Remote Control Your Home's Energy Use with Ploggs
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California 
on 09.23.08
Image Credit: Plogg International
On the rise are devices that help us monitor and adjust our home’s energy use from afar. Energy Optimizers Limited’s Plogg is one of these devices. It’s an easy plug-in solution that tracks and logs how much energy an appliance is consuming, and has a handy dandy trick up its sleeve.
We’ve seen more and more devices that can pull the plug on wasted power, such as the Wattson or smart power strips. But the Plogg adds an extra cool feature.
The Plogg logs power usage (power logs, ploggs, get it? Har har.) and makes those logs accessable via any Bluetooth enabled device like your cell phone. So you can be out and about, check your home’s power consumption, see that the living room light was left on, and switch that light off through your cell phone.
Right now the Plogg is available only in the UK, though a US version is on the table. But if you’re in the US and want your hands on this kind of cool gadgetry, there are a couple of options, including SmartLinc or Home Manageables which are similar plug-in devices that also let you monitor and control your home's energy use via mobile devices.
Also on its way to us is Green Plug, a power strip device that can talk directly to the devices it powers (which will need to have Green Plug's Greentalk Universal Power Protocol installed) to know when to turn it on or off, leaving us entirely out of the power saving equation. But until that arrives, Ploggs and similar devices are a pretty cool way to stay on top of your home’s energy use.
Via Smart Meters
More on Monitoring Your Home’s Power Consumtpion:
Save 26% on Energy Costs with Smart Metering
Smarty Pants Energy Monitor: The Home Joule
PowerCost Home Energy Use Monitor
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GreenPlug is not an industry standard USB so it is not likely to be implemented on a large scale. Furthermore rather than submitting it to the industry standardization process they are attempting to convince consumers that it is available to implement at no cost.
But as they state in their own website they
So while your device (smart phone/PDA/laptop/etc) can implement the protocol without cost, consumers will pay because they must buy royalty encumbered power plugs/bars/ports/etc in order to power their devices.
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Sometimes it's better to wait for an industry standard.
I'm really confused about how you would use the bluetooth on your cell to turn off devices at home when you are 'out and about' ?? Last I understood it bluetooth has a range of feet not miles. Something like 15 or 20 feet?
A bit confused.
Wondering, it is not the Bluetooth connection that let's you check information when you are "out and about", according to the info at http://www.smartmeters.com/news/Making-electrical-outlets-smarter-n93.html it is a link to an Ethernet gateway that can be used to connect to any internet connected device including man PDAs.
All Plogg models do not using bluetooth for connectivity, they are also have the much more sensible option of Zigbee for data transfer.
Bluetooth is a good wireless protocol for short range medium speed data requirements but is more than what is needed for semi-permanent or permanent Plogg data and power draw. Zigbee data transfer rate is much slower ... but it's power draw is much lower as well. It's possible for a Zigbee device to run off of a single AA battery for years