Re:Wattvision: The Smart Energy Sensor
by savrajsingh on Monday August 13, 2012 @07:18PM
(#4378649)
Thanks for the feedback, and yes, we're working on keeping users engaged. Most of the competitors you reference require you to go inside of your breaker box (require an electrician) to set up in the United States, among other shortcomings.
Ah that explains what I perceived was a very over-engineered way of measuring the current. I've used several of the clip on readers myself in the UK - trivial install - and in fact several British electric providers have sent out their own current usage displays to customers.
Then again I haven't seen any popular usage of NLM (several apps were trying when I last looked) that can determine how much an individual appliance is costing really simply, i.e. the hairdryer cost $3.12 to run this month. That info could be really compelling and could spin out more ideas but doing this non-intrusive load monitoring sounds rather difficult with your data collection method.
http://www.clipsal.com/ecomind
have to pay a sparky to clip the wireless monitor on. but if i'm going to be coughing up $250 for hardware, getting a sparky out for 30min is not my barrier to entry.
Re:Wattvision: The Smart Energy Sensor
by ghshephard on Monday August 13, 2012 @11:55PM
(#4379315)
Sparky? Is that slang for an electrician? Is there any reason you can't do it yourself?
yup, manual says "The installation must be carried out by a licensed electrical tradesperson."
http://updates.clipsal.com/ClipsalOnline/Files/Brochures/W00...
and looking at my meter box... i'm to scared to touch that thing.
Alertme is probably one of the slickest (https://www.alertme.com/try_the_demo) and there are many others that just provide a nerd-happy line graph like this and even more with just the price/day calculation, but the problem they've all found is that after at most a month, people become disinterested.
I'd like to see some innovation in how you can keep this relevant and interesting to the continual user.