The Twittering power meter from MAKE Volume 18: ReMake America now works with Google Powermeter. This was a bit of a struggle but we did it (code on github). For long time readers of MAKE you’ll likely recall this was a project of ours/mine I co-designed with Limor Fried (Ladyada) and recently Devlin Thyne. So as of right now you do not need to only use one of Google’s commercial partners to publish your power usage to Google’s Powermeter system, you can build your own. Power to the people as they say…
What’s next? Using historic power data to turn on and off relayed boxes (or real time if available) in other words – when it’s peak power usage parts of your home/apt automatically turn off based on what the power grid is doing and/or your power costs. These are all things you control and you decide of course, I’m going to make sure the electric dryer can’t be used during peak times, maybe I’ll have it glow green with it’s optimal usage time – stay tuned!
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