5 ms·
Honest question, is this solving a problem and who has this problem? I pay about $30/month for electricity and I already know it goes up to about $80/month duri
by kolya3 17y ago
Honest question, is this solving a problem and who has this problem? I pay about $30/month for electricity and I already know it goes up to about $80/month during the winter months. $200 seems like a lot of money to pay for someone to tell me what I already know.
- ramanujan 17y agoI think it could be handy for businesses, universities, research labs, or anyone else that has a big power bill. Getting it itemized would be interesting.
- dschobel 17y agoAnd doubly so for businesses with high power needs, such as data-centers or even software houses.
- jsankey 17y agoBut this doesn't seem to be their target market. The simplicity of installation, and the website, point to home users. If you're running a data center you probably already have more sophisticated systems in place.
- gridspy 17y agoThat is exactly what we do. http://gridspy.co.nz/ http://gridspy.co.nz/
- savrajsingh 17y agoGood feedback. Yeah we can do that, too. ;)
- pg 17y agoWattvision tends to cut your power use, because you're probably wasting power in ways you don't know about. When you first install it, your initial reaction is generally "why are we using so much power?" Then you walk around turning things on and off and watching what happens to the graph. You usually discover some surprises in the process, and those change your behavior. You make what you measure. Watch any number carefully enough and you'll tend to optimize it, and most households have significant room to.
- mikeryan 17y agoI can understand the first usage being kind of interesting and enlightening, but I'm not sure if its $200 kind of interesting. It seems like this would be of more interest for commercial applications.
- netcan 17y agoI've always thought that light switches & sockets should have meters on them.
- staunch 17y agohttp://www.42u.com/images/power-tower-xl-ptxlv016.jpg http://www.42u.com/images/power-tower-xl-ptxlv016.jpg Lots of datacenter grade stuff does. It's really convenient.
- cpach 17y agoOops, I was about to upvote, but I hit the wrong arrow. And there's no undo. Sorry!
- gridspy 17y agoUntil recently it was very difficult to get the data from the sensors to a useful place. Wireless networks and common always on internet connections have changed that.
- netcan 17y agoWhat are the chances some sort of clever metering will be built in to new, higher end houses?
- gridspy 17y agoExtremely likely. There are good chances that in 30 years most houses are as automated as our off-grid house on Great Barrier Island and come with power monitoring as standard. http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/2009/08/the-barrier-house.html http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/2009/08/the-barrier-house.html We plan to provide the devices today.
- clistctrl 17y agoI have electric heating, last winter my average bill was $400 however my first bill was $490 little changes like leaving some doors closed during the day, and others open had $50 differences. I definitely would pay for that data, the savings would pay for it.
- jacquesm 17y agoElectric heat is like converting steak (high grade electric power) in to hamburger (low grade radiated heat). It is probably the least efficient way you could possibly choose to heat a house.
- savrajsingh 17y agoThe consumers interested in our system typically live in big homes in the suburbs and run their AC or heating quite a bit. That's not to say we can't also help landlords and small business owners who are also interested in saving money on their energy expenses.
- nick007 17y ago"you can't improve upon something until you can measure it" -- Albert Einstein
- electromagnetic 17y agoBut what scale of measuring is necessary? Do I need to know what devices drain what power when it's simple to assume that electric heaters consume a vast amount of energy during winter and that air conditioners consume a vast amount of energy during the summer. I believe the OP was asking is what is the benefit of this additional measuring and monitoring. What will it provide beyond the KW/h information I can get from my own meter?
- gridspy 17y agoBut how much energy? Do you know how many $$ of your power bill are down to AC and how many are due to hot water? If you turn down your AC one degree, can you tell at the end of the month how much you saved? It is hard to isolate particular elements of your house's usage without either a lot of legwork or a decent sensor solution. Knowing how you use your power lets you make smart compromises and invest in power saving measures such as better lights, solar hot water heating, insulation or smarter appliances. It is especially important if there are many people living or working in the same building, making it hard for any one person to get an accurate picture in their minds of the power consumption.
- electromagnetic 17y agoI know exactly how much electricity my devices use, and I certainly don't need a meter to figure out how or what they use. I worked as an electrician, I can work out the power consumption of every device, so yes personally I know where virtually every penny of my money is going. I also have an induction meter (IIRC accurate to ~10W, I've used ones accurate to ~1W) that cost ~$60, so I seriously don't see the value in a $200 system that can't do much more than me, a pencil and time. I see the system as a bit dishonest when you can tell people to look at a plug and read the amperage draw and tell them to times by 110. It's especially dishonest when the majority of devices now tell the wattage due to EnergyStar requirements.
- gridspy 17y agoIt seems to me that live monitoring is most useful to people who look at the power bill and wonder "where did that all go?" The biggest people asking this question would be large power users such as businesses. Businesses spend more money on power and need more detail to really drill into their power usage. That is why Gridspy (my startup) is focusing on them first. http://gridspy.co.nz/ http://gridspy.co.nz/ Because of this, I think that Watt vision and Gridspy are in slightly different markets, perhaps even complimentary.
- tptacek 17y agoWe spend $150-$200/mo. We're a small house in Chicago with 4 occupants. For any likely % of efficiency we'd gain by measuring electricity use in our house easily, it's trivial to work out the small number of months it would take for this to pay for itself. There's also a big difference between knowing in the abstract that (say) water kettles are expensive, and knowing specifically what is costing us money in our house.
- bradgessler 17y agoIt would be more interesting to have a sensor on the electric meter, then a few other units that you can put between appliances and the wall outlets so you can measure specific devices and tweak usage based on that data.