Comments on: Mundie on Microsoft's 'Hohm' energy push

Chief research and strategy officer explains why the software maker finds itself in the energy monitoring business.

[cowatson]

Why no link the the site within the commentary?

[ncalishome]

I read about www.wattvision.com a little while back... The main difference seems to be that wattvision requires putting a gizmo on your meter, while this new thing from MS gets data from the power company. Seems to me a gizmo on your meter would be much more powerful, as supposedly you could turn off a light in your house and see that change of usage in realtime on your computer. That said, this MS deal is easier to get started with and likely will have better adoption -- though perhaps providing less valuable data? /shrug

In any event, I'm all for any new tech that will help people be aware of their power usage so they can conserve better.

[mbenedict]

Power companies are also deploying "smart meters" to homes. Microsoft partnering with them is the right way to go... detailed data can be automatically imported from homes with smart meters, while summary data is still available for homes without them (either via summary download, or by manual input from the bill.)

[dhavleak]

This is cool stuff.

I believe that people genuinely do care about our planet and about being green and energy efficient. The trouble is that it's really hard to get good information (what's recyclable, what has a smaller carbon footprint, what appliance consumes less energy, etc. etc.).

In absense of good data, people don't have much to act on -- just a lot of hubris in the news about different ways to be green, but no clear path to follow without doing a PhD in the matter yourself. So anything like this that helps people easily understand things (such as where they could be consuming less power) is an instant win.

[PeggyInToronto]

In our experience, people do care about how much energy they use, both because it's expensive and because of the environmental impact (sometimes one more than the other). Tools like Hohm promises to be, that make monitoring usage easier, are key to changing behavior. One of the most promising aspects of this development is that Hohm takes into account more than electricity, allowing homeowners to see their usage as whole. At first, it appeared that Hohm was going to compete directly with Google PowerMeter. That seems less clear now - they are very different. My colleague put together a comparison that's helpful: http://www.energycircle.com/blog/category/news-home-energy/

[nonicks]

why there is no LINK to HOHM?

What kind of story this is ..which doesn't provide link to the OBJECTIVE but to all other nuisance?

LAME.................

[DosEquisXX]

http://mshohm.orcsweb.com/

[SlimGem]

Ah, DosEquisXX ; informative and thirst quenching!

[Renegade Knight]

"But Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds notes that we have seen signs that apathy rather than ignorance may be the biggest hurdle when it comes to cutting energy consumption"

I'd say it's design that's the biggest hurdle. If things came with two power buttons. "Standbuy" and "Off" where off was zero consumption and standby was what we confuse off for now... That would be a nice start.

The power company sells (or gives away) gizmo's that can have a vending machine use less power. Why not just design that into the machine?

[mbenedict]

Because there are millions of older machines already in existence. You can't just replace all of them with brand new ones just to add this functionality... the cost to do so would overwhelm any benefit.

[brian.lee]

"Research chief Craig Mundie tells why Microsoft wants to help you monitor your energy us"

Simple because Google is doing it too, and what Google does we do as well... because we don't have any original ideas.

[monkeyfun14]

Oh no not competition why would we want to make a company have to work harder to improve their product.

I don't give a damn how many people are doing something similar it just adds more options to the table.

[kojacked]

No! No! No! There can be only ONE of everything! All MySpace users must move over to FaceBook at once and MySpace must shut down immediatly!

Oh wait...

[Police_States_of_America]

i'd rather have my energy be dependent on a more stable operating system.

[Spanwite]

X Box360 129Watt, it's like running a 2nd Fridge, isn't?
PST150Watt,
Wii 16Watt!
And Vista does need a high powered Computer to run smoothly.

It's good Businesses, sell the cause, sell the cure!

[haroldbrown2009]

It appeared that was going to compete directly with Google PowerMeter. That seems less clear now - they are very different. My colleague put together a comparison that's helpful.

<a href="http://www.housemdepisodes.tv">house episodes</a>

[haroldbrown2009]

It appeared that was going to compete directly with Google PowerMeter. That seems less clear now - they are very different. My colleague put together a comparison that's helpful.

http://housemdepisodes.tv/aboutme/index.html

[haroldbrown2009]

It appeared that was going to compete directly with Google PowerMeter. That seems less clear now - they are very different. My colleague put together a comparison that's helpful.

[url=http://www.housemdepisodes.tv]house episodes[/url]

[haroldbrown2009]

It appeared that was going to compete directly with Google PowerMeter. That seems less clear now - they are very different. My colleague put together a comparison that's helpful.

<a href="http://www.housemdepisodes.tv">house episodes</a>

[haroldbrown2009]

well post

<a href="http://www.housemdepisodes.tv">house episodes</a>

[open4energy]

We are helping find participants for an on-line survey of home energy monitors. There is a list of qualifying devices, you need to be using one of them.

The study ends August 30 2009, is offering a $10.00 Starbucks card for completed surveys. We vouch for the fact that there is no "trickery" with this request.

http://www.open4energy.com/forum/home/dev/home_energy_monitoring_device_survey_0907291255