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So you thought you were down with the green kids by owning a Wattson? Well, the latest energy monitor, the Ewgeco, doesn't stop at keeping an eye on your electricity use -- it will also watch your water and gas consumption.
It works by using what sounds like a highly sophisticated software programme to transfer readings wirelessly from the water and gas meters to the sleek looking monitor, which can be placed anywhere in the building.
Like the Wattson, it has a personal touch. Instead of just telling you whether you're brilliant or lame at energy-saving generally, it'll tell you how good or bad you are in relation to your regular consumption patterns.
It takes a week for the Ewgeco to learn how much water, gas and
electricity you normally consume. From then on, it'll light up green,
red or amber depending on whether you consume more or less than normal.
The award-winning Scottish inventor behind the Ewgeco, Tanya Ewing (pictured), says: "For example, with energy, the red bars on the Ewgeco monitor represent 20 per cent of your energy use, which is [how much] the government is trying to get you to reduce," Ewing explains. "So if you hit the red you know you're not cutting back the 20 per cent the government is encouraging us to do."
Don't think, however, that this means you can simply use vast amounts of water, gas and electricity in the first week and then look good on your Ewgeco later. The Ewgeco also displays the kind of information other energy monitors do, such as cost and energy (or water and gas) use, which should inspire you to cut your general utility consumption -- even if you're in the green.
At the moment, the Ewgeco is only available to businesses and prices are quoted on a case-to-case basis. Fortunately, though, the team hopes to be able to offer the gadget to private households next year.
It sounds like it'll take consumption monitoring to a whole new level, but it also seems to be more complicated. For one, you won't be able to install the Ewgeco yourself -- you'll need one of the company's engineers to come round and do it for you.
Complicated or not, we can't wait to get out hands on one and try it out. In the meantime, read our reviews of the four best energy monitors.
18 March 2008 08:25pm
The information about wattson in this article is incorrect, Wattson does not have a fixed notion of how much energy you should be consuming. Actually, the wattson stores energy use and calculates your average consumption over time. It then uses this average to determine the colour it displays, blue if way below average, red if way above and purple if close to average consumption. Therefore wattson adapts to your consumption habits, and does not penalise those that have large shared houses or large familes.
I know this because I own one and love it. I am keen though for a domestic ewgeco to come out, I am interested how it will connect to my gas and water meters.
Michelle
19 March 2008 01:12pm
Hi Michelle,
We've just had a chat with the Wattson guys and you're absolutely right, the Wattson does not have a fixed notion of how much energy we should be consuming, so we've amended the copy above. Thanks for flagging this up.
Best, Rikke
04 April 2008 03:35pm
I can't wait to get my hands on ewgeco! although i love the wattson which i've had for a few months now and cannot fault it but it would be really great to see my gas saving progress too. i've been using radiator boosters which i found at nigels ecostore. they are brilliant because they help to heat out the whole room rather than just above the radiator but i would love to see how much money i am saving as well so it's excellent to see there is a new gadget which will do that on the way!
Lucy
01 May 2008 04:12am
Why don't they just sell the utility monitors to feed the data back via zwave to a control unit like Actiontec's zcontrol. Seems a bit hardware excessive and will most likely have an excessive cost associated with it.
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