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Tendril

2008-10-07 16:20:15.688224+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

From this fluffy overview at Cleantech comes Tendril, makers of electricity monitoring systems. The Tendril Insight looks like a slightly updated version of the BlueLine Innovations Power Cost Monitor that's been previously mentioned.

[ related topics: Cool Science Consumerism and advertising Energy Monitoring ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2008-10-07 18:11:56.043835+00 by: meuon [edit history]

Tendril: How to blow 50m of Apple/Macromedia VC. - No actual customers, a couple of very small pilots (non-working last checked on) in progress, really kewl trade show booth manned by spiky haired flash developers that don't know a VA from a VAR that did not connect with a room full of serious EE types.

From the website/interview of Tendril: "Come the middle of next year," - Laughing..

The winning display is Honeywell, soon to be on every major home HVAC system from Carrier and many other brands. By default.. part of the package.

But in the real world, outside of outrageously expensive "won't scale" pilot programs where the VENDORS PAID THE UTILITY to install their stuff to show it off like Boulder Colorado's Smart Grid City, it don't work.

What works? UtiliFlex's Juice which e-mails, texts and webifies consumption and payment, enables pre-paid electricity, and is actually installed at utilities. Juice enables Google Juice and Chumby interfaces as well as cell phone friendly WAP/Web displays. Wait.. no.. better: Got PURCHASED by utilities to be installed. :) - Wish Utiliflex had money to spend on website maintenance, but we are too busy making things happen.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-10-08 23:56:54.464271+00 by: meuon [edit history]

Just to show someting different from Tendril's cute toys: These are some work in progress screen shots of data coming back every second from an AccuEnergy 3 phase commercial/industrial meter. A very different world than Tendril..

Power quality, voltage and harmonic distortions to 31 harmonics. with history and drill down. An overview page, in Chinese. The same page, in Japanese.

We are working with demand billing, load factors... a lot more than just kWh meter reading. Why all the multilingual work: This is all more important where electricity is really expensive.