Smappee's £169 energy monitor can keep tabs on every device in your home
Sure, our homes are getting smarter and allowing us to be greener than before, but the cost of energy has continued to climb. Energy companies have encouraged us keep tabs on our consumption, but it's hard to identify which appliances are responsible for driving up your fuel bill every month. That's where Smappee's smart energy monitor comes in, having just launched in the UK: Instead of just telling you how much current your home is consuming, this little box can identify individual devices and appliances in your home, letting you shut the offending devices down.
Similar to other energy monitoring products, Smappee requires you to clamp its sensor onto the main power cable of a household meter. If you're not comfortable with fuse boxes or working by torchlight, you might need a professional to install it for you. Once fixed in place, Smappee's bespoke technology monitors the electrical oscillations (or interference) in your home on a millisecond basis to recognize the individual signatures generated by each of your devices. It'll attempt to learn about everything you use over time, meaning you won't need to traverse your home turning things on and off again to manually add them.
While the monitor does the hard work, Smappee's companion app displays your energy usage and costs in detailed charts and tables. It'll also let you choose names for each device and group items depending on its type or location (if you wanted to group everything in your spare room for example). If you've invested in solar panels, Smappee will measure them too, letting you see at-a-glance how much of your total consumption is sourced from the sun.
It's claimed that the energy monitor will "pay for itself in just over a year" and will reduce the electrical bill in a four-person UK household by an average of 12 percent. I reckon its "Comfort Plugs" might play a small part in helping the company arrive at that figure. Sitting between your device and the power point, these wireless adapters will let you switch a device on and off remotely, handy if you've popped out and you remember you've left the TV on.
The Smappee energy monitor goes on sale today for £169 direct from the company's website and from Apple Stores across Europe (we're told Apple will also list on its website soon). For that you'll get the box itself, access to its free iOS or Android apps and one Comfort Plug (packs of three and six additional plugs are available for £34.99 and £59.99 respectively).
