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Keep your home green with regular updates
The Alertme Energy monitoring system uses a small wireless transmitter in your home’s electricity meter box to send minute-by-minute power consumption figures to a receiver (which it calls the Nano Hub) that’s connected to your router. This information can then be viewed on the web or a mobile phone.
The kit was simple to fit – no technical skills are needed and there’s no software. The meter reader unit, a magnet that detects electrical current, clamps around any cable in your meter box (it’s quite safe) and attaches to a small battery-powered transmitter.
Installation took us around 25 minutes, most of which was taken up with updating the unit online – the entire process was automatic after signing in to the Alert Me website and registering by typing in the serial number on the Nano Hub.
The meter reader can transmit up to 100m and through two solid walls. You can buy a £25 adapter to boost the signal if needed, although in our case it worked fine through three brick walls. Being very low power and only rarely actually transmitting data, it shouldn’t interfere with other wireless networks – we certainly had no problems with Wifi, Bluetooth or cordless phones.
As well as monitoring power consumption, it estimates daily cost (these are not accurate enough for billing, but give you a rough idea) and shows historical data. You can download this data in a CSV spreadsheet file in order to do your own analysis.
For those with a Google account, the Alert Me monitor works with the Google Power Meter gadget to show a power-consumption chart on your home page. A free iPhone app is also available and other mobile phones can access a special secure mobile website that just displays current power consumption.
Email alerts based on adjustable consumption values can be set up and the system also emails the user if it loses contact with the Nano Hub. It won’t save you money directly, but seeing your usage immediately lets you quickly spot wastage – a forgotten heater, for example.
It’s more expensive than the competition, but the ability to get updates online and on the phone is worthwhile.
Read more reviews
Working out how much electricity your house uses every minute of the day has never been easier Good points Very easy to install; no software needed; Google Power Meter support; good range Bad points Expensive for what it does
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It's a good beginning
But why should we give all the information to Google. You can also get and manage the information for yourself.
Posted by EnyMate, 09 Jan 2010
It's too complicated and doesn't work reliably
I got the device and found it one big headache. The hub was overly sensitive to internet cuts and wouldn't reboot reliably by itself if there was a brief disconnection, which meant you come home at the end of a day or days and discover it hadn't been taking any readings. I had countless back and forths with AlertMe on the problems. Then there were the IP address problems, meaning I had to try to go into the modem settings and reset things. If I would have charged even just minimum wage for my time spent it would have been mannny times the cost of the device. AND, in the end, as with the previous reader I wondered WHY make it so complicated by having to go over the internet, over Google or AlertMe when you can get a device, e.g. from EON, which stores electricity usage info and you can simply download to your computer. Voila. No internet. MUCH simpler.
Posted by Richard B, 08 Jul 2010