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0 pointsjmbwell2y ago0 comments

I'm afraid consumers have grown leery of this kind of thing, though, between power companies messing with our cloud-enabled thermostats and appliance manufacturers harvesting data and good lord, nagging us with ads and popups and incessant updates on our damn fridges and laundry machines... not to mention transmission providers neglecting the whole scheme to death.

I've had a string of in-home energy monitors, and I've turned on all the relevent features for this, but at this point, I have disconnected everything from the internet to stop it being enshittified, and my local incumbent energy transmission provider has left all the consumer-facing smart meter services rot on the vine while the state of Texas kneecaps all the legislation that made it possible in the first place.

In short, all the industry and government entities involved have given up on the consumer here and have pissed it all away, and it's a shame.

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bradknowles2y ago

I am actively interested in a good energy monitoring system, that can monitor each and every circuit separately, as well as the overall usage across the whole house. It would be great if it was smart enough to figure out what usage patterns corresponded to what, so if I have multiple items on the same circuit, it can still distinguish between them.

I don't want any part of that system connected to anything that the utility companies have access to or control over.

I don't want that provided by third party companies that could go out of business overnight, and leave me high and dry.

I don't want to have to replace my electrical panels to get this information.

I do want this data all being collected and stored locally, but with a way to reliably back that information up to offsite facilities of my choice.

And it would be great if it could have a system that could apply intelligence as to which circuits/devices need to be powered when, in case of emergency or if I just want to optimize my power bill.

npsimons2y ago

Yup. I feel that the idea of smart interconnected devices talking to each other to decide "okay, now is when it will be most efficient to run" is a really awesome thing, but it's been ruined by capitalism. Just a race to the bottom to sell shit products and sell customer data to maximize CEOs' paychecks.

As it is, if you have the knowhow you could do it yourself. But that's a lot to ask the tech illiterati, and even I find myself just falling back to manual methods since they Just Work with no fiddling about with wires.

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