“Recent ‘gee whiz’ research by Professor Shwetak Patel’s group at the University of Washington provides a really elegant solution. Every appliance you own – your refrigerator, your flat-screen TV, your toaster – has a different ‘electrical noise signature’ that it draws from the wires in your house. When you turn it on, this signal is (inadvertently) sent through the electric wires to the circuit-breaker box. It’s not necessary to buy ‘smart appliances’ that send purpose-designed on-off signals; your ‘dumb’ appliances already send their own noise signatures.”
Read the full post here. Learn more about the research here.