HP 2023 here. And I did not want to cast blame on you @Phuturist as I now that many of the issues are beyond your control. And I am not really sure if making the integration more convenient is even possible now. I just think how it works now doesn’t serve the most common purposes … or at least my purposes…very well.
To me it would make more sense that the device would show up as a single device instead of three different devices. The meter readings of different phases could be listed separately under the single device. It would be more intuitive and generate less clutter to the GUI.
And this way, the device could have only one measure_power capability (the total of three phases) which I believe is the expected behaviour to most users. After all, the device is typically installed to measure either the grid source or a single appliance that uses three phases. For single phase appliances more affordable metering devices are widely available.
With the current implementation, if the device is installed to measure the grid source, the three different power readings also corrupt the Homey’s Energy-part of the app. Homey sees them as three different power consumers among the other loads instead of whole house meter. That is, Homey sees the total energy consumption as usage from grid + usage of all other measure_power capabilities.
Thus, the Shelly Pro 3 EM is better suited to measure the energy consumption of a single appliance e.g. water boiler. And still the users don’t see the total power of that appliance in the Energy part of Homey as a single figure. And moreover, the users need to make extra efforts to configure the device properly with the Power by the Hour app. That also among others expect the measure_power to have the measured power of the metered device.
In an ideal world, the user could choose whether to include the device as a smart meter or not. Could this be something that the user could change in the advanced settings or when including the device?
And maybe even select to include it in the Homey as one device or three devices. As this is probably not possible, I would gravitate to implementing it as a single device. I cannot see many use cases with need for only one of the phases in Homey. Neither do I see many use cases requiring three different measure_power capabilities.
Long story short: Include it as a single device, make it as a user option to have it as a whole house meter or a meter for a single appliance.
Btw. Very similar discussion about Cubino’s device and its metering properties here: Qubino 3-phase smart meter - Homey Energy
