“If you use a credit card or a cell phone, chances are you get a monthly statement detailing each purchase or call. This may soon expand to your utility bills, too: a project in the works at electronics company Belkin makes it possible to see how much electricity you’re spending on everything from the TV in your living room to the washing machine in your basement.
“Called Belkin Echo Electricity, it’s a small device that connects to your utility meter and pays attention to the electromagnetic interference, or ‘noise,’ emitted by electrical appliances plugged in to wall outlets …
“Echo Electricity builds on technology acquired in 2010 from an energy-monitoring startup called Zensi together with the doctoral work of University of Washington PhD candidate Sidhant Gupta, whose advisor, Shwetak Patel, was a Zensi founder.”
Read the Technology Review article here. Read Belkin’s description of Echo Electricity here.