AT&T inks deal to provide smart appliances equal time on the grid
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Mar 19th 2009 10:13AM
posted Mar 19th 2009 10:13AM
Up until now, if you had dreams of managing your household energy consumption with some sort of smart appliance, you had to either live in an area where a utility built its own network (Corpus Christi or Burbank, for example) or rely on some proprietary method of getting data from your site to the electric co. It looks like this is about to change, however. AT&T has announced a deal with smart meter manufacturer SmartSynch that will see the carrier provide two-way communications between the your home and the grid, a "first of its kind" agreement that will allow you to get the most out of those Energy Management Enabled Appliances GE has been feverishly developing. Sure, refrigerators that wait until midnight to defrost aren't as exciting as, say, robotic monster trucks -- but this is progress, man. Show a little enthusiasm.
Computer: tea, earl gray, 55 degrees Celsius.
+1 to you sir. Now I can manage my anti-matter injector from work!
LCARS UI is so ****** sexy slick!
Is this going to have the same reliability as your network??
if every fridge defrosts and midnight, aren't we defeating the purpose?
Are we going to find out in 50/60 years that by doing we killed the planet and brought doom upon ourselves?
No because nearly everything else will be off.
I don't want this. Then eventually the govn't A**holes will want to control your usage and eventually what you may set your thermostat at.
I say get this left wing fascist concept out of my life.
ummm which is it left wing or fascist? Do you realize that fascism is the far right of the spectrum?
Way to play up those American stereotypes......
yay politics! indeed, the far left is facist... they believe in ultimate governmental power and regulation... If you understood the word, you would know fascism can go both ways. FYI: I hate both major parties equally these days... basically its lots of people with tons of power, I want less government, and more power to the people.
fieldcar said "less government, and more power to the people"
that's a part of socialist ideology, so your are in favor of left wing politics.
correction (you are) not your are, before the grammer nazi jackboots me.
@ fieldcar:
fascism can't really go either way. to the far far left you have communist theory, where the government decides everything: rationing, prices, jobs . . everything is owned by the government BUT the government is the entire population so everything is controlled by everybody (this is only a theory and never works).
to the far left of conservatism you have fascism's bastard cousin: the monarchy. where everything: how people dress, the religion to believe, security . . you have one set of beliefs and everyone must believe the same way you do.
fascism is a very broad term (because it depends on the beliefs of the dictator) but you'd have to be an idiot to confuse it with communist theory, they're almost polar opposites. if you're a fascist who lets everyone believe what they want and let them do drugs and screw hookers . . you're a very liberal dictator. If you put your country into martial law and believes in a static ideology while diminishing freewill entirely . . you're a very conservative dictator.
it's "grammAr," calgaryalta. but good job on you are.
unless of course you meant actor kelsey grammEr, or his daughter who's an actor on Greeks. But that would change the whole meaning of your post. Maybe someone in that family is a nazi? (just trying to divert the "fascism" dialogue going on further down in this thread)
slow news day aaaayy engadget?
GUI developer for this thing must be a Trekkie!
I for got that is comes out in 6 more weeks!!!!!
fieldcar you are incorrect -
pure liberalism = collectivism = no difference between government and its citizens
from the point of view from a true definition fascism is a far right point of view
the way the words are used in the Western Political system is incorrect in terms of their true definition.
*correction: "to the far RIGHT of conservatism." --'scuse me.
anyone else think this looks like an atari loading screen or leaderboard?
props for the LCARS - love it
so, whens the iPhone app gonna be available for this?
Good, I was looking for a way to monitor the power consumption in the garage pot farm.
ENGAGE!
Mr. LaForge, do we appear to be using too much power? Requesting a report from Engineering.
And why is there a picture of an antiquated power meter on my screen? Computer, please remove the 80's Skin.
What happens when AT&T's "most bars" network goes down every other week?
the same thing that happens right now. your house explodes and you die. my condolences to your family. now stop posting to this website from beyond the grave.
This will be good but I doubt if PG&E will like this as they have a tendency to play with the numbers during bonus time at end of year. Now they will not be able to overcharge you and have to use the exact meter numbers.
I went to the Google forum on the SmartGrid a few weeks ago here in DC anad from what I saw it was pretty interesting. The main problem, like so many other things we need to change, is that people are so entrenched in doing things a certain way, its going to be difficult to get everyone hooked in in an efficient manner. Hopefully this will turn out well for everyone.