Ubiquiti Networks mFi mPower Wi-Fi Power Strip Review
by Ganesh T S on November 21, 2013 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Home Automation
- Wi-Fi
- Ubiquiti Networks
- IoT
Taking Advantage of the Open Platform
Some of the interesting aspects that can be controlled via SSH are outlined in this blog post by a UK reseller. The examples seem to be based on a older version of the firmware, and, other than the relay control, deal more with cosmetic aspects such as the LED flashing rate and colour. In the latest version (2.0.7) of the firmware, we also have tags for the outlets. The power consumption values are also updated on a more frequent basis (once per second for each outlet, compared to one outlet each second in the earlier versions). This allows for development of a real-time power consumption analyzer using the mPower units.
While reviewing the UFO Power Center, I had talked about a custom Perl script that was developed for real-time power measurement. I have been making improvements to the script (to be leaner on resources, and adding more features) over the last year. It has now been pushed out to the open source community. A similar script has been developed for the mPower units too. The source is available here. Readers should feel free to check out the scripts, add / suggest features and report / fix bugs. In our limited testing, it has worked fine on Windows 7 / Cygwin, but other platforms haven't been tested.
One feature that I would like to add to the script above is auto-discovery of mPower units in the network. Currently, the script expects the IP of the mPower unit as well as the login credentials to be supplied as command line arguments. Another interesting feature would be a configurable polling rate. The script currently polls for the power consumption values once every second.
It should be noted that the above script works only with mPower units running firmware version 2.0.7. Later versions should also work, unless Ubiquiti does away with some of the used features. Version 2.0.7 added labels for each outlet, and these are stored in /var/etc/persistent/cfg/config_file. Relay status and active power for outlet X are available in /proc/power/relayX and /proc/power/active_pwrX. relayX is writable, with a write of 1 to turn the outlet on, and 0 to turn it off. active_pwrX (as well as v_rmsX, i_rmsX and pfX under /proc/power) report values accurate up to 9 decimal places.
One of the downside of the mPower is the fact that any power consumption below 1W is reported as 0. Unfortunately, this is the intent of the design. Ubiquiti indicates that they found too many issues with AC power systems (noise, inductive loads etc.) to provide enough accuracy at power levels below 1W. Pulling down sub-1W power values to 0 also simplifies rules (particularly, to ensure that rules based on non-zero power don't trigger when nothing is connected and there is leakage current).
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daar - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
Thanks for the review, introduction could use some work when it comes to chunking info about the product, though.darwinosx - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
Yeah it's not clear what this product does.ydeer - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
Glad I’m not the only one who is confused. At first I thought it is a 802.11 <-> powerline <-> CAT5 access point, but apparently it is a "X10-like" powerstrip with WiFi. I think?eli2k - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
can you access the power outlets with the device connected only to the wifi network and host w/the mFi software turned off? or do I always have to have a host computer running?ganeshts - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
Yes, this is possible. In fact, you can use the unit without even linking it to a mFi host. (Though you do need the mFi host to upgrade the firmware on the mPower, you can always uninstall the mFi from the host computer afterwards)simpsond - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
I wrote a little library which will SSH into the mPower and run the appropriate commands to enable read/write, toggle the acutators, and sample the ports. It can be found here: https://github.com/dansimpson/mfiPhelerox - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
This product is really interesting because it's very similar to my Bachelor of Science thesis where we, between January and May of this year, made a working prototype of a smart power strip that (over WiFi) reports power consumption for its outlets to a Web server, and of course allows for remote controlling the state of the outlets on the website. The hardware has an 8-bit AVR microcontroller, WiFi, solid-state relays and measurement hardware on a custom PCB. The website uses Django and supports multiple users and multiple power strips per user (unfortunately we've only made one final prototype so far), and some basic automation functionality (though we didn't have time to implement most of our automation ideas, for example a location-aware smartphone app or IFTTT integration). I don't know if it interests anyone, but I'll provide a link to the report we wrote: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7zal1ajnhs0nnad/A_Smart_...Duodecim - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
I've been checking a lot of these home automation devices recently. Some years ago I had simple and cheap remote controlled power sockets, and I've been waiting for some progress and a standard to emerge. I remembered checking these specific Ubiquity devices, read about the Java software, but somehow missed the SSH functionality.I'm very interested in the openness of these devices, as I could write my own open-source software to run on an ARM mini-server or even a Meego/Sailfish phone application instead of being stuck with some closed and highly proprietary platform. It would also make it easier to check if some basic security has been implemented so hijacking these gadgets won't be too easy.
I hope some sort of standard emerges for these kind of devices and the sort of "intelligent" light bulbs like LIFX and Phillips Hue though, as a zillion different protocols, remotes and apps would ruin the experience and make life harder rather than easier.
I like the geek angle in this review, thanks!
Verdant - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
To me, the app glut is the part the ubiquity environment that needs to be solved first...zeebo - Thursday, November 21, 2013 - link
You're delaying the Macbook Pro review for stuff like a power strip? Come the hell on.