Smarty Pants Energy Monitor: The Home Joule
by Jacob Gordon, Nashville, TN on 05. 1.07
We love visual feedback devices. Inventive tools for animating energy consumption have become something of a genre unto themselves nowadays, which is a very good thing. Since the utilitarian Kill-a-Watt, more sleek tools like the Wattson and PowerCost have joined in. The Home Joule kicks things up a notch by receiving real-time info about your local utility, time-of-day energy costs, and local weather, then splices this with your home energy consumption. The colored circular screen tells you when your bill is going to spike or when your use is unusually high. According to Wired, responsible energy use can even earn you goodies like movie tickets.
The added cleverness of the Home Joule comes from Ambient Devices, a company making intuitive electronics that do things like express stock prices in the colored glow of an orb. Ambient broadcasts real-time data via the Ambient Information Network to its devices that visualize it in creative ways. In this case, ConsumerPowerline, a “strategic asset management firm,” provides the energy info to Ambient’s feed. The Home Joule is now being beta tested in the New York City area and other select areas before fully hitting the market. ::Home Joule (image credit: Wired)
Good for managing the family Joules.