If you can't get smart plugs, you could still do a Ct on the power cable to detect power usage. Not modifying the machine, just a breakout cable to give access to the live conductor. But led monitoring is another useful method I'll keep in mind for future projects. Thanks
I think someone else mentioned that this same process might be possible for use in other situations... like a dishwasher or other appliance/device with indicator lights. But the way I implemented the process is certainly not the only way. I did mention CT clamps, vibration sensors, etc. Someone else mentioned a sensor on the vent to monitor temperature, which I think is another unique way that might work for some. Personally, I wanted to tear apart the control panel and mount the controller and a sensor inside. But I had to settle with the option I showed, which is working well for me. Thanks for the comment.
This is just what I'm looking for to monitor my dehumidifier. The only suggestion I'd like to make would be the addition of an LED to replicate what the sensor is seeing, this would definitely increase the spousal approval factor in our household. I imagine this would be relatively trivial addition?
Yeah... I think it would be pretty trivial to add a small LED. It would just be connected to a GPIO pin (and probably configured as a binary light component in ESPHome). You would then simply turn the LED off/or based on the state of the binary sensor using something like the 'on_state' trigger in ESPHome. So, when the binary sensor gets flipped on, then turn on the LED and vice versa.
If you are comfortable opening up the electrical box with the 240 VDC plug socket, you can probably install a small CT on just one of the hot legs (after turning off the breaker first, naturally!). You don't really care if you measure total amps as you are only concerned to pick up any significant current flow, and since the dryer is most likely a balanced electrical load you should get equal detection on either feed. You could mount a single D1 on the wall next to the box, and it would most likely be behind the dryer and totally out of sight. Most modern appliances draw a small amount of current even when "off", but you can write appropriate thresholds in your code.
Thanks for a great suggestion. I really hadn't considered the outlet itself... just the split of the legs within the dryer itself (which would have required pulling out the dryer and accessing the back panel... a 'no-no' in my WAF case!). I know there are also a lot of Home Assistant energy-monitoring projects that add things like sensors at the main breaker box and a sensor/CT clamp could be added there as well. But I'm not quite there yet... I'm comfortable working with low DC voltages, but I shy away with anything at the breaker box itself! Maybe I'll get there someday! But you are right, the actual specific amp values themselves do not really matter, you are just looking for the rising/falling to indicate the start/end of the dryer cycle. Thanks again for yet another idea of how dryer notifications could be implemented!
Cool, great video, interesting results with the BH-1750. As I was watching the video wind down, my mind began wandering, as it does from time to time, and I thought it would be an interesting challenge to design a PCB that covered all the lights, reporting their status back to HA, additionally, you could (in case you wanted to see the lights locally on the dryer, and since your PCB can be dual sided, duplicate the dryer lights to show through on the top of the PCB. I would assume by designing your own PCB that serial bus addressing for multiple sensors would not be a huge problem. Wow! Talk about scope creep...
I think there a lot of possibilities and I think something like a PCB would be ideal. I like the idea of duplicating the lights if I were to cover them all up with a single board/device. Yeah... and some sort of multiplexer would be needed to use a single ESP... since the BH1750 only has two addresses available. It may be something I toy with down the road (if I can ever get caught up on other updates). But the most important point for now is that the wife is happy again with the restored dryer notifications... which had been inconsistent for about the past 3-4 months. But I love getting new ideas and thoughts... so as always, thanks for the comment and ideas!
@@ResinChemTech I was just thinking about only using the actual sensing device, not the whole board, of course, I have no idea how much other circuitry there is involved on the BH1750 itself.😁😁
I've been using a climate sensor attached to my dryer vent. In my use case, we always use a heated dry cycle. This wouldn't work for a non-heated cycle. When the temperature comes back down after cycle completes, I get a notification on my phone. It's been working flawlessly.
Yeah, I think someone else had asked about something like a temperature or even an airflow sensor attached to the dryer vent. I haven't tried it, but is another unique way to monitor when the cycle is complete. Thanks for the recommendation! I love it when others share how they accomplished the same task but in a different or unique way.
What sensor do you use? I monitor with a CT, but am interested in monitoring the humidity of the vent to see if the clothes may be dry early, or if they need more time
@@stephensmall7398 I have a wyze climate sensor. i only use the temperature data. while the humidity does change, it does not appear to be as reliable as temperature.
I don't know how much of the video you actually watched, but I specifically mentioned a CT clamp and why it wasn't an option for me. The same for vibration sensors. There are a lot of other ways to detect the dryer start/end process and the way I am demonstrating is simply one way that worked for me.... and could be used for other situations were indicator lights are present.
I like your concept and it would be useful for various purposes. The vibration sensor was not reliable for me and a CT clamp on one of the phases worked. The dryer would be on a separate feed from the breaker box so applying a clamp should be easy to do at the panel. In my case I have a breakout box that is easy to access.
Yeah... as I mentioned in the video, you can specify one of two I2C address for the BH1750 via the ADDR pin, meaning you could connect two to even a single ESP8266. And since the ESP32 has two separate I2C busses, you could theoretically connect up to 4 to a single ESP32. But for my particular project, since I already had two separate devices (and the wiring to power them) it was easier to redesign the enclosures and maintain two separate devices. But I could have theoretically used a single ESP8266/D1 Mini with two of the BH1750 sensors.
It is possible, I guess. Mine appear to work fine at first (even with the heat) but then seem to lose sensitivity over time, so maybe repeated exposure to either heat or moisture from the dryer? I really don't know, but is seems that after around one year or so, the range/sensitivity had become such that I'd have to rebuild the sensor. After doing that twice, I decided not to repeat it a third time and try a different sensor. So far, so good... but only time will tell if this sensor is also affected by heat/moisture from the dryer. Thanks for sharing the thought!
Heard loads of issues with the fake wemos d1 minis analogue port. Try using genuine wemos d1 minis instead. May cost like $1 more but it saves so much hassle
That is certainly a possibility. I do know that I've used different D1 Minis over the past few years from different sellers, but the end result has always been the same. The system works fine initially, but begins to shift over time until the resistance range becomes too unreliable to use. I've used the analog pin on both the ESP8266 and ESP32 for multiple projects and as a general rule, I'm not a big fan. So for this upgrade, I opted to use a sensor that did not rely on the ADC of the board. Hopefully I'll get more consistent results over a longer period with this I2C version. But thanks for the comment.
Unfortunately, at least to my knowledge, all smart home plugs here in the U.S. are made for 110 V. I do not believe that there are any U.S.-compatible energy monitoring smart plugs for 220V. If someone knows of one, please let me know. So we have to find other alternatives for our electric dryers, like vibration sensors, CT clamps, etc. Using the indicator lights is the method I opted for... but this can be used on other appliances (like dishwashers) as well, if they have some sort of indicator to represent when a cycle starts and finishes.
Thanks! And thank you for the kind words... I very much appreciate it. I hope I showed how this concept could be adapted for other appliances or devices that might have display indicators (dishwashers, humidifiers, etc.) but don't have a native integration in Home Assistant.
Thanks for the vid. Our dryer stopped heating up and I was ready to call someone, but a couple of YT videos convinced me to pull it out and remove the back. A $3 Thermal Fuse later and the wife is happy again. Oh, and thanks for the idea of adding a remote reset control. It comes in handy when debugging.
You are welcome. Glad your dryer was a simple fix... gotta' love TH-cam for stuff like that. I kinda' wish I would have had a reason to take the dryer apart and maybe I could have investigated the option of putting something inside the control panel for notifications. I originally added the reset for the dryer status when the original photoresistor started acting up. But I do use it during testing as well. It's just easier to click a quick link on the dashboard as opposed to going to the dev tools and issuing a service call. Hopefully with the new sensors, I won't have a need to use it anymore! Thanks for watching... and the comment!
I used similar to your first with my washer, works great, for my dryer i have no lights and no buzzer so im not really able to do anything noninvasive, ill probably have to open it up which sucks lol
Honestly, that's what I would have preferred to do. I found the wiring schematics for my dryer and know that DC voltage is available for the control panel. I would have much rather installed an ESP inside the control panel and triggered off the circuit that either sounded the buzzer or lit up the indicators. Then there would have been nothing exposed or attached externally to the dryer. But the wife did not want me to take anything apart on the dryer (figuring I'd never get it back together or break it.. can't say I blame her!). And since this was originally very early in my personal Home Assistant journey, it was important to maintain a high WAF! Another alternative that someone suggested in my earlier video was to use some sort of temperature or air flow sensor on the outbound dryer vent and use that to determine when the dryer starts and stops. Kind of a cool idea... but I haven't tried anything like that. And of course there are vibration sensors as well... but as I mentioned in the video, due to my front loading washer and its vibrations, that also wasn't an option for me. Good luck... and let me know what solution you come up with!
@@ResinChemTech yea unfortunately my dryer is super basic, no lights or even a built in buzzer lol I will have to go off current draw most likely, the temp or air flow sensor is definitely interesting but idk how reliable it would be, but definitely something I hadn't thought of to consider!
If you can't get smart plugs, you could still do a Ct on the power cable to detect power usage. Not modifying the machine, just a breakout cable to give access to the live conductor.
But led monitoring is another useful method I'll keep in mind for future projects.
Thanks
I think someone else mentioned that this same process might be possible for use in other situations... like a dishwasher or other appliance/device with indicator lights. But the way I implemented the process is certainly not the only way. I did mention CT clamps, vibration sensors, etc. Someone else mentioned a sensor on the vent to monitor temperature, which I think is another unique way that might work for some. Personally, I wanted to tear apart the control panel and mount the controller and a sensor inside. But I had to settle with the option I showed, which is working well for me.
Thanks for the comment.
This is just what I'm looking for to monitor my dehumidifier. The only suggestion I'd like to make would be the addition of an LED to replicate what the sensor is seeing, this would definitely increase the spousal approval factor in our household. I imagine this would be relatively trivial addition?
Yeah... I think it would be pretty trivial to add a small LED. It would just be connected to a GPIO pin (and probably configured as a binary light component in ESPHome). You would then simply turn the LED off/or based on the state of the binary sensor using something like the 'on_state' trigger in ESPHome. So, when the binary sensor gets flipped on, then turn on the LED and vice versa.
If you are comfortable opening up the electrical box with the 240 VDC plug socket, you can probably install a small CT on just one of the hot legs (after turning off the breaker first, naturally!). You don't really care if you measure total amps as you are only concerned to pick up any significant current flow, and since the dryer is most likely a balanced electrical load you should get equal detection on either feed. You could mount a single D1 on the wall next to the box, and it would most likely be behind the dryer and totally out of sight. Most modern appliances draw a small amount of current even when "off", but you can write appropriate thresholds in your code.
Thanks for a great suggestion. I really hadn't considered the outlet itself... just the split of the legs within the dryer itself (which would have required pulling out the dryer and accessing the back panel... a 'no-no' in my WAF case!). I know there are also a lot of Home Assistant energy-monitoring projects that add things like sensors at the main breaker box and a sensor/CT clamp could be added there as well. But I'm not quite there yet... I'm comfortable working with low DC voltages, but I shy away with anything at the breaker box itself! Maybe I'll get there someday!
But you are right, the actual specific amp values themselves do not really matter, you are just looking for the rising/falling to indicate the start/end of the dryer cycle. Thanks again for yet another idea of how dryer notifications could be implemented!
Cool, great video, interesting results with the BH-1750.
As I was watching the video wind down, my mind began wandering, as it does from time to time, and I thought it would be an interesting challenge to design a PCB that covered all the lights, reporting their status back to HA, additionally, you could (in case you wanted to see the lights locally on the dryer, and since your PCB can be dual sided, duplicate the dryer lights to show through on the top of the PCB. I would assume by designing your own PCB that serial bus addressing for multiple sensors would not be a huge problem.
Wow! Talk about scope creep...
I think there a lot of possibilities and I think something like a PCB would be ideal. I like the idea of duplicating the lights if I were to cover them all up with a single board/device. Yeah... and some sort of multiplexer would be needed to use a single ESP... since the BH1750 only has two addresses available.
It may be something I toy with down the road (if I can ever get caught up on other updates). But the most important point for now is that the wife is happy again with the restored dryer notifications... which had been inconsistent for about the past 3-4 months.
But I love getting new ideas and thoughts... so as always, thanks for the comment and ideas!
@@ResinChemTech I was just thinking about only using the actual sensing device, not the whole board, of course, I have no idea how much other circuitry there is involved on the BH1750 itself.😁😁
Great video, Thanks
You are welcome. Thanks for watching!
I've been using a climate sensor attached to my dryer vent. In my use case, we always use a heated dry cycle. This wouldn't work for a non-heated cycle. When the temperature comes back down after cycle completes, I get a notification on my phone. It's been working flawlessly.
Yeah, I think someone else had asked about something like a temperature or even an airflow sensor attached to the dryer vent. I haven't tried it, but is another unique way to monitor when the cycle is complete.
Thanks for the recommendation! I love it when others share how they accomplished the same task but in a different or unique way.
What sensor do you use? I monitor with a CT, but am interested in monitoring the humidity of the vent to see if the clothes may be dry early, or if they need more time
@@stephensmall7398 I have a wyze climate sensor. i only use the temperature data. while the humidity does change, it does not appear to be as reliable as temperature.
CT clamp is the way to go.
I don't know how much of the video you actually watched, but I specifically mentioned a CT clamp and why it wasn't an option for me. The same for vibration sensors. There are a lot of other ways to detect the dryer start/end process and the way I am demonstrating is simply one way that worked for me.... and could be used for other situations were indicator lights are present.
I like your concept and it would be useful for various purposes.
The vibration sensor was not reliable for me and a CT clamp on one of the phases worked. The dryer would be on a separate feed from the breaker box so applying a clamp should be easy to do at the panel. In my case I have a breakout box that is easy to access.
you could wire 2 bh1750s to 1 esp32? I guess if you already had two esps it might look nicer?
Yeah... as I mentioned in the video, you can specify one of two I2C address for the BH1750 via the ADDR pin, meaning you could connect two to even a single ESP8266. And since the ESP32 has two separate I2C busses, you could theoretically connect up to 4 to a single ESP32.
But for my particular project, since I already had two separate devices (and the wiring to power them) it was easier to redesign the enclosures and maintain two separate devices. But I could have theoretically used a single ESP8266/D1 Mini with two of the BH1750 sensors.
Will LDR's self-heat and will it change their output values? If so, maybe only give those power when doing sensing...
It is possible, I guess. Mine appear to work fine at first (even with the heat) but then seem to lose sensitivity over time, so maybe repeated exposure to either heat or moisture from the dryer? I really don't know, but is seems that after around one year or so, the range/sensitivity had become such that I'd have to rebuild the sensor. After doing that twice, I decided not to repeat it a third time and try a different sensor. So far, so good... but only time will tell if this sensor is also affected by heat/moisture from the dryer.
Thanks for sharing the thought!
Having something/anything near antenna it is not very good for connectivity performance.
Heard loads of issues with the fake wemos d1 minis analogue port. Try using genuine wemos d1 minis instead. May cost like $1 more but it saves so much hassle
That is certainly a possibility. I do know that I've used different D1 Minis over the past few years from different sellers, but the end result has always been the same. The system works fine initially, but begins to shift over time until the resistance range becomes too unreliable to use. I've used the analog pin on both the ESP8266 and ESP32 for multiple projects and as a general rule, I'm not a big fan. So for this upgrade, I opted to use a sensor that did not rely on the ADC of the board. Hopefully I'll get more consistent results over a longer period with this I2C version.
But thanks for the comment.
Im using a smartplug on my 230V dryer here in Denmark.
Unfortunately, at least to my knowledge, all smart home plugs here in the U.S. are made for 110 V. I do not believe that there are any U.S.-compatible energy monitoring smart plugs for 220V. If someone knows of one, please let me know.
So we have to find other alternatives for our electric dryers, like vibration sensors, CT clamps, etc. Using the indicator lights is the method I opted for... but this can be used on other appliances (like dishwashers) as well, if they have some sort of indicator to represent when a cycle starts and finishes.
Well done! congrats!
Thanks! And thank you for the kind words... I very much appreciate it. I hope I showed how this concept could be adapted for other appliances or devices that might have display indicators (dishwashers, humidifiers, etc.) but don't have a native integration in Home Assistant.
Thanks for the vid. Our dryer stopped heating up and I was ready to call someone, but a couple of YT videos convinced me to pull it out and remove the back. A $3 Thermal Fuse later and the wife is happy again.
Oh, and thanks for the idea of adding a remote reset control. It comes in handy when debugging.
You are welcome. Glad your dryer was a simple fix... gotta' love TH-cam for stuff like that. I kinda' wish I would have had a reason to take the dryer apart and maybe I could have investigated the option of putting something inside the control panel for notifications.
I originally added the reset for the dryer status when the original photoresistor started acting up. But I do use it during testing as well. It's just easier to click a quick link on the dashboard as opposed to going to the dev tools and issuing a service call. Hopefully with the new sensors, I won't have a need to use it anymore!
Thanks for watching... and the comment!
I used similar to your first with my washer, works great, for my dryer i have no lights and no buzzer so im not really able to do anything noninvasive, ill probably have to open it up which sucks lol
Honestly, that's what I would have preferred to do. I found the wiring schematics for my dryer and know that DC voltage is available for the control panel. I would have much rather installed an ESP inside the control panel and triggered off the circuit that either sounded the buzzer or lit up the indicators. Then there would have been nothing exposed or attached externally to the dryer. But the wife did not want me to take anything apart on the dryer (figuring I'd never get it back together or break it.. can't say I blame her!). And since this was originally very early in my personal Home Assistant journey, it was important to maintain a high WAF!
Another alternative that someone suggested in my earlier video was to use some sort of temperature or air flow sensor on the outbound dryer vent and use that to determine when the dryer starts and stops. Kind of a cool idea... but I haven't tried anything like that. And of course there are vibration sensors as well... but as I mentioned in the video, due to my front loading washer and its vibrations, that also wasn't an option for me.
Good luck... and let me know what solution you come up with!
@@ResinChemTech yea unfortunately my dryer is super basic, no lights or even a built in buzzer lol I will have to go off current draw most likely, the temp or air flow sensor is definitely interesting but idk how reliable it would be, but definitely something I hadn't thought of to consider!