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Smart Home: The Ultimate Home Energy Management System

Mar 16, 2010

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There’s much speculation about the overcrowded home energy management space and which company will ultimately dominate. Here’s the truth -- the winner doesn’t exist yet. Plenty of products have interesting and compelling features, but nobody has the total solution.

It has been fascinating to see the many different approaches to the home energy management problem. The space is overcrowded, to be sure, but not with a lot of “me-too” products. Instead, everybody focuses on a different aspect. I certainly notice this during the behind-the-scenes briefings I get from the companies. Like the 6 blind men and the elephant, each emphasizes one part at the expense of the whole.

If you wanted an entire home energy elephant today, you’d have to stitch it together from separate body parts. Here are the pieces I’d choose:

· The user interface and “Apps Store” of the Intel Home Energy Management software

· The form factor and home automation features of Control4

· The elegant design and plug-and-play ease of use of AlertMe

· The money-saving, self-adjusting “energy autopilot” of EcoFactor

· The back-end analysis and utility tools of Integral Analytics

· The standards-based architecture of CustomerIQ(formerly Greenbox)

· The compare-yourself-to-your-neighbors and cost-cutting tips of OPOWER

· The low cost of Sequentric

· And absolutely nothing from Google’s oh-so-ugly PowerMeter

Although these are my personal favorites, each company mentioned has worthy competitors. And each company offers far more than the feature I highlighted… but nobody does it all. There’s still no iPhone for home energy management -- no single offering that combines a stylish design, an elegant interface, a powerful back-end engine, a collection of useful apps and a sustainable business model.

Did I get it right? Click on the Quick Poll above to vote on the feature you think consumers will care most about. And use the comment form below to tell us how you’d stitch together your own ultimate pachyderm.

You might also be interested in …

Intel Smart Grid: Intel Unveils Home Energy Proof of Concept

Smart Home: Why Control4 Is the Company to Beat in Home Energy Management

Smart Grid Demand Response: Stealth-Mode Startup Sequentric

Smart Grid Companies: Silver Spring Buys Greenbox

Google Smart Grid: Google Announces Utility Partners for PowerMeter

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Current Comments (15)

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Starting a Small Business related to Home Energy Saving

I have worked the past 5 years as a Business Consultant on AMI projects in California and Texas. I am located on the East Coast and tired of traveling cross country. I see the Smart Home Energy Management as a future small business. I am currently developing a Business Plan for this and need assistance. Is there anyone out there working on this also?

Joseph Battaglini - 03/17/2010 - 07:30

home energy monitoring

It seems to me that a 1st phase for this ought to be developing a low-cost, accessible home energy monitoring system where the consumer can see directly, how much energy is being consumed, which appliances are the energy hogs and where savings can be obtained. Along with this should be an effort toward instituting energy efficient appliances. Huge savings of dollars and energy usage can be obtained this way. Then a system energy management can be put into place. The lack of standards for home networking is also a severe impediment to affordable systems.

allen gordon - 03/17/2010 - 08:58

Good Lineup

Jesse,

I like your line up. I would go with C4 for the interface and app store as well as for the home automation platform, though. The interface is decent and the combo gives you access to the system from four screens (in-home display, pc, smart phone, and TV).

The key players for me are those that provide insights, recommendations, and comparisons with other consumers that go beyond just telling me how much electricity you are using. EcoFactor and Opower are great choices.

I second your thought on PowerMeter. I'm using it with The Energy Detective. They get all of my energy data and I get a worthless graph in mail box once per week. It provides no value right now.

Now, all you need is for this best of breed system to plug seamlessly into your utility's demand response program! This might be outside the smart home, but I'll go ahead and put Gridpoint in that slot.

Ed Marshall - 03/17/2010 - 09:17

business plan

Joseph,

i´m studying this subject in Brazil. Let´s keep in touch. marcelomorado@yahoo.com

Marcelo Nascimento - 03/18/2010 - 11:06

Allen

Allen, your on the right track when you say there are lack of standards within home networking. I do agree with you that this is a huge problem within the smart grid market. There is a bigger picture here though why concepts like the smart grid has not fully come to be. All these concepts revolve around the complete concept of the digital home. (meaning everything connected under one singular platform) This type of indutsry is coming to market backwards (meaning: a single universal platform for all products to connect to. Not the other way around whereby independent propietary products come to the market competing for home space in this market) This type of industry will never fully develop with out a universal platform for all products to connect to for the purpose of producing beneficial services such as concepts like the smart grid. Standardization of the industry is not the answer either. Newer and newer technologies are always on the verge. Jessie's article shows the backwardness of this industry along with the lack of being able to standardize this industry. A universal platform is the only answer here. Follow my discussion on linkedin: "A simple solution to a complex problem".... Phone Home Technology

Roger Pena - 03/18/2010 - 11:09

Smart Home

Consumers will buy into the Smart Grid, Home Energy Management concept when the price of entry is returned in 3 to 6 months. In home devices must be simple to use and interactive. A large part of the population will not buy in if an Internet interface is part of the price of entry in the near future. Payback, simplicity and flawless operability are the keys to success.

William Moussiaux - 03/19/2010 - 08:20

smart home

"In home devices must be simple to use and interactive." This is where the complexity to the market is. There is no standard solution to this problem or no standard vision. Pricing is directly affected by this. Cost of intergrating and interfacing sevice concepts to products requires expertease and money to implement. Regardless of the service concept like smart grid or home automation, this takes expertease and money to connect devises together for the purpose of interactions. Beneficial products sell. This is a fact. The smart grid concept needs a singular platform to connect to just like any other service concept in order for it to work. A singular platform that demonstrates ease of use along with seemless connection and interfacing of all in home products will open this market up. The industry I coming to market backwards. Many other defacto problems can be discused, but almost all of these problems to this industry revolves around no universal platform that demonstrates what was discused earlier. Have to view the indutry as a whole and not just in segments (smart grid).

Roger Pena - 03/19/2010 - 14:18

Smart Home - Roger Pena

Roger, are you able to provide a link to the discussion? or email cory.urquhart@countryenergy.com.au

Cory Urquhart - 03/21/2010 - 14:16

True Control, Management & Data

I would ask that you take a look at

www.climateautomationsystems.com

The ENV System provides total control of the entire Mechanical Room with the capability of dealing with all aspects of energy management and providing Real Time and Historical Data.........I do not believe any other system can provide all of the capabilities of ENV.....Your Thoughts?

Frank@climateautometionsystems.com

Frank Bassett - 03/22/2010 - 07:00

env systems

I look through the web page and this looks like a set of home automation products. Nothing wrong with that though. Control 4 has something of the same as far as buying a package of products that can be implemented by the cosumer themselves. Intel also has similar type of package they are trying to market where they use an adaptor that plugs into the wall outlet so an electric product can be pluged into the adaptor and be manage by a hub. The market is abundant with these tpye of technologies. They all have there merits in there own uniquie ways. The industry has not opened up anymore than these concepts.

Roger Pena - 03/22/2010 - 14:11

Roger, you rock

I have been automating houses in socal since 1989. Although I left the industry in 2000 to enter solar photovoltaic market, I have still followed the HA industry with great interest. I have always thought that [eventually] the HA market would collide with [higher cost]energy, to force, I mean lead the way for consumers to embrace HA benefits.

If anyone reading this is interested in running my small company (security/HA and renewable energy), let me know as I am getting old and tired!

swhitley@sundancetech.com

As Roger states above, systems integration without a universal platform will limit industry acceleration.

Scott Whitley - 03/23/2010 - 09:42

Further this discusion

Scott, thanks for your comment. I am an entrepreneur trying to start a venture in this market. A lot of countless hours of researching into this market has allowed me to come up with this opinion. I view this market as an example of pre-existing internet state, before the MOSAIC browser came along. The technology to make the internet work existed, it just wasn't open to all until the Mosaic browser came along and opened it up. This type of market has the same potential in nature. The Internet is a pretty good analogy to use when describing this market. I posted a link to my discusion on the networking site Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=15072771&gid=2121884&goback=%2Eanh_2121884&trk=NUS_DISC_Q-ttle

Roger Pena - 03/23/2010 - 17:12

BMS solutions

Hey guys, thanks for sharing your views on this. The company where i work is going into re-infrastructuring to reducde energy comsumptions and am reading quite a lot around the area. If you have any views/opinions on energy saving for businesses, please post it up. I d be glad to read your comments.

Joel Gecko - 05/20/2010 - 07:16

BMS solutions

oh and i forgot to say, i found some more info around the area on those sites.. Might be helpful.

http://www.bmsi.co.uk/

http://www.energy360.co.uk/

Joel Gecko - 05/20/2010 - 07:19

New ideas and design improvements on current hardware

I guess you could say I'm a visionary. I have come up with a plan to make home energy monitoring more attractive to home users, easier to install and recurring profit gains on the product. I have done a pretty good search to see if my ideas have already been tried or at the prototype level and I don't see anything that is close to truly change the way these systems can work and the ability to customize to each homeowners needs/wants. I really don't want to publicly speak on it but would like to talk with someone that has the means to put my ideas in motion. I have a 20 year background in aviation mechanical/electrical experience. I also have a thorough background in marketing and sales. Please contact me at your leisure or feel free to forward my email to someone that can assist. Thank you Andy Cartwright

Andy Cartwright - 11/10/2011 - 20:32

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