It’s Hohm to the Rescue, Lead the Way to Smart Energy Savings
It’s Mirosoft-Hohm to the rescue!
by Don Ames
Well, it’s not really a new gadget, it’s more like a new agreement between two armies. The announcement of the past several days that Microsoft-hohm.com and Blueline Innovations have teamed up to fight energy waste is good news for all us energy wasters. Stay with me now as I run you through the energy saving possibilities.
Microsoft has a web site called microsoft-hohm.com that features programming you and I need to evaluate the energy efficiency of our homes. It’s a very educational and helpful website for those of us that recognize we are embattled in the middle of an energy revolution. Mr. Gates did himself proud with this website, even if he did misspell “home”.
Blueline makes an instrument called the Power Cost Monitor that allows us to have – right now, real time – read the juice as it happens, electric useage monitoring right on our kitchen counter. With the Blueline, you can see how much electricity your using and how much money your paying for that electricity throughout the day. Studies show that people with energy info save around 15% on their energy bills. It is my position that new homes being built in the coming years will have an electric monitor built right in. Not getting a new home, then we will need to retrofit.
Now, Microsoft-hohm and Blueline have joined forces so you and I can fight energy waste more successfully. The blueline has a router ( WiFi ) that allows hohm to receive the usage signal. Now hohm can use it’s programming wizardry to produce the energy usage data right on your home computer or laptop. Once on your computer all sorts of good things can happen. The hohm program can produce a variety of interesting graphs and comparisons that we can use to successfully analyze our power using habits. With that knowledge, we can save energy and lower our power bills.
The Microsoft-hohm website and program is free. Please check it out as soon as you can – microsoft-hohm.com. The Blueline Innovations Power Cost Monitor can be purchased from Amazon.com for about $159.00. There is a link for the Blueline on the side bar at Detect Energy. The link will take you to Amazon.com. Now that Microsoft-hohm and Blueline have joined the same army, be sure and get the Wifi model.
As we, the consumers, get more involved in the coming energy revolution, we will need tools like microsoft-hohm and Blueline Innovations to give us a fighting chance in the battle ahead. The world needs more power and the world needs more clean power, that means the cost of power is going up.