Handy feedback: Connecting smart meters with mobile phones 

Markus Weiss, Tobias Graml, Thorsten Staake, Friedemann Mattern, Elgar 
Fleisch 

Reducing their energy consumption has become an important objective for many 
people. Consumption transparency and timely feedback are essential to support 
those who want to adjust their behavior in order to conserve energy. In this 
work, we propose an interactive system that provides instantaneous feedback 
concerning the energy usage on household and device level. For that, we used 
and extended the capabilities of a smart electricity meter, built a web-based 
API to enable interoperability with other applications, and developed a mobile 
phone interface that allows users to monitor, control, and measure the 
consumption of single appliances. Our system illustrates a way how usage 
barriers can be lowered and how high user involvement can be created. By 
providing users the electricity feedback needed - in real-time and on device 
level - the system allows for identifying the biggest energy guzzlers and 
helps users decrease their energy consumption.