A no-pipe problem: Wattson

Sherlock Holmes famously said of a rather challenging situation: It is quite a three-pipe problem, and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.

ww_mg_4687 Well, we’ve found a no-pipe solution to the challenge of finding a home energy use monitor that looks rather lovely: the Wattson from DIY Kyoto.

What these three clever clogs have made is a display device (pictured above), a sensor clip and a transmitter. The sensor clip attaches to your mains electricity cable. The transmitter sends information to the sensor – which is totally portable.

You see your energy use in a variety of ways: numerically in Watts or cold (or warm?) hard cash, and in the colour of the light it emitts. When the light glow blue, you’re using less electricity than normal, purple is average, and red when you’re over-consuming.

I think this quote perfectly sums up how powerful real-time displays of energy use can be…

“This night Pelle couldn’t sleep, so I went to his room and found him watching Wattson. Even if Pelle only is 7 years old, he could see a connection between the “Earth hour” he had heard about on the news, and the numbers and colors on Wattson. He just said he wanted Wattson to change color to blue before he could sleep… “

Jonas, Sweden

Definitely efficient by nature, and elegant by design.

Bookmark, share, or comment on this post below.
Want to write for The Hunter blog under your own byline? Tell us.