Why Intel Wants To Network Your Clothes Dryer 330
An anonymous reader writes "Intel has shown off a working prototype of a small box that, among other things, can monitor your clothes dryer to see how much it's contributing to your power bill. The Intelligent Home Energy Management proof-of-concept device is a small box with an 11.56-inch OLED touchscreen that is designed to act as an electronic dashboard for monitoring energy use in the home. By equipping devices like home entertainment systems and clothes dryers with wireless networked power adapters, the system can actually report back the power draw for a particular power point. Leave the house, and it can make sure power-draining devices like that plasma TV are turned off. It is unlikely the device will enter production (there are apparently only four in existence), however this story about the box shows something we can expect to see in the home of tomorrow. Ultimately, it's not only about saving money, but also reducing load on the electricity grid by removing needless power use."
Perverts! (Score:4, Funny)
They want to see your underwear, that's why.
Re:Perverts! (Score:5, Funny)
Now i know what "Intel Inside" really meant. Bastards.
only if the government mandates it (Score:4, Insightful)
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Some electricity companies in the UK have sent digital power meters to customers -- the one my parents received has a large LCD showing the total power use for the home (in watts). The display is portable, the sensor is wrapped around the main power cable.
(I think they're forced to send them to some people to encourage energy efficiency.)
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***Really, "A lot of people"? I do not personally know anyone who does.***
Some will in the future I think. My local hardware store has grown a couple of bubble wrapped Kill-A-Watt devices on a peg a few feet over from the network cables at the other end of the aisle from the PVC pipe fittings.
=====
Wrt to the technology itself. Is there some reason this couldn't be done over the power line using X-10 or something similar? I do not, repeat NOT, want to run network cables to my washing machine. Neither do
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But kill-a-watts are becoming more mainstream.
I've had friends who would never have looked at it until they had trouble with power bills > $500.
As devices like this appear:
http://www.belkin.com/conserve/insight/ [belkin.com]
that just have a money readout, it will make more sense to non-nerds.
And hopefully one day: kids.
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The price point has to be lower, and there is no reason it cannot be.
I "kill-A-Watt" includes a good amount of unnecessary hardware, like it's own LCD screen. As does this joke of an offering from the OP.
All that's needed is a wireless chip attached to a relay and a couple sensor inputs. That's like 1/50th of a cell phone worth of electronics. And I'm not talking about a smart phone here. The end nodes should be under $5, The central "station" should be doable for under $30.
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Why exactly would I want to spend, even say $200 (a very low price for a system given the cost of a kill-a-watt), for a system that might save me $10 a year on electricity and sometimes annoy me for hours on end.
Re:only if the government mandates it (Score:5, Informative)
I signed up for PowerSmart Pricing [powersmartpricing.org] for free. Which has hourly rates instead of a monthly flat rate. I've cut a good chunk of my bill by shifting most electricity to off hours.
Coupled with a free eSmart [actonenergy.com] programmable thermostat. I can set temperatures from the internet. I also have it setup to kill my AC during peak hours. I did have to give them ability to kill my AC remotely, however 1) I'm not home anyway. 2) It's only 6 times between June and September. Meaning all of 2 days per week.
I'd love to figure out the protocol that it uses and set up some scripting, but for now it works.
Initial cost out of pocket: $0
Savings per month: $20-$50 (compared to previous year)
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Oh man...I wish our power company offered something like that (we live in Maryland, ~30 minutes outside of DC)
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Oh man...I wish our power company offered something like that (we live in Maryland, ~30 minutes outside of DC)
I agree, and ever since the Maryland Government went away from regulation, energy prices are going to be like California soon. It's really gotten out of hand IMO. BGE is just paying for the poor investments that Constellation Energy made over the last few years. It's really a lot of BS IMO.
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I'm with Pepco, in MoCo, and they have the thermostat program (I'm on it) but not the tiered pricing. Still, it was easy to get them to put in the thermostat, so it's a start.
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Hey hey, a fellow Monkey County resident! We're in downtown Rockville, and we have our electric through Pepco as well. What's this thermostat program you speak of?
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That is really cool! Sadly CL&P doesn't seem to offer anything near that. In fact, the way I'm billed, it doesn't seem to matter what time of the day I use the power...it's the same rate. The off/peak power billing plan only makes sense for people who use a ton of power. Despite all my computers, fish tank, tortoise house...still under 800 Killowatt hours a month. Maybe it's time to review their offerings.
Now I remember why I don't use it... (Score:2)
That is really cool! Sadly CL&P doesn't seem to offer anything near that. In fact, the way I'm billed, it doesn't seem to matter what time of the day I use the power...it's the same rate. The off/peak power billing plan only makes sense for people who use a ton of power. Despite all my computers, fish tank, tortoise house...still under 800 Killowatt hours a month. Maybe it's time to review their offerings.
Variable Peak Pricing requires me to buy my electricity from CL&P instead of from the company that uses all renewable tech to generate.
Oh well, take one for the team and all that.
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I've seen some new hotels with some interesting energy saving stuff.. If it doesn't sense anyone in the room, it shuts off the heat/AC, turns off lights, TV, etc.
Personally, I would love something like that at home, or just a big frickin red button near each door to the house (especially the door to the garage) that would kill all non-essential outlets in the house, turn off lights (except maybe one or two on a timer) and knock the thermostat down (or up in summer)
Why is Intel working on this at the power s
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Isn't that what X-10 [x10.com] is all about?
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I've seen one of these in the flesh - they're very shiny indeed.
There's no earthly reason it has to be used for power monitoring - it could, for instance, provide a pretty UI to a fullblown home automation system. AFAICT, the only reason Intel are specifically making a thing about the power monitoring is because with ever-increasing electricity prices they think it's a sexy marketing feature.
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Yes, it's high time that home appliances of all sort got a standardized remote control interface.
My primary interest is for home theatre equipment but this could be useful for the entire house.
Any device should be standardized and self documenting so that it's easy with simple tools to figure
out what the device supports so you can automate it. There could even be standardized commands for
some things along the lines of the AT command set.
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Worse than little benefit, the sum of the power used by the monitoring will exceed by a factor of ten the power saved by reminding you to turn off your dryer before leaving home.
The built in timer will turn off said dryer for next to nothing.
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Enough dreaming, time for a reality check: this thing is still pretty useless... A big disadvantage of these wireless 'Zi
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Eh, don't be so sure. Along with simple monitoring some of these devices can come with remote controls, and I don't mean like... a remote control like a Wii mote... I mean... like controlling it remotely... English needs more words. Anyways.
So my Uncle is a tech Savvy programmer who made his millions working on the code that stitches pictures from multiple cameras together and lets you pan it around. So, doing well when virtual tours came along, made a ton when Google Street view came along, he's pretty muc
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Obviously there is little benefit of indoor plumbing, especially in the south where it seldom gets cold and the rain it not that big of impediment, and there is space. The added cost of indoor plumbing does set a huge impediment to ownership of houses, and some may choose to not have it in order to have a protection from t
Is this cost effective? (Score:4, Insightful)
This'll be a great idea if it can be built so cheaply that the money I save from using it is greater than the money I'd save by not buying it.
Not sure I see that happening all that soon.
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People like to bring this out, but it isn't always that simple. Time is money. The most aggrivating thing to me when I was a kid was my dad driving 6 miles out of his way to get gas for 10c/gallon cheaper. So you drove 12 miles, consuming half a gallon, costing you 50c at $1.00/gallon. You saved $1.50, netting you $1.00. You also wasted 15 mins....do you like working for $4.00/hr on weekends? I'll change my own brakes/shocks and save $100-$200 for 2 hours of work, THAT is worth my time.
I know this is
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Right.
People buy electric clothes dryers out of convenience in the first place. A clothesline offers a significant reduction in both up front and ongoing costs, but far less convenience.
Put this monitor in someone's house and pop up a message that it will cost an extra dollar to dry clothes now versus waiting 6 hours, I think most people will spend the dollar.
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Yeah.... You could already buy a "Kill-a-watt" meter and hook it up to a device to see how much power it draws. Most people probably haven't bothered, even though it only costs $20 or so.
http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU [amazon.com]
The thing is, beyond taking steps to simply reduce usage of the device in question, or alter your usage patterns so you use it more at night (or otherwise deemed "off peak" electrical usage hours), you can't do anything else to make it cost les
Now how about... (Score:5, Funny)
...they come up with a way to detect that monster that keeps eating my fucking socks. I'm sick and tired of wearing mismatching socks! DAMMIT, FIND THAT BASTARD!!!
Re:Now how about... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Now how about... (Score:4, Informative)
Not monster. Wormhole. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not monster. Wormhole. (Score:4, Funny)
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Just put them back in the dryer. They'll make their way back.
Not sure if its worth it (Score:4, Insightful)
Assume for a second that they are going to start selling these systems tomorrow. What would their cost be? $100? $300? $500?
Now, how much would you stand to save per year in reduced energy use from a device like this monitoring and potentially powering off unused devices? $50? $100?
I'm already pretty good at keeping things off when I'm not using them so I'm skeptical that a device like this is going to save me any money after you figure in the cost of the device and the ironic cost of powering the device.
In theory a device like this sounds good but the very people who are worried about their energy use (and would purchase a device like this) are probably the people who least need it.
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No... probably more in the order of 5-10 euro.
A very decent payback time. All it is, is a bunch of amp-meters, a number of switches, a display and a wireless system. I can find phones that can do a lot more for 20 euro.
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According to my wireless electricity meter manufacturer, its 2.5p per week; as I get charged 12p per kWh, that's 1.2W. That includes the transmitter+sensor and the LCD display unit.
wired? Don't bother. (Score:2)
I don't want to run a network drop to my laundry room.
Is it going to add more than $10 to the cost of the dryer? If yes, and unless it's going to save me more than $10 in the first year; again, don't bother.
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Way to be altruistic there, buddy.
Why bother buying a hybrid then? Why seek out alternative energy sources? We could keep driving our beat up Suburbans and keep using our coal mines simply because it's cheaper and switching wont give us instant gratification.
Think long term and think of everyone but you.
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I guess it's snarky day here on /. and ad hominem attacks are part of the culture anyway.
In that vein, altruism and $1.78 gets me a coffee at Starbucks.
The carbon footprint of me continuing to drive my existing car -- no, it's not a Chevy Suburban -- is much lower than me replacing it with a Prius out of some misguided altruism.
Re:wired? Don't bother. (Score:4, Insightful)
ZigBee, which, as the article states is the key to this system, is a protocol that runs over a wireless mesh network. I use XNet ZB modules [digi.com] for my tinkering.
Clothes dryer? (Score:3, Insightful)
My highly advanced clothes-line technology comes with an implicit display of its power consumption - zero.
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A lot of people live in small city apartments, many of which simply have no space for clothes lines...
Also using clothes drying racks inside the house tends to increase the moisture in the air which can encourage mould to grow which is highly undesirable.
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That's just because there's this silly perception that having clothes lines outside the window is something that only happens in third world countries.
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Now I just run the dryer right before going to bed, so at least it's during non-peak times.
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Yeah I tried that. After the third load that got covered in dirt from the wind unexpectedly picking up, I said screw it. It wasn't worth spending all that extra time only to have to rewash the load.
Useful for some people, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see the appeal. It looks like it's over-engineering a solution to something that can be done with common sense.
Then again, I love tech and gadgets and I guess most of that is an over-engineered solution to something or another.
The only reason I would care about this is if I realized I left something *dangerous* on before I left for work and could turn it off remotely. I don't use a curling iron, but I know for some that would be a big deal. A stove / oven / toaster oven / etc would be dangerous as well, and while I never left one on before leaving the house I know that's a concern for some. Though I imagine only electric stoves and ovens would apply unless there was a way to electronically turn off the gas reliably.
As for the power draw, I would just care enough about it to know in the beginning "how much does X" use via one of those little gadgets you can temporarily plug between the device and outlet. Then decide for myself if I should monitor how much I use device X.
Personally, I'm in the mind-set of "turn if off when not in use."
- Not watching or listening to the TV, turn it off.
- Not in that room across the house, turn off the main light.
I shouldn't need a device to remind me.
CurrentCost meters (Score:4, Interesting)
Here in the UK we're seeing a lot of devices that you place around the incoming electricity feed (via a loop you put around the cable) that has a wireless transmitter to a LCD display of current overall power usage (and some historical stats). They're quite cool, some can be connected to your PC, like the CurrentCost Envi [currentcost.com]. The idea is you can see how much power those hungry devices use as you see the meter spike up when you turn them on.
The government has set a policy for monitoring meters, and the electricity companies (and Sky TV for some reason) are offering subsidised units (I got mine cheap off ebay from someone who had one of these).
You can get these things in the US and Australia/NZ [currentcost.co.uk] too, and even Google is getting involved as these things will upload to Google Powermeter [google.com].
So, adding a wireless usage transmitter to every plug sounds expensive (but cool) but it wouldn't provide that much more information than you can get currently. However, the CurrentCost devices talk to each other (and you can set up multiple meters) so if their comms protocol was a standard (it might be, they advertise it as C2), then additional transmitters could fit into an existing power-usage network without fuss.
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And this is the stinker: It tells me that the cooker (hob and oven) and the TV use the most power in the house. duh.
Okay, so your largest draws are things you can't (or don't want to) reduce. Does that mean you should just give up? Why not spend some time looking at other areas to see if you can reduce your usage by a few percent?
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While I think that idea is inevitable and even responsible, it also seems like a serious vulnerability. I don't want someone getting in and turning my washer, dryer, stove, AC on while I am away, let alone my neighbor's constantly open wrt54g with a default password of "admin".
If we think planes crashing into buildings are scary how about massive rolling black outs at 8:01 AM every morning.
So the Government can turn it off (Score:4, Funny)
So the Government (or the egacorporation acting on the govt's behalf) can turn off your appliance, and only let you use it during certain predetermined times. i.e. Rationing of electricity usage.
Yeah I know..... you think I'm a nutter for saying that, but then again I've studied government history. If they CAN do a thing, they will do that thing. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually.
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Correction:
"or the [mega]corporation acting on the govt's behalf" - Also known as fascism (old term) or Corporatism (new term) where the government motto moves from "We the People" to "We the Corporations".
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What's to stop them from doing that already? The rolling brownouts could be planned, man!
jaykay, jaykay :)
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The rolling brownouts could be planned, man!
jaykay, jaykay :)
Thanks but though laundry is the topic we don't want to discuss the state of your underwear.
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Thanks but though laundry is the topic we don't want to discuss the state of your underwear.
Strange. My wife always tells me the same thing...
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measure something without changing it? (Score:2)
what's the impact on my power bill of a bunch of these little things?
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Nothing significant. I have a PowerMeter that I use to measure various devices like my TV, computer, or air conditioner and I was curious to see how much energy the gadget uses, and it was unmeasurable. Probably 0.1 watt or so. Even if I had 10 of these power-monitoring devices in my applicances, that's only 1 W * 24 hours * 30 days == 0.7 kilowatt-hours, or 79 cents added to my bill.
My DTV converter is also unmeasurable when put in "standby" mode. It doesn't take much energy to run embedded CPU devic
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Was my thought too, aren't we supposed to be trying to do away with standby power devices?
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TV power saving idea! (Score:2)
That way people would be less inclined to switch on their power-hungry TVs and would do something (hopefully less energy consuming) instead. ... Oh, hang on. What's did you say? they already do that?
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I don't need that, I just act like my dad... (Score:2)
....whenever I move around the house I turn lights off, turn off radios, unplug anything with a goddamn LED on when the device is off (I'm looking at you toaster!), and firmly but politely as the other people in the house to turn things off when they aren't using it.
I'm not "green" I'm cheap!
"Green" means spending money on this monitoring device, it means buying a new car when the old one could just use a good tune up, it means feeling good but not accomplishing anything. Being cheap means that I actually h
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Or how about go back to traditional hard off switches, instead of the software controlled standby switches most appliances have these days?
Double-edged sword (Score:2)
I recently shopped in a high-end major appliance store and the salesman told me about a frig that has the ability to contact the manufacturer if something goes wrong. The system figures out what parts are needed and sends them to the local repair center so that they are on hand when the repair person comes to your house. While that is pretty slick and efficient the darker side is that information could potentially be used by the nanny state to turn down your frig settings. Thus proving a major axiom: Any
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This idea of appliances calling in for their own repairs has been somebody's wet dream for a long time, and they even made a TV commercial showing supposedly how it would be a good thing for a repairman showing up at the door unannounced. That's not what I want, and I don't see why this idea has such legs.
It would be maybe interesting if the appliance could send just me a report, then I could shop it around for estimates, but having it automatically contact somebody without going through me first is unappea
Today its about you saving money (Score:2)
One Australian city had to find generator capacity - solution, float an on/off radio network idea
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/etsa-plans-to-take-control/story-e6freo8c-1225697720719 [adelaidenow.com.au]
Note the "power would be cut to certain appliances" and "a plasma TV and airconditioner might be turned off remotely"
This is the gateway for a "death panel" on your private electrical use.
Oh goody, the wired home. (Score:3, Funny)
Our flying cars are just around the corner.
I have heard about the intelligent home all my life. So did my parents AND their parents. Look up some old reels from a "visions of the future" style problem. Where you see some housewife in black&white use robots we still don't have. 50+ years and the toaster still doesn't work right.
Okay, so the dryer is networked. What now? Report its power drain? I know it drains power, I can hear it running. How much? Well, I know how much thank you, I can see it on the bill. If I don't care about the money I sure as hell don't care about the environment OR that it will brownout the district.
If I do care about the environment and bill, then I would hardly want to ADD to the polution and cost by installing electronic devices I don't need.
This belongs in the category of the fridge that scans your food. The gadget is called a wife. They can see straight through metal and can detect rotting food a mile away. The gadget for saving electricity is called a dad. Try it. Get a wife with the optional extra of a kiddy or two (odd enough you don't get a discount for bulk buying) and you soon will be the most efficient energy saver on the planet.
Ultimately, it's not only about saving money (Score:2)
Correct, its about monitoring the citizens even further. Expect gen 2 to report back to the government to see if you are washing too often.
Deluge of daily metrics? (Score:2)
I don't think we need the added complexity or the flood of daily metrics. Instead of fitting all of these appliances with their own power-monitoring and networking features, just buy one Kill-A-Watt, measure each appliance once in their typical usage pattern(s), and make some decisions. If you think they will deteriorate over time, measure them again in six months. Of course Intel wants to sell more chips, but I don't really want to turn my house into the NORAD Crystal Palace with all of the metrics-gath
More likely.... (Score:2)
Yahoo and HP will want to try to buy adspace on the dryer's LCD display.
Re:More likely.... (Score:4, Funny)
Completely useless (Score:2)
Just get a killawatt [google.com], plug it in, turn the drier on for a cycle, and you've got its usage. Do this for your other appliances and you'll have all the data you will ever need.
There is no reason to have on-going monitoring in your house, as appliances don't change their electrical usage over time. However, the simplest solution won't lead to profits for Intel. In fact, you'll use more energy constantly powering the monitoring device hob, the sensors, the Ethernet network, etc... All these parasitic monitors
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A killawatt can't turn the freezer to -21C (as opposed to the usual -18C) for a couple of hours with strong winds (and therefore close to free electricity).
Of course that requires variable electricity prices, but I can't imagine that there will be many civilized places without them in 10 years.
What's the point? (Score:2)
Anything that I own that is worth running off hours, namely the washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher already has the ability to dial in the number of hours before it starts.
The only one I ever use is the dishwasher, and that's more because I don't want to listen to it while I'm up. I tend to do 2-4 loads of clothes at a time which makes it rather hard to schedule running at off peak hours. Your money is better spent on a higher spin cycle which reduces dry times. A lot of my clothes come out so that they
HAN (Score:5, Informative)
I work in the AMI/ Smart Grid field and I am just finishing up a study on HAN devices for a municipality. This is the way to go, with a ZigBee enabled device to communicate with power monitoring adapters that all of your electrical loads plug into. If it also supported an internet LAN connection back up to the utility AMI MMS (meter management system) it could incorporate the latest billing rate information and any data collected from the AMI meter outside the house.
There are some solutions out there that are closed-proprietary but I believe that a standards-based solution is the right way to go. HAN needs to get to the point where you can go into your local home improvement store and buy devices that can associate to a central device. Right now the price-point is too high at around $100 a device and it can cost $300-$400 to equip a home with a IHD (in home dislay), programmable thermostat and a communications gateway.
I hope that Intel can apply pressure to the marketplace so this technology can become ubiquitous.
How much power will it use itself? (Score:2)
I bet they want to inflate the system with a dual core atom rather than a low power solution like ARM. Something designed to monitor power consumption with the intention of saving energy really should be extremely efficient in itself.
No Wifi, devices already wired to network (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be easier to make the Breaker box smarter and it would KNOW that my Clothes dryer is the high amp draw on circuit 12, the HVAC is the high draw on Circuit 10, the TV is Circuit 15, etc. Even if it can't ID them right away, it could learn the devices by asking you what you just turned on, no need for them all to have smartchips and wifi.
My blender, toaster and can opener all plug in at the same place in the kitchen and have different draw patterns than say the Microwave or the Stove, Oven, Fridge
Re:Interesting... (Score:4, Funny)
You could do that with a sticker right now. Do you need a sticker?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't that a lot of the point of the smart grid?
I should be able to say, "Dry my clothes in the next 4 hours or when the unit price for power drops below $0.07"
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know a way we could save at least 15% of energy usage in the USA right now:
mandate that all appliances (DVD players, TV's, etc) had an actual, PHYSICAL POWER SWITCH rather than being electrical vampires [sciencedaily.com].
There's no reason every fucking device on the planet has to have a goddamn clock, and much less that it needs to eat more than 2 watts 24/7 just to wait for a power-on signal from some lazy fatass who can't stand up and walk 8 feet from the couch to turn it on.
Re:Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
much less that it needs to eat more than 2 watts 24/7 just to wait for a power-on signal from some lazy fatass who can't stand up and walk 8 feet from the couch to turn it on.
That can be achieved with less than 0.1W. It's close enough to 0 for me. Mandate that instead of mandating physical switches.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, it sounds good to be able to monitor...however, I'm afraid that it might become mandated that everyone would have to have a monitoring device, and the govt gets to tell you when you can do what, and what temp your house can be, etc.
With the feds (and some states) poking their noses into private citizens' lives more and more...I see this as one more thing coming. Hell, sounds like one hell of a rider to attach to the cap and trade bills going through right now.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
The "vampire power" thing is a bit overrated, actually. It's worth having standards for new appliances limiting their offline current draw, but the amount of energy savings to be had doesn't come anywhere near 15% of our electricity use. Not even close. Home electronics themselves only use 7ish percent of our total electricity. See here [doe.gov]
To the GP: yes that's the idea of the smart grid.
And in general it is pretty pathetic that Zigbee or X25 or even out-of-band ethernet or RS232 power strips and power meters continue to be products that are only sold at a premium to professional IT/ISP departments or home automation boutiques. The meters and the power switches themselves are all dirt cheap, and the network interfaces are also really cheap to add. I mean, look at the price of 5-port ethernet switches and tr to tell yourself adding a port or radio to a deivice like this is going to be "prohibitively expensive". It just does not make sense.
But these have always been products that cannot sell on the shelf at Home Depot. The best you can get is a dedicated lightswitch/lamp pair that uses a proprietary "protocol." As sad as that is, it's "progress" compared to several years ago when even that was not available.
Anyway, I suppose I'm going to have to watch a slow motion trainwreck of companies trying to proprietizesmart grid initiatives in the coming decades. Sigh.
The vampires are real (Score:4, Interesting)
The "vampire power" thing is a bit overrated, actually.
No, it isn't.
Switching power supplies, like good quality cell phone chargers and laptop power supplies generally use almost no power when they're not under load. At least, the ones in my house don't. I know this because...
I installed a Brultech ECM-1240 [etherbee.com] on my house's breaker panel. It has current taps around the main feed, and several other house circuits, like the kitchen outlets, furnace (which also works as my a/c blower in the summer), etc. It sends the data over IP to a low power PC (6W, thanks to a low power CPU and SSD) which stores it in a database and generates graphs you can view in a web browser (unfortunately using a Flash applet).
The software was, to put it mildly, complicated to set up. Seriously. It's not quite a finished product, and it has a few gotchas that prevent it from working until you figure out the mindset of the person who hacked it together. Once it's working, it's pretty neat though.
So, what did I find?
The powered subwoofer in the living room uses 10W when it's in "Standby" mode. It's now wired to a relay connected to my receiver's switched outlet, so it's never on unless the receiver is also on.
The PS3 wakes itself up at all times of the night - oh, you think it's off, but it's nowhere near off. It'll wake up for whatever nefarious reason whenever the hell it wants to and then it stays on until you turn it off again - all the time using about 150W continuously. I wanted to watch Bluray movies, not heat the room all night, thanks. I turn off it's power switch (on the rear of the unit) after I shut it down now.
The Apple TV uses 30W all the time - ok, this is Apple's fault, I think. There's no power switch, and I don't think there's even an option to shut it down. I just unplug it, which is inconvenient since we use the Airtunes function a lot.
I've even found some things that aren't really vampire power, but are what I call bugs and inefficiencies:
The color laser printer upstairs decided one day that sleep mode means "run all your motors and keep the fuser warm for no apparent reason." Averaging about 350W continuously (we don't use the upstairs of the house much, so it went unnoticed until I came home and saw the power usage chart. Reset the printer and all is well so far.
The basement dehumidifier was going through defrost cycles very frequently. You could see them as a sawtooth on top of the main power use graph. I took the machine apart, washed the coils and replaced some insulation that had fallen off one of the refrigerant lines. Power use dropped by about 50W and the defrost cycles happen much further apart.
Anyhow, I guess my main point is that your house is probably full of power wasting appliances, but unless you know what's going on, you'll never find them. Except the laser printer - I heard that one when I went into the room it's in.
You don't need anything as complicated as my setup, just something that will record the power usage (or even just current) coming in on your main power feed. It's really helpful though to know when things are going wrong.
Looking at the graph, I can see big things like the house a/c, the garage door opener, etc., but also small things - in the winter I could see the 8W used by the furnace's gas valve as it cycled the burners on and off, and I can see the 3W from the solenoid valve in the fridge when someone gets a glass of water from the dispenser on the fridge door.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Have a physical power switch AND let every device have a clock......that gets set by radio time sources [wikipedia.org] and stores time zone in non-volatile memory.
Have your cake, and eat it too.
Or each device could utilize a normally-open relay for power switching.
Your DVR can record a show, then open the relay when finished.
Press one button to turn your microwave on, then enter the cooking time. When it's finished, the relay opens.
Sure, it will add to the cost of the device. But if the 15% is accurate for your househol
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
mandate that all appliances (DVD players, TV's, etc) had an actual, PHYSICAL POWER SWITCH rather than being electrical vampires [sciencedaily.com].
There's no reason every fucking device on the planet has to have a goddamn clock, and much less that it needs to eat more than 2 watts 24/7 just to wait for a power-on signal from some lazy fatass who can't stand up and walk 8 feet from the couch to turn it on.
Horse shit horse shit horse shit horse shit.
Buy a Kill-A-Watt
Measure the actual power consumption of your devices in standby mode
Find that they're all immeasurably close to 0
I have a wide variety of chargers, adapters, power strips, surge protectors, AV gear, gaming systems, etc. None of them draw so much as a single watt of power when in standby mode.
The claims that I need to buy a smart power strip to shut off my array of chargers, or that governments need to mandate that devices come with GREEN FEATURE #246187 is utter horse shit.
You claim at least 15%.
Show me the fucking numbers, measured from appliances in your house. I've measured my shit, and I know these claims are lies.
You want to ACTUALLY conserve energy use?
Fix your insulation. The vast majority of homes in the US and the world have shitty, shitty insulation.
Beyond that, yes, I want every device to have a physical power switch. Why? Because I like having physical control over my shit.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd be willing to bet that the sticker would consume less power than this device.
On that note.... So the device monitors power usage for devices that are supposedly off (as we all know, off doesn't necessarily mean off). This device will actually add to your power bill if you don't change behavior.
Maybe I already shut off lights, and am generally power conscious. I must consume more power to determine how much power I'm consuming.
Why don't I just put an electricity meter [microcustom.co.uk] on each circuit in my house and t
Re:Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Pumped storage schemes can store power (pump water uphill, to fill the reservoir used by a hydroelectric power plant).
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says it's used for 2.5% and 5% of electricity generation in the US and EU respectively.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If it could also give suggestions such as:
"You know, if you waited 4 hours and ran this load of laundy at midnight, you'd save 30% because of the lower power rates"
That would be pretty cool and useful! We can save a lot of money, not by buying a bunch of new electronic goods but, by simply modifying our habits with our current electric drawing devices.
Clippy: It looks like you are trying to wash semen stains out of your Y-fronts.Would you like me to order some rubber knickers instead?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Clippy: It looks like you are trying to wash semen stains out of your Y-fronts.Would you like me to order some rubber knickers instead?
Clippy: It looks like you are trying to wash blood stains and powder residue off your clothes. Would you like me to contact a criminal defense attorney?
Re: (Score:2)
So you put it off for 4 hours, then ... oops, I fell asleep ...
Ever let damp laundry sit overnight?
You end up wasting a LOT more energy when you have to wash it again.
Easier (and cheaper) to keep an eye on the weather and do most of your laundry on sunny days.
Re: (Score:2)
Then it could email or otherwise alert you when it is time to dry.
Also, the improved run time does not have to be late at night...maybe it can synchonize with your networked alarm clock and have the laundry finish 10 minutes after you wake up so you can switch it to the dryer and avoid leaving wet clothes (although then you have to leave stuff in the dryer).
Re: (Score:2)
My drier comes with a timer. Just like about every other device in my house (Coffee maker, dishwasher, washer, etc.)
Re: (Score:2)
Or, a message that prints on the OLED screen that says:
"Due to demands on the power grid, I will not be able to dry your clothes for another 9.37 hours. Sorry for the inconvenience. The Smart Grid."
Or...
"The power grid load is high now, therefore, I will not be able to play the 'Beatles Anthology: CD1' right now. Sorry for the inconvenience. The Smart Grid."
Ad infinitum.
Re: (Score:2)
That's called experience. Washer A takes 47 minutes. Started it 33 minutes ago, ergo it will be done in 14. Don't need a network to count for me.
Re: (Score:2)
Washer A (of the future) takes 47 minutes at minimal clothes load; 57 minutes at 50% of max and 65 minutes at 100% capacity (calculated on the fly). Add or subtract 10% for selected soil grade. Still have that in your head? Now, your wife insists on permanent press (shorter cycle) and that the clothes don't have any down time in the washer before being hung or moved to the dryer.
How long before you come back to the basement to check on the clothes? FYI, the future is here and this is the problem I face
Re: (Score:2)
::huge explosion, laundromat sign flies towards camera:: ::Ahnold opens a single-shot grenade tube::
Ahnold: You've been pressed. ::ahnold places another round in the chamber, closes it up, and cocks the tube:: Permanently.
Coming to theaters this summer. Ahnold is: The Spin Cycle.