[OSX-Users] Re: anyone use "alertme energy" power meter?

[Nick Gibbins]

Heh. Terry and Nick fail to be in complete agreement. Film at 11. ;)

Comments inline below:

On 8 Jan 2010, at 14:47, Terry Payne wrote:

> I do have to agree with Nick on some of his points... however...
> 
> On 8 Jan 2010, at 14:22, Nick Gibbins wrote:
> 
>> Looking through their website, I'm more than a little underwhelmed. They're cagey about the protocols they're using (specifically, the Zigbee profile - they're not using the standard home automation profile)...
> 
> although I'm not sure what solutions exist that *do* publish their protocols.  Looking at other wireless monitors (i.e. with a display that can be put somewhere), such systems seam to be closed (i.e. you live with the details and that is it).  To be honest though - I don't see myself writing any software to exploit this data anyway, but I understand why some would!
> 
> They *could* however, give more technical information on their web page, I agree!

True, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a sometime hacker. Look at Andy Stanford-Clark's work at IBM for an example of what you could do if you have the freedom to play with your own data.

They have gone for a very closed approach. AlertMe devices will only talk to other AlertMe devices (despite being based on a commodity protocol). You can only interrogate the devices by going through their Web API, the documentation for which is only available when you subscribe to their service. If AlertMe go away at some point in the future, their devices are nothing more than WEEE.

>> What rankles most is that you need to connect to *their* website to get your usage data; you can't talk to your hub directly. Not good design.
> 
> Actually, I would appreciate the convenience of going to a central point (via a browser or the iPhone web app) to get the data.  It would be nice if it were possible to retrieve the raw data from their site (I assume PowerMeter does this), and nicer still if it could be archived locally.  I guess having it local could put less tech-savvy consumers off, and the remote access approach is very convenient.  It's getting damn difficult to avoid the "cloud" these days!

I've no objection to them providing a centrally managed solution for your data. I just wish that wasn't the only thing that they provided.

>> ..., and the ongoing running costs of GBP36pa make it significantly less attractive from a saving money perspective.
> 
> Hmmm, not bowled over by that, I admit.  Cost effective?  Dunno - but right now I'm more interested in where I'm being wasteful, and how I can reduce usage from a footprint perspective, especially as I'm days from moving into a new house (hence my interest). Still no idea if that ol' US transformer for my stereo is efficient or eating through kilowatts...!

If your outlay in the first year of owning AlertMe is more than GBP100, I'd like to know how long it is likely to take to repay the investment.

(footprint is a separate issue, and I agree that AlertMe's kit looks pretty good from that perspective)

> What I find compelling is that we the AlertMe stuff, you can get additional usage details from the additional plug monitors (not cheap, but the fact that you can allegedly define rules to control these - or control these remotely is some compensation).  Also, because the data is being archived (admittedly at their site - I would also prefer to archive it locally), this allows for updates to the software (and potentially new tools) to come out and be used, rather than (again) being tied to a closed system.



-- 
Dr Nicholas Gibbins                                     nmg at ecs.soton.ac.uk 
Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group     http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~nmg/ 
School of Electronics and Computer Science         tel: +44 (0) 23 80598879 
University of Southampton                          fax: +44 (0) 23 80592865