The (Inter)Faces of Energy Management

Fun, friendly designs depict energy use for instantaneous viewing on TVs, iPads, touchscreens and more.

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October 21, 2010 | by Lisa Montgomery

You’ve been turning off the lights as you leave a room. You’ve waited to start the dishwasher utility rates are low. You’ve even conceded to wearing a sweater so you feel comfortable with the thermostats set back to 67 degrees. So you’ve taken the first steps toward living a greener, more energy-efficient lifestyle, but are these small changes making that big of a difference?

In the past, you had no choice but to wait for your monthly utility bills to see if your efforts were paying off. Or, you could invest in an energy monitoring systems that spewed information on a smallish tabletop display or to a site that required logging in for a look.

Today, energy management has a much friendlier face. Energy monitoring devices and systems can be integrated with home control systems so that data can be viewed on the same touchscreen, remote control, iPad, iPhone or other device that’s used to operate audio/video equipment, lights, surveillance cameras, motorized gates, irrigation systems, and other electronic gear. The information can be sent directly, without any modification, to the various home control displays; or a custom electronics professional (CE pro) can tweak the layout, graphics and labeling to suit your specific needs and to match the style of your home control system’s on-screen interface…

Below are some pictures of the various energy monitoring interfaces:

Savant