?

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 8:52 am
by Jameson
Hey all, we are really excited by the potential that encompass.io holds. Right now it is a rough stone, but with a bit of carving, sanding, and polishing we think it has the potential to be a real gem. Anyone with an EKM Push meter can use encompass, and we have invited all current owners of EKM Push meters to check it out and to send us their feedback. At this point we are really trying to gauge where our customers want us to take it.

Here are some things that I find to be cool about it right now:
Its free – everybody loves free right?
It is easy to use – you can try the trial account without signing up, or you can create your own account if you have a Push User Key (again, it's free).
Data – You can see your real time data, as well as a new historical dataset that allows you to monitor usage trends over time.
Cost per kWh - Set the cost/kWh so that your kWh values are translated into $ spent, or saved in the case of solar meters.
Custom dashboards – you can set up dashboards with custom widgets to display the data that you want.
Share your data — make your widgets public and embed them into your own website.
Exports – You can email yourself CSV files and PDF reports of your usage on a daily or monthly basis.
It’s scalable -- organize your meters into groups by building, factory floor, or by country. Easily manage a couple of meters or thousands of meters.
Aggregate data – group meters together to aggregate their data and visualize their combined data
Visual – we think that Encompass provides the best way yet to visualize energy consumption in real time, as well as historically.

Im looking forward to having more historical data with historical exports, water and gas metering (isn't everyone?), and billing. We have quite a few other nice cards that we will hold close to our vest for now. And to keep the analogy going, we have pushed a lot of our chips in encompasses direction, so please tell others about it if you think they would be interested. The more customers we get using encompass, the more we can continue to develop it.

With future development in mind, what would you like to see in encompass? What would you change? What functionality is lacking for your particular use case?

http://www.encompass.io

Any and all feedback is much appreciated.

Re: encompass.io – First Impressions?

Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 6:30 pm
by Gman34798
As a first one to jump on the wish list:

Combined current draw for line 1 & 2!

Re: encompass.io – First Impressions?

Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2014 11:53 am
by Jameson
I just posted this over here: http://forum.ekmmetering.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3360

Thanks for the encompass ideas. Right now I could see adding a "calculated value", dont hold me to this because I dont know what it would take to implement. But you could have "calculated value" = amps line1 + amps line2, and someone else could have watts line1 - watts line3, or volts line1 + volts line2.

Thanks again and keep the suggestions coming :)

Re: encompass.io – First Impressions?

Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 3:58 am
by Kailua
Now that I have Push up and running with v4, I'll be waiting for the addition of gas metering through Encompass.

I will be adding another Push and 5 more meters to my Encompass account later this week, so I'll have more data to play with while I wait. Once the gas metering is brought on line, I'll be adding another gas meter, too.

EKM Push + EKM Smart Meters + Encompass seems like a perfect combination.

Re: encompass.io – First Impressions?

Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 12:40 pm
by Kailua
I just learned that Encompass reads v.4 kWh at 10X the actual meter reading. Apparently this is due to v.4 reporting two digit decimals, and will be corrected in the months to come. I adjusted the kWh cost to 1/10 actual, so the $ value will be correct even though the kWh being reported is frightening.

Re: encompass.io – First Impressions?

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 11:21 pm
by Kailua
I now have a total of 7 electrical meters and 1 gas meter connected to 2 push units.

The 2 push units are at different locations.

The meters are set up in two main groups, one at each location.

Each of the main groups is further divided into sub-groups, 2 at one location, 3 at the other.

I have opted for daily and monthly reports for each of the groups, both in pdf and CSV format.

Here are the problems I have experienced with Encompass:

Readings from the one v.4 meter I have are read at 10X actual value. This is apparently due to v.4 reading two decimal places and is expected to be corrected in the months to come.

Subgroup and group KWH and $ values do not total correctly. The pdfs I receive show the totals of the individual meters, but when they are added at the bottom, they are not added correctly.

E-mailed reports are received intermittently. Since I have requested daily emails on the meters, I have received them only on 3/10, 3/18, 3/22 and 3/23.

I'd love to be able to use the monthly pdf reports as billing documents, but because the groups don't total properly, they're not appropriate to even show to my tenants yet.

Hopefully these problems will be corrected soon.

Re: encompass.io – First Impressions?

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 11:14 pm
by Kailua
Encompass still reads v.4 meter at 10X actual reading.

I'm still not getting emailed pdf files.

I can't generate pdf files online now, either. I just get an error message when I try.

As I can't see the pdfs, I don't know if there's been any progress in correcting the group totalling problems I reported a few weeks ago.

Re: encompass.io – First Impressions?

Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2015 2:02 pm
by Jameson
Hi Kailua, thank you for the posts.

Yes, encompass.io is certainly a beta product and does not support a lot of features like it will in the future. It is meant to be a framework to build off of.

Here are some of the glaring issues:

No v.4 meter support (they work they are just off by 10x in the kWh), this is because it still uses our legacy API which does not decimal shift.
Pdf reports are spotty at best
Reliability of how groups work
Data not reliably displayed sometimes

Please let us know if any "new" issues pop up, or any feature requests you have.

Re: encompass.io – First Impressions?

Posted: Tue May 26, 2015 1:22 pm
by Kailua
Update on my April observations, from the bottom up...

Big change: Aggregating group data appears to be working and displaying correctly in the widgets. Groups and their subgroups now are reflecting accurate totals with respect to one another, except for data from v.4 meters. This is good to see, as I assume it is a necessary fundamental to being able to generate accurate reports.

v.4 meters are still being read at 10X their actual readings. Maybe this should be the priority fix now, as it is the only remaining issue I've discovered that keeps the group data from being accurate.

I am still not able to generate any pdf files, nor is the system emailing any pdf files to me. Now that the widgets are totaling groups and subgroups correctly, once the v.4 meter reading is corrected, I look forward to seeing the pdf data becoming available soon.

Re: encompass.io – First Impressions?

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2015 11:00 am
by Zaaphod
I thought I would give some feedback on your encompass.io system.

First of all, I do like the over all design, I especially like having real time gauge, however I have one suggestion about this: I particularly like seperate Amp guages for L1 and L2 (single phase 3 wire system) however my loading is very unbalanced, so my L1 Gauge shows pretty much 3A all day long, and my L2 Guage varies up and down between 13A and 18A.. however the two gauges side by side show full scale.. the numbers are right, but full scale for L1 is 3A and full scale for L2 is 18A, While the gauges show a max of the maximum each gauge has ever seen, I would personally like to set the maximums for each gauge to be the same as each other... Perhaps allow the user to edit the gauge to set the MAX current, allow for options that max = highest this gauge has seen, highest ANY gauge has seen, or just specify a max value for the gauge... of course if the value is specified there might need to be an indicator that the gauge is pegged and the reading is higher than the gauge is set for.

The other thing I keep wanting to do, but don't know how.. or if it can be done. neither on encompass.io nor ekm dash... is scroll through and zoom through charts... sometimes I can see on the whole thing that there is a huge spike in current draw, and I would like to zoom in close to that area so I can get more detail about the exact time of day etc, so I can figure out what causes the spikes. It's an intuitive action I keep thinking I should be able to do... quickly zoom out, zoom in or pan forward and backward, and I've tried all kinds of things like arrow keys, shift + arrows.. etc.. right clicking and looking for options for zoom in or out.. but I can't figure out how to change the scale of the chart. EKM dash lets me change the number of meter reads to display, so that's kind of like zooming in and out, but I can't specify the range.. so I can't really pan.. it's just the last x # of reads.. but I want to go look at history.

I really like the Info / goal widget, I particular like the budget being in dollars... but how do I set the electric rate for my power company? My power company charges one rate for up to 1000kW/h and another for anything over 1000kW/h, so it would be awesome to set these rates and get displays in dollars! I think everyone who is conscious of their power bill would relate better to a dollar display.... how much does it really cost me to turn that big oven on? how much more does it cost to take a 30 minute bath as opposed to a 10 minute shower? with charts and gauges, and goals all calibrated to display in dollars, I think it would have a much larger impact to the majority of the average consumer. My children don't care what a kW/h is, but if they see the monetary effect that leaving all the lights on has, it would sink in that they should turn those lights OFF. While on this subject... years ago I bought one of those kill-a-watt units, and one feature on there that I really liked, was the projected power usage... it basically predicted that if you continued to apply the load as it has been since the last reset, what would the cost be for that device. when you first do a reset then turn on the load, it ends up showing you.. how much would this cost if I turn it on and just leave it on for the month.. but over time, it starts to figure out how much it would cost based on the average duty cycle of the device.

One last idea I have, but I'm not sure how practical it will be... it might be a bit too advanced... but it seems to me that it might be possible to label certain power events... for example, every time my water heater kicks in, I get a sudden jump of exactly 18.4 Amps on both L1 and L2, it seems like I could label that even, and make some kind of prediction.. every time I see a spike of exactly 18.4 amps on both L1 and L2 of 18.4 amps, that's my water heater... the only time I would have a problem is if my water heater and my air conditioner happened to both kick in simultaneously, which is pretty unlikely. I realize that while my water heater and the heater coils in my air handler would have exactly the same signature each time they started, as they are fixed restive loads, other devices like my a/c condenser unit will be different, as the load draw on the a/c condenser varies with temperature.. still it should be within a probably detectable range. This is just an idea I'm toying with... and I thought I would share it. It would be very powerful to have something like 'soft sub metering'.. while it could not be 100% accurate, it could work and give a rough idea. There could even be a calibration method, where you turn all major loads.. then set the system to detect an event.. then go purposefully turn on your well pump or something... then the system would record that's the well pump signature... then turn that off.. then next time you are going to wash dishes, you shut off everything else and have it wait for a water heater signature.. then go wash dishes and it will capture the water heater signature... etc..

One last thing... I would also like to be able to calibrate a gauge to display L1+L2 Volts... or other formulas, like (L1 amps from meter 1) - (L2 amps from meter 3).... etc...

Ok, well that's all I can think of after using encompass.io for about 10 minutes. :)