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Use Your iPhone to Manage Power Consumption throughout the House

Install software, attach plug-ends to powered devices and sync

By Filip Truta, Apple News Editor

20th of February 2008, 10:10 GMT

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Kaleidoscope's private and eco-friendly initiative, The Greener Grass, has quite an interesting system on offer for iPhone owners. Current State is something which iPhone owners can use to monitor power usage in their house, but also manage it, by a touch of the iPhone's screen.

The Usage screens focus on energy consumption throughout your house. Users

are shown real-time energy rates complete with overall usage in kilowatt hours and even dollars for their current billing period. The on-screen graphic of your home depicts rooms that are at high, acceptable, or low energy consumption, as depicted within the images above.

So, here's what you have to do: order the system online, specifying the number of Plug-Ends needed, install Current State software on your mobile device, attach Plug-Ends to powered devices around your house (check out the second image from top to bottom - click to enlarge) and sync Plug-Ends to software (so you can give each powered device a descriptive name and confirm its location within your house). From there on, all you have to do is master Current State's abilities to remotely monitor your energy usage, control your devices, and set up automatic timers.

The Plug-Ends also allow users to turn powered devices on or off remotely. You can either flick Current State's virtual switches, or set up on timers to turn themselves on and off at specified times. Remember the Z-wave Adapter and Houseport for OS X? Well, now you can use something similar on your iPhone.

Back to the Plug-Ends, Kaleidoscope claims they are designed to be simple and "energy conscious" (wasn't that the whole point...?) as they contain no LEDs or screens whatsoever.

Finn McKenty, Brand Manager at Kaleidoscope, said that Current State and The Greener Grass are designed to "help make fundamental changes in the way people live and view the world." He added that they "are meeting with leaders who make significant contributions to the world through their ideas and businesses. Most importantly, we're sharing this information and developing valuable product ideas and designs in the process."

Kaleidoscope aims to connect with consumers through innovation driven product development, as their motto goes.

Via macnn.com

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dim-the-Lights-with-Z-wave-Adapter-and-Houseport-for-OS-X-77224.shtml

TAGS:

Kaleidoscope | Current State | The Greener Grass | power consumption | wireless

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