CES: Modlet Helps Clean Up Your Energy Use
America could really use a smart energy grid. Power plants and relays that can talk to individual gadgets, help shape our energy use so we don’t all hit the grid at the same time. My podcasting buddy Richard Campbell, host of DotNetRocks, has a fantastic episode explaining all the ins and outs of our current electricity woes (Carl & Richard Geek Out About Electricity) .
Since it’s unlikely we’ll get our awesome, magic, intelligent smart energy grid any time soon, we consumers now have a fantastic resource to turn our homes into smart energy networks…
Modlet is a smart wireless infrastructure. Plugging the Modlet into a standard 3 prong wall outlet, and connecting the USB gateway device into a computer, creates a ZigBee mesh network. As you connect devices to the Modlet it not only tracks your use, it also learns about your energy habits.
After a couple weeks of observation it will start to create schedules to help kill devices that leech energy will plugged in (things like cell phone charges which draw power even when they aren’t charging your phone).
You can then monitor your usage remotely, and use web apps to manually kill electricity hogs while on the go.
Modlet can support up to twenty individual units on one network making it an extremely flexible solution for home and small business use.
A company rep also showed me their hardware for the SmartAC unit they’ll be releasing soon. Featuring similar functionality to the Modlet, this looks to be a fantastic solution for smart monitoring of your home’s heating and AC.
The Starter Kit (one Modlet and one USB gateway) is going to retail for $50, so those looking to go a little greener, or looking to save a little green (or both), this is definitely a company to keep an eye on.
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