The outdoor sensor module has been collecting data for the past few days now and am quite happy with the results.
From the graph of mains power consumption, aside from knowing how much electricity is used and the carbon footprint is, I was able to observe the following.
- The peak on the 23 Feb at about 7pm was actually around dinner time and that peak would be possibly caused by the preparing the food and having a few friends come over. At around 8pm that night, the consumption began to drop as people started leaving.
- From 10pm of 23 Feb to about 5am then next day, power consumption is lower and has somewhat flat, indicating not much activity, we were all sleeping at this point.
- 6 am 24 Feb, there is this spike again, people are awake and are getting ready for work and school. After that, its pretty much flat across the day, No one is at home during this period.
- Last two days (25 and 26 Feb) are possibly our typical consumption. 25 Feb, consumption starts to drop around midnight, that's when I usually hit the bed and sleep, the power consumption drops and stays for while until around 4am, time to wake up and do a bit more design challenge stuff.
Conclusion
By monitoring and analyzing power usage, we can identify causes of peaks, helping us in our decision making on how to further reduce energy consumption and lowering carbon footprint. At the same time, from this historical data, the household behavior can be mapped out.
Mapping the household behavior can be a double-edged sword. The best part is knowing and relating what could possibly be happening at home while at the office, i.e. seeing some spikes around 3-4pm could mean the kids have arrived home from school. But at the same time, if this data has been tapped by malicious individuals, it can be used to determine patterns at which the house is usually quiet (i.e. no one is at home) and posts security threats.
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