The Smart Power Strip

Abstract

People are relying on technology to help save the environment. Much di erence can be done if people start making small changes in everyday life. This report describes the development of a Smart Power Strip: a modern tool to help households decrease their energy consumption. The Smart Power Strip is a system that gives its users the ability to measure the energy consumption of their home electronics. The system also brings the capability of remotely controlling home electronics in a smart way, to make it easy to shut down devices that are consuming unnecessary energy. This interdisciplinary project has resulted in a working prototype consisting of a power strip that can be controlled through a communication server and a web application. The Smart Power Strip has four power sockets that regularly measure power usage and send this data via WiFi to the remote communication server. Users can then log in to the web application and view graphs of the data and remotely control each power socket. The report presents the theoretical background of the project's different aspects, before presenting design choices and the evaluation of the chosen designs. The conclusion of the report is that all primary requirements were met as the implementation of the prototype was completed. The evaluation shows that the system is working in a stable manner and that measurements are accurate according to specifications.