685 karma · joined July 9, 2011
I’m currently building one myself using the common SCT-013 sensor, and an ESP32 (arduino) which I plan to then store the data in either a little react app, or perhaps Grafana.
I feel like in an ideal world developers are due a fair share of the revenue/profits that their software generates, even if they enjoyed the original works and profit wasn't their intention - However with open source I often see a large organisations making huge profits, with close to zero going back to the authors/maintainers.
Network Equipment I actually swapped a decent amount of it - The testing showed the Netgear managed switches were using around 1W each, opposed to 20w for the DLink switch, and another 20w for a Unifi Switch.
The Hob/Microwave I manually just power off now as I don't need them on all day long, and devices which I put Alexa controller relays on were the aircon units, my PC & Monitors and the TV & Surround (other than Sky Box)
When these devices are in "sleep" the unit is doing nothing more than looking for an IR signal from the remote controller that it's been turned on, just like a TV does etc, so it's odd to pull such a large draw in this sleep state.
I should have also pointed out, I really do wish more devices would have more physical power switches where it makes sense - As an example the washing machine has a touch sensitive main power button, yet our tumble dryer (same manufacture & design) has a more physical on/off switch - The former uses a decent amount of standby power, the second uses none, the only real purpose I see is a slightly more "premium" feel to the washing machine.
A couple of months ago I went on a little mission around the house testing the power consumption of devices on standby, as I noticed through my energy monitor that idle power consumption was about 0.4-0.5kW while everyone was sleeping at night, which seemed high to my research of national averages.
To my surprise a number of fairly modern devices I found to have utterly terrible standby power consumption, the new buttonless electric hob in my kitchen, the two monitors for my PC on standby, the TV & Blu-ray player and an Aircon unit just to name a few.
Since then I used a few Sonoff relays around the house to add these to Alexa, the results were actually quite amazing really, about £10 per week of electricity saved, so £30-£40 per month...
So in short, if your similar to me you can actually save £300 a year, I think the key take away here is clamp/monitor your own devices and take a judgement from there, no one house/setup is the same.
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Edit, here's a very quick screenshot of the spreadsheet and data I've got to hand at the moment, in time I'll get something better cleaned up and together.
Personally I increase my rates when I notice that my schedule is getting full, and I'm struggling to find space for new work within it - To me pricing your time is just a simple calculation of Supply/Value vs Demand, clients seem to be Ok from my experience.
My suggestion to anyone seriously worried about security – Consider the Internet access on your device no more secure than open WiFi at a coffee shop, and assume Calls/SMS are no more secure than a public conversation.
In short, use data/internet based over the top applications with encryption that you trust, obviously also trusting your endpoint/device too.
However remember that even that does nothing if your worried of location/device tracking.
In essence it is a remarkably similar game, however the sandboxing allows for players to use several programming languages, and not just Python.
It is still basic, only a hobby and under development, however happy to hear any feedback and thoughts.