Putting the Meter Under the Microscope

When you hire a detective, sometimes you find out things you don’t want to know. That’s true ofsmart power meters just as much as it is for the traditional gumshoe and telephoto lens variety.

Our local utility is planning to install smart meters some time this year—perhaps—but how much of the information the utility will share with customers is still unclear. So I reckoned that having our own smart power unit could be a good investment, and certainly an intriguing project. When IEEE Spectrum got a residential TED 5000 Energy Detective unit for review, it all seemed very straightforward: Attach a monitoring unit to my home’s electrical distribution board, see where the energy was going, take steps to reduce waste, and reap the financial rewards. 
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