AlertMe SmartEnergy kit helps you save power

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Posted on 31 Aug 2011 at 00:00

With rising energy prices affecting every household, AlertMe is hoping its new SmartEnergy Kit will help people save electricity.

Available for just £50 from the AlertMe website, the kit consists of a clamp that connects to your electricity meter to monitor power usage and a portable screen that tells you how much power you're using in your home.It's a similar system to the popular Wattson Home Energy Monitor, although considerably cheaper.

With this system you can find out how much power your home is using at any one point and start turning off the biggest offenders: switching devices off at the plug to save power is a great starting point. Through the app (iPhone or web), you can monitor how much money you're saving.

AlertMe has a further advantage, too: its kit comes with a ZigBee-enabled hub that plugs into your router, so you can monitor electricity usage via your iPhone. This lets you control any ZigBee devices in your home, such as AlertMe's SmartPlug. Using the iPhone app or website, the plugs can be remotely turned on or off, as well as being used to monitor power usage of the connected device.

Plugs can even be monitored for power usage and alerts sent if a threshold is reached: for example, you can get a warning if your freezer suddenly switches off and stops drawing any power.

AlertMe's energy monitoring services comes free of charge, but the hub you get can also be connected to the company's paid-for home security service. This has ZigBee-powered motion and windowdoor sensors to alert you to intruders in the home.

AlertMe plans to launch a new service for controlling central heating services later in the year, allowing you to save money on gas as well as electricity. The hub will be able to read data from any smart meter in your home (gas or electricity) giving you an overview of all energy usage in your home.

We've got a SmartEnergy kit in our labs now, and we'll bring a full review later this week.

Author: David Ludlow