Google Wants To Be Your Electricity Meter

An anonymous reader writes "Google has teamed up with microcontroller maker Microchip to develop an API for a piece of software called Google PowerMeter, according this EE Times story. Why? Because Google wants to host all the details of the electricity and other energy consumption of people's homes. It wants to do this so that it can show people on their iGoogle homepages when and where they are consuming energy so that they can start to reduce their power consumption. The good news is that it is an opt-in service and free so you don't have to make Google your energy-monitor if you don't want to do so."

Comments

Microsoft too

[BadAnalogyGuy]

http://www.microsoft-hohm.com/

Who's following who?

Re:Microsoft too

[InsertWittyNameHere]

They're extremely different.

GOOGLE: "PowerMeter is free software that displays details of home energy consumption received from either a smartmeter or another electricity monitoring device."

vs.

MICROSOFT: "After signing up for Hohm with your Windows Live ID and Postal Code, you simply enter some information about your home (for example, occupants, appliances and systems) and you will receive your energy report with personalized recommendations. The more information you provide, the more accurate and relevant the recommendations will be."

already exists

[flok]

Such a thing (on-line electricity meter) already exists: Flukso

Linux-based with wifi uplink to the net and ethernet to configure it. Handles internet-connection downtime gracefully. Completely open so that you can tweak it if you wish to.

Re:already exists

[flok]

Yes, you can.

See my website: Making your Flukso log to a database/RRD tool

Already possible

[TSchut]

There already exist devices which allow you to monitor your energy consumption by monitoring the dials in your meter box. For instance the dutch http://www.enymate.nl/artikelen/enymate_lite.

Because this measures consumption by looking at the dial it is also possible to monitor gas and water consumption, and the measurements relate directly to the upcoming bill(s).

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the linked company.

Re:Want to check your consumption?

[Lumpy]

Actually yes. because your power meter is too inaccurate at small reading to give me a difference in 15 minutes. and when you are chasing down parasitic loads it's important.

I use the TED5000 (The Energy Detective) works great, is dirt cheap, and gives me an energy data aggregate that is killer in every way. Plus having a Dollar amount in our faces on the counter every minute of the day really makes you pay attention to leaving the basement lights on all day.