PowerCost Monitor

[mattboston-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org (Matt Shields)]

I saw another place online selling these for $130.  It uses an optical
sensor that sits on your meter.

-matt

On 6/30/07, Tom Metro <blu-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Rich Braun wrote:
> > ...a few more days remain on the NSTAR discount deal for those
> > PowerCost Monitor units...
>
> I ordered one of these a few weeks ago. It hasn't arrived yet. I'm
> curious to see how it will interface with my digital watt meter.
>
> Several years ago when I still had an analog watt meter with the
> spinning wheel I was thinking of sticking an optical encoder in front of
> it and sending a signal off to a computer to track power usage. I had a
> laugh when I saw photos of the PowerCost Monitor installed on an analog
> meter and noticed they were doing exactly this.
>
> When you first mentioned these devices and their affiliation with the
> utility company, I figured they were probably designed to work with the
> digital watt meters which have the ability to be read remotely.
>
>
> > ...I'd like them better if they had a computer interface...
>
> The sensor and the display unit communicate wirelessly, right? If you
> were sufficiently motivated, you should be able to reverse engineer the
> wireless signal, or better yet hack one of your receivers to intercept
> the signal. Worse case scenario is you capture the signals going to the LCD.
>
> On a privacy note, I'm guessing the data transmitted by these things
> isn't encrypted, so if you consider your power consumption to be private
> information, not the best device to be using. Then again, most houses
> have their watt meter on the exterior and in plain view. I tend to doubt
> the signal from the digital meters is encrypted either.
>
>   -Tom
>
> --
> Tom Metro
> Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
> "Enterprise solutions through open source."
> Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/
>
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