Using an Arduino to Track My Electricity Consumption Cost in Real-Time
This is a basic of exploration of how I can now monitor my home's electricity consumption cost in real-time. There are many solutions to this problem. Some are more complicated than others. I needed to create a solution that did not involve any manipulation of my electric panel simply because I know very little about electrical work and did not want to mess around with high power. Ultimately I found Avatar-X's electric meter reader project . This is, in my opinion, the most elegant and unobtrusive way of obtaining the information I needed. He was gracious enough to share his wonderful code that converts the data received from the Arduino into real-time costs. In fact, most of my code comes directly from him. I just tweaked it for my own needs. Thanks again Av! Like Av's setup, my electric meter has an infrared LED that blinks each time a KW of electricity is used. I placed an infrared photoresisitor directly in front of this LED ready to ...