[Nut-upsuser] Newbie question: real-time power usage monitoring?

[Arnaud Quette]

Hi Christian,

> I'm very new to NUT, and power monitoring in general, so please
> forgive me if this question is dumb.

it's about power, I don't see anything dumb here, no worries.

> I'd like to write a Linux app that will know, in approximate
> real-time, how much power is being drawn by a computer plugged into an
> outlet.
>
> Is NUT well-suited to this usage?
>
> And if so, can anyone recommend relatively cheap monitoring hardware
> (ideally less than $200 US) that will meet my needs?
>
> Thanks very much,

On the NUT side, there is currently not many devices that can provide
such information, with a sufficient granularity:
Eaton 5 PX and newer Eaton ePDU Managed.
Other NUT supported PDUs may also be fine, but I won't commit nor
elaborate on that (remember, I'm biased)
These kind of devices will clearly be out of your budget though!

Now, considering your use case, what you need is probably more a "simple" meter.
Adding support for meters is planned in NUT, but I don't have much
visibility to give on this for now.

I know that Richard Hughes (UPower, Gnome Power Manager) once added
Watts Up Pro support:
https://www.wattsupmeters.com/secure/products.php?pn=0

I was (and I'm still) interested in doing the same for NUT.
But once more, since I've never used these devices, I can't commit on
the features.

Finally, I've asked some Eaton contacts for a such meter inside
Eaton's offering (through the acquisition of Moeller).
I'll forward you the answer when available.

cheers,
Arnaud
-- 
Linux / Unix Expert R&D - Eaton - http://powerquality.eaton.com
Network UPS Tools (NUT) Project Leader - http://www.networkupstools.org/
Debian Developer - http://www.debian.org
Free Software Developer - http://arnaud.quette.free.fr/