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Google Wants To Be Your Electricity Meter

Posted by samzenpus on from the google-watt-hours dept.

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."

2 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. already exists by flok · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --

    www.vanheusden.com - home of Multitail, HTTPing, CoffeeSaint, EntropyBroker, rsstail, bsod, listener, nagcon, nagi
  2. Re:Microsoft too by InsertWittyNameHere · · Score: 5, Informative

    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."