DIY Internet Connected Whole-House Power Monitor

After yesterday's Tweet-a-watt socially-talkative energy monitor, now comes a somewhat more comprehensive version.  Rather than measuring electricity use of a single appliance, Jason's system monitors the whole house's energy supply: AC clamps mean there's no dangerous wiring into the mains to be done, and the measurements are updated to a webpage automatically every ten seconds.

The signal from the AC clamp is conditioned and then monitored by an ioBridge module, which squirts the data onto the internet.  Jason put together some ioBridge widgets that, coupled with JavaScript API calls from his website, allow him to chart the data with Google Charts and make real-time calculations.

Obviously what this can't do is pinpoint a particularly energy-hungry appliance – such as sneakily greedy cellphone chargers and the like – but it does give an overview and, in time, let you build up an understanding of what normal levels are for you and what impact affect green measures have on your power use.  If you're not very handy with your electronics and coding, of course, you could go for something like the Wattson, which works in a very similar way, offers local and online feedback of power use, and costs around $138.

[via MAKE]