APNT-71 - Controlling Appliances based on Standby Power - Fibaro Home Center

A common use for home automation is to control groups of appliances when one appliance is turned off or goes into stand-by. A great example of this is having all your AV equipment turn On when the TV is turned On and turn off when it's put into standby mode. This is really easy using a Z-Wave power monitoring wall plug.

This guide shows how to use a TKB TZ88 wall plug to monitor a TV's power consumption and use a Fibaro Home Center 2 (HC2) or Home Center Lite (HCL) scene to control other appliances when the TV is On or Off.

Components

For this example I have used:

• TKB TZ88 Wall Plug with Power monitoring - measuring the TV's power consumption
• TKB TZ68 On/Off Wall Plug - controlling the Blu-Ray player
• Popp Dimmer Wall Plug - controlling a table lamp
• iTach WF2IR IR adapter - controlling the AV receiver and Amp via Infra-Red

Figure 1: Appliance Device Icons in Fibaro Home Center

Create On Scene

This scene will use the TV's power consumption as a trigger. The TV consumes around 1W when in standby, so this scene monitors the power being reported by the TKB TZ88 and will trigger when this power is above 10W, it will then switch on the other appliances and set the table lamp to 50% brightness.

Full information about Fibaro Scenes is available in - APNT-61 - Creating Scenes in Fibaro Home Center.

• Go to the Scenes tab and click 'Add Scene'
• Give the new scene a Name and choose a Room from the drop-down list
• Select the 'Active Scene' and 'Start when Home Center 2 starts' boxes
• Click the 'Advanced' tab and then in 'Add scene using graphic block' click 'Save'
• In the black scene box click the '+' icon to add devices and triggers for the scene
• From the drop-down menu go to Devices and select the the device you wish to use as the 'trigger'
• In the Yellow 'Condition' block select 'W >'
• In the Green 'State' block select 'ON' and enter '10' - this will trigger the scene when the reported power (W) is greater than 10W
• Add a 'Then' condition and then add the first appliance to be turned On by this scene
• Add and 'AND' condition and then add the remaining appliances
• When you've finished click the Grey 'Save' button

Figure 2: The 'On' Scene triggers when the TV's power consumption is above 10W

Create Off Scene

Create a second scene to turn the appliances off when the TV goes into standby.

This scene is triggered when the TV's power consumption is below 10W. It is almost identical to the 'On' scene.

Figure 3: The 'Off' Scene triggers when the TV's power consumption is below 10W

Energy Monitoring

As you have the TKB TZ88 measuring the TV's power, you can monitor the energy used by the TV (and even your viewing habits) by using the Fibaro Home Center's 'Energy Panel'. This reports actual consumption (W) and accumulated power consumed (KWh) in hours, days, weeks, or even months.

Figure 4: Monitoring Energy Consumption in Fibaro Home Center

Related Information