Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Home Power Monitoring Hack

Posted by Zonk on from the feel-the-force-flow-around-you dept.

dvogt writes "You think your power bill is bad? I built a power monitoring system to monitor every circuit in my house with three second resolution for over a year. And while I had to rewire all my electrical to do it, I can now reconcile my electricity bill down to the penny... Of course when my wife figured out most of the bill was because of my computer gear I had to build her a dome, so reader beware!" From the article: "About a year ago I developed a web based power monitoring application for data centers. The application was designed to monitor thousands of individual branch circuits using current transducers at the breaker panels. Among other things, the data logging requirements were to provide one year of min/max/mean measurement data with one minute resolution per circuit. Since I had all the hardware for testing, I figured what better way to test things than to install it in my own home."

6 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. electrical bill now? by AmigaAvenger · · Score: 5, Funny

    great, you do all this to minimize your bill, then post on slashdot?!?! server is already slow, I imagine the meter is spinning like a top right now...

  2. Oh great.... by qwave54 · · Score: 3, Funny

    another piece of hardware looking to kill the meter reading industry!

    - Meter Reader

  3. Network Power by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Funny

    Seems to me that this kind of application should be integrated with "Power Over Ethernet" (PoE). Since every node on the network gets its power from the network, the adapter should collect this kind of data, perhaps in an embedded device with its own IP#. The same design logic for DC PoE seems like it should be true about AC "BPL", Broadband over Power Lines. In fact, those power/packet sockets should have cheap little embedded devices that not only report power consumption, but allow control of it via TCP/IP. Isn't there such a network/power platform available COTS?

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  4. Yeah by cynical+kane · · Score: 5, Funny

    You don't mess with a woman with a Power Management System...

    (ducks)

  5. Re:From the article... by gkuz · · Score: 4, Funny
    Can you imagine being quizzed by yourhusband about how many loads of laundry you did a certain day and then having him insist you come with him to see on the computers about how you were WRONG and you were OFF BY ONE?

    I've been married for 28 years, largely by studiously avoiding that sort of behavior. I'm frankly surprised the guy is still alive, let alone still married.

  6. mandatory wtf.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hardware: Zero dollars
    Software: Zero dollars
    Linux box: Zero dollars

    Explaining to your wife that after hours of development you've built a device that proves the most power hungry appliance in your house is the damn power monitoring system itself: Priceless