Managing the load on my solar plant is critical now that I have three point-of-use water heaters. The water heaters are just 1,200 watts or so each, but all three going on at once if I’m already pulling over 10kW from the inverter (easy to do when the car can charge at 8kW) would trip the inverter’s overload at 12kW, even though it claims to be rated for 15kW.
When I was first setting up Home Assistant I was looking for some smart plugs that were directly compatible, and I found a four-pack of KAUF Plugs for under $50 and bought them. I used several of them right away, but gradually reconfigured things to where they weren’t necessary. Now, though, with the water heaters, I need them. They’ll not only turn off (so I can skip water heating for a few minutes when other power needs are high), but they monitor energy use which is pretty useful. The latest iteration of my monitor panel lists a few intermittent loads that are nice to see when I’m wondering what is accounting for a heavy overall load.
When I went to grab the smart plugs, though, I could only find two. One was in use, and the other was still in shrinkwrap. The other two I had used in the past — they’re even configured in Home Assistant — but I can’t find them anywhere. Misplacing one would be annoying but kind of expected. Misplacing two seems out of control. A few months ago, maybe, when we were still unpacking and getting organized. Things feel pretty stable and under control now, though, so where could they have gone??
—2p