Subtract Group questions...

[mfabiani53]

I have a question for those who are more expert than me on powercalc and energy dashboard.
I have one media player, one smart plug and two hue lights all connected to a meross plug which measures the energy consumed by these devices.
Am I wrong to include the two lights, the media player and the other smart plug among the sources? Or would it be better to include only the meross plug which indicates the consumption of all those devices and include the other devices among the total use of the individual devices?
Thanks in advance to anyone who would like to help me.

EDIT: I think i solved my questions using the subtract group option, but two things:

Is it correct to use subtract option for my question?
After creating the group, must i add the energy sensor to the sources or not?

[bramstroker]

@mfabiani53 yes you could use the subtract group if you also want a virtual sensor with the remainer of the mreoss plus consumption minus the other consumptions.
But I don't think it will be very accurate as it depends on the update frequency of all the separate sensors, the meross plug update frequency and the accuracy of the powercalc profiles (which can have a small error margin).

Btw you should never use sources in energy dashboard for the invidual devices energy. There is a separate section to called "Individual devices". sources are meant for solar, grid power, battery etc, so the main power sources.

So you should either.

• include 4 separate sensors (2 light power sensors, 1 media player, 1 smart plug) + the subtract group (for the remainer energy)
• include the meross plug

But you should of course not include both as this would count the energy double.

Hope this helps a bit.