You may have noticed, but we have made some changes to our overview page!
Now, instead of seeing your live history, you can now view your projected energy saving compared to the week before as well as basic information about your house.
Be on the look out for more cool features and updates to our site!
]]>Welcome to the new Tiger Energy Site! With a new site comes new features, keep reading bellow to learn how to use all of them for an optimized sustainable experience
On our home site, you are able to view live energy usage as well as where the energy is coming from as how its being used. On the top of the screen, you will see a drop down that you to understand the total energy use as a function common items. (See image bellow)
Just like the other overview pages, you can view both live history and a weekly overview of energy demand.
The six residential colleges are listed in rank order by their projected energy use for this week. The week starts and ends on Sunday at 00:00:00 ET (Midnight on Saturday). The "baseline" is the average of the most recent two completed weeks. So if a college is "+3.5%" they are projected to use 3.5% less energy than they did on average over the previous two weeks. The projection is based on data collected today.
You can click on each college and view data specific for each.
On the overview page ,you can view the overview of all of Butler College as well as the individual building. There is the live feature and graph as well as the weekly history view.
On this page, you can view the details of the energy use as well as projections of energy use for the week ahead. You can view this data as an overview of the whole college as well as the individual buildings.
For each building, you can view both live and weekly history.
]]>We have some very exciting news. As many of you have requested, we finally have Time of Use pricing as an option on our site!
Time of use pricing is a system of energy pricing that encourages users to use energy at off-peak times by charging different prices depending on the time of day. This not only lets users save money on their energy bill but also reduces the strain on the grid.
We are proud that we finally support this feature as it affects many of our users and will help make their wattvision experience even more useful. If you have suggestions on how to make this feature better, contact us at sara@wattvision.com
If you too have a feature request, please contact us at info@wattvision.com!
]]>We are happy to welcome a new wave of users from Bluedot. We are here to help make your transition as smooth as possible, so if you are having trouble switching over to wattvision, please do not hesitate to reach out and contact us. We look forward to providing you with amazing energy tracking service to help facilitate your energy saving goals!
A tip to switching over to wattvision: A few of our users have had some trouble adding their rainforest eagle, but we found if you refresh the GUI on your rainforest Eagle, and then add it to Wattvision, you should be good to go!
Everywhere we look, we are bombarded with demands from the media to do certain things: save the earth, recycle, go green,live sustainably. All of these virtues sound like good things but do we ever stop and think what they really mean? Why is living a sustainable life important? What does it even mean to live sustainably?
Today we are going to break down why sustainability is one of the most important things in 2016 and the easy changes you can make to live a more sustainable life.
We live in a world where everything has to be plugged in. This leads to a high demand for electricity and unfortunately, most of the electricity comes from fossil fuels. There has been progress to moving to more renewable resources like nuclear, solar, hydro and wind, but until all energy can be produced this way, it is important to be as energy efficient as possible. The use of fossil fuels can be argued to be one of the most detrimental and widespread factors of pollution, so as a result, the easiest way to reduce pollution would be to change the way we use energy.
There are many little changes you can make to live a more sustainable life, like riding your bike or only buying locally sourced food, but one of the best ways is be more conscious of the energy that you are using. This is where Wattvision can help. We provide you will all the tools you need to monitor your energy usage in your home and in your businesses which then allows you to make informed decisions. We also have features that allow you to optimize your solar panel production and we are currently adding more.
Wattvision is here to help support your sustainability needs through an innovative and easy to use platform. Be on the lookout for more features that will help make sustainability an easy part of your everyday life.
Attention Wattvisionaries! We are introducing a new feature to our site called Weekly Energy Heat Map. This tool allows you to select a week an of data and view your energy in a chromatic way. When you log in to your account, you can select weekly view and easy see when you were the most and least efficient in your energy use. We know that sometimes it's hard to understand all your energy use data or maybe you don't have time to check our usage every day so we are providing you with an easy and visual tool that quickly lets you understand when you are using your most energy on a larger scale. Our goal is to make energy sustainability second nature for all of our users, and through this feature and some new ones we are working on, hopefully, we can come closer to achieving that goal. Make sure you log on and check out your Heat Map.
This feature was requested by one of our users, if you have a feature request please reach out and contact us at info@wattvision.com and we will work on adding it to our site!
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It is an accepted fact that one of the best ways to be more energy efficient is to install solar panels on your house. This idea appeals to both hyper environmentally conscious people as well as average families who are trying to save money every month. They are generally assumed as a good investment because they should pay for themselves in the matter of months and help save the environment . This brings up the question: are solar panels too good to be true?
Before making a major change, it is best to weigh the pros and cons
There are many options available when you are looking into getting solar panels. You can buy them or lease them with different plans that allow you to only pay for the energy you use or zero down at signing. There are options for every financial need. Also a lot of states provide tax rebates, lowering the cost of solar energy even more.
In some areas, they allow you to sell the energy that you use back to the grid, so you can make money off your solar panels.
Since solar energy is a renewable resource, it reduces the need for the production of energy from fossil fuels. The energy that you will be producing will be made with out adding any additional carbon to the air, therefore reducing your carbon footprint. As society, focusing on reducing carbon production is essential to maintain clean air and water and a healthy climate. By helping in easiest and efficient way to cut pollutants , you are helping preserve the environment.
Because solar is produced on the roof of your home rather than in a large power plant, the energy is more secure. If a large power plant is knocked out by a natural disaster or an attack on the grid, the more solar cells on residential homes, the more resilient the grid is to power outages.
Rather than depending on the government to provide energy for you, you are in control of your own energy production. This means you don't have to worry about energy shortages or costs for years to come.
As you can see, there are many positive aspects to solar energy. We can't decided whether or not solar panels are right for you, but what we can do is provide the tools necessary to monitor your solar production and energy use. Through partnerships with PVoutput and Rainforest eagle, it is easy to track how much energy you are producing every minute using Wattvision.com . Check it out for your self!]]>This seems to be the biggest, possibly the only negative to having solar panels. Solar panels are installed on your roof, so to perform roof repairs, you would have to pay the solar companies to remove and then reinstall the solar panels.
Also, if you are leasing or have a loan on your solar panels and you move, either the new owners of the home have to take on the lease /loan payments themselves, or you have to pay fees to end your contract early and have the panels removed. This isn't such a major issue because solar panels add enough value to your home to cover these costs in most cases.
Arguably the most useful features on the Wattvision site are the various graphs, specifically the daily history graphs. Thanks to the suggestion of one of our loyal users, we have updated these graphs. Before, when you selected the range of data you wanted to view, you could zoom in on it but the graphs did not rescale. Now, you can zoom in on any area of the graph, and the both axes rescale to size of the selected data. This makes it easier for users to view their data in a more detailed way.
If you have any features you would like to see updated, email sara@wattvision.com and we will do the best to implement it!
Many of you may have noticed the makeover Wattvision.com received a couple moths ago. We've slimmed down some areas, added to others, all with the goal of making the user experience as positive as possible. After months of hard work, we are proud to announce that the new website, both mobile, and desktop, is up, running and fully functioning. Make sure you go check it out and let us know what you think about the changes. We are still looking to add more features to the page so if you have any feedback or suggestions, please reach out to Sara at sara@wattvision.com
We are committed to making it as easy as possible for users to access all the tools they need to save energy. Be on the lookout for more features and improvements coming soon!
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Levi jeans recently launched their Waste< Less campaign recently launched in their efforts to become a more sustainable brand. These new jeans are made with 20% recycled material, specifically plastic bottles. Since the launch of this collection, they have been able to save 11.9 million bottles from landfills.
Levi's other goal is to reduce their water consumption. It is no secret that water waste is a huge issue and Levi's has figured out an innovative method to save up to 96% of water useage in their denim finishing processes. They have combined wet processes and reduced the amount of water needed. In the last few years, they have been able to save 1 BILLION gallons of water.
Right now, only 20% of their products are made using these sustainable methods but by the end of 2020, their goal is to 80% of their jeans made this way.
If your goal is be fashionable while also being conscience of the environment, make sure to check out the Waste<Less collection.
As always, to help will your energy saving needs, check out Wattvision.com
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Click here to continue tracking Princeton's energy consumption
]]>For the last three years, Princeton University's residential colleges have teamed up to see which college can save the most average energy week by week for the Do It in the Dark Challenge. The college that saves the most energy wins a Study Break.
With one week left in the challenge, it is impossible to call who the winner will be since all colleges have time to change their energy use habits . Stay tuned till the 22nd to see who the winner is.
In partnership with the University's office of Sustainability , we are helping to further their commitment to helping Princeton become as green as possible with through student engagement.
PrincetonU's snapchat story this week featured ways to save energy during this challenge.
You can find the college ranks here
Many of our users have optimized their energy save techniques and made the switch to solar energy. This transition can be tricky but with the help of Wattvision, it can be smooth and gratifying.
The way most of our users use Wattvision to help integrate their solar experience is through either EKM meters, Rainforest Eagle Smart Meters or PVoutput. EKM meteres and Rainforsest both compile data to wattvision.com where you can track how much energy you are producing compared how much energy you're producing. You can upload your Wattvision data to PVoutput to share and monitor energy use.
Our users have been able to use Wattvision monitoring software in order to reduce their energy cost down to nothing, some have even been able to make a profit off of their solar panels.
For more information about solar energy in New Jersey visit NJcleanenergy.com
If you have any questions on how we can help with the transition to solar please email us at info@wattvision.com
In this week's Town Topics and US1 newspapers, check out Sustainable Princeton's EnergySmart Buildings and Homes Campaign to find out more information on how you can maximize energy save techniques in the Princeton area. In collaboration with Wattvision, New Jersey's Clean Energy Program can help you save money, energy and the environment with their programs, services and incentives for homeowners and business owners. Many local business have already started being as energy efficient as possible through the campaign. If you would like to join , please contact Sustainable Princeton at (609)454-4757.
]]>We always find it interesting to see the creative ways Wattvisioniaries use Wattvision to help improve their lives and the environment. Sometimes these ideas are so good that we need to share them with the Wattvision community to inspire other users to use Wattvision to its full capacity.
Recently we spoke with Jorge, he owns Habita Suites,an extend stay hotel in Columbia. Here is what he has to say about his Wattvision experience
1. How do you use Wattvision:
I own a small lodging business (extended stay hotel). Since my guests stay for long period of time, it's very common that they leave the air conditioning, lights and/or other electric devices turned on when they are at work or doing some tourism around the city. My major concern was the air conditioning because it is one per apartment (mini split type), and we have very big windows that guests love to open to get fresh air.
With this device(Wattvision) now I can know the energy use by looking at the kw/h and the time of the day, (knowing previously how many guests are inside the building), if someone left devices on or a window open, I will be able to see it in the energy use and fix it.
2. How much energy have you saved since you started using Wattvision?:
At least 20%.
3. What effect does this amount of money saved have on how lucrative your business is?:
It makes me more competitive.
4. What reasons, other than the financial ones, caused you to chose Wattvision?
I love the idea of crowd funding, I love the interface, and of course: I love great customer service.
Thank you, Jorge for letting us feature you on our blog. If anyone has any other interesting Wattvision stories, please email sara@wattvision.com
]]>Wattvision is proud to say that we are partnered and compatible with Rainforest Eagle sensors. Set up is easy and quick! Here's how to configure your Eagle to upload to Wattvision:
There are two parts to configuring your Eagle.
1. Connect your sensor to its power source and to an ethernet cable, then go to the local web address located on the bottom of the sensor.
2. Once connected, go to settings and select Wattvision from providers drop down.
3. Confirm your choice to connect to Wattvision server
3 Your data is now being sent to Wattvision servers
1. Log in to your Wattvision account and go to Desktop
2. Click House/Site and enter information about the location that is to be monitored.
3. After you add your House/Site, go to sensor settings and click on Rainforest Eagle from the drop down menu. Enter your cloud ID which can be found on the back of the Rainforest sensor
4. If all steps were followed correctly, then you should be able to access your Rainforest data on Wattvision.com
Here, at Wattvision, we know that our sensors are awesome. Our blog posts are usually about us telling our viewers what makes our product great, but for this post we are changing it up. We sharing what our Wattvisionaries have to say about Wattvision. We aren't bragging, we are just excited that other people recognize how awesome we are ;) We just wanted to say thank you and give a shout out too all of our kind and generous users.
We recently closed out our Kickstarter Campaign. One of our lovely users posted this on our page:
"I think this is the best kickstarter I have backed. You guys should be proud of your accomplishments -- I love my Watt Vision."
On our Amazon page, our users send us a lot of love. Here are some of our favorite comments:
"'m totally amazed with the simplicity and at the convenience of this meter! As a owner of a small familiar hotel, i was very worried about the permanent increasing in the energy consumption month by month, sometimes even if we were booked at 50%, the monthly bill comes as if it was full.
After installing this Wattvision meter everything changes... now at my house or at work, i know who, when and how is the energy being wasted. I discovered new things that was not working well at my hotel and now i'am able to correct them thanks to the functionality of "live history". For example rooms that were booked and not reported, this meter help me notice that.Brilliant application, brilliant product... and the best is the fast and agile customer service when installing. We are very very happy. Thanks Wattvision!" - Habitia Suites
"I purchased a Wattvision Analog energy sensor back in April 2012 to get a better handle on electricity use in our home. Installation of the sensor onto our meter was a snap, especially with the help of instructional videos from Wattvision.com. The people at Wattvision were extremely helpful and responsive every step of the way. After noticing slight inaccuracies in our sensor data , they correctly diagnosed a problem and provided a customized sensor replacement that is now 100% accurate. Each week, Wattvision sends a summary of the previous week's usage. I also find downloading my data from their website into a spreadsheet helps me understand the trends in our energy use month to month. Very highly recommended."- John
"I love this little gadget. It's fun. It's easy. It's incredibly precise and can detect changes as low as a few watts. It took less than ten minutes to install and set up. I like how compact it is and that they don't sell you any unnecessary junk. I can see my power use via any web-connected computer. I can see it via my Android phone. I can download data for detailed analysis. It was very cool to call home one day and ask: "Did you just start the laundry? I can see that power use just jumped up by 5kW!" This has been a great tool to search out, identify, and document power wastes in the house. By looking at the time and duration of energy use, it's quite obvious what are significant power uses and what are not. The little intra-user energy savings competition they've got going is fun motivation, too."- Ted
"I purchased the Wattvision monitor after having problems in not being able to zero out my electric bill. I have a 4.2 kilowatt solar system on my house and I have always had a electric bill. The bill was around $300 a year and I should have been able to had no bill. I purchased the monitor to help me see where I could fine tune my house. I found by replacing light bulbs to florescent lights in the bathrooms and installing timer switches that my problem was almost fixed. The other area I found that was burning electricity was my outdoor lighting. I changed the incandescent Malibu lights out to the new led ones. With these few changes I now make more power than I use. I even have a $78 credit for the extra power we have made. At the end of the year my power provider will cut me a check when I true up. I have had the Wattvision monitor for 4 months now and 4 months of no electric bills.
Thank you Wattvision for helping me meet my goal."-Brandon DIn this week's edition of Town Topics, Wattvision's work with Sustainable Princeton is featured. Labyrinth Books, One Monument Hall and Witherspoon Presbyterian Church are all participating in Sustainable Princeton's EnergySmart Buildings Campaign. The goal is to track energy use in a canvas of buildings using Wattvision software. Wattvision was chosen for this project due to our experience in tracking data in Princeton University Residence halls and at at Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed. For more information, you can read the article at towntopics.com or on Pg 9.
Yesterday afternoon, Wattvision and Sustainable Princeton visited the Witherspoon St. Presbyterian Church to help them track and reduce their energy use.
Denise and Jim of the Witherspoon St Presbyterian Church are trying to make the facility as energy efficient as possible. They were looking for ways to save money on their energy bill while also becoming more sustainable, so they called in the big guns. Wattvision and Sustainable Princeton came in to save the day, one watt at a time.
Sustainable Princeton is installing Wattvision sensors on a few Princeton-area facilities. The project, spearheaded by Christine Symington, seeks to inspire energy efficient changes in the community. Wattvision will allow facility owners to directly track savings as a result of changes and audits, and receive alerts if anything changes. The church will use Sustainable Princeton's energy saving tips to their full advantage.
If any other local business is interested in sitting down with our team and talking about how Wattvision can save you energy please email sara@wattvision.com
Pictured from left to right: Denise, Jim, Christine, & Alexis
Plug power supply into the gateway
2. Gateway will go into setup mode. You will know that it's in setup mode when the WiFi light comes on and the link and sensor lights are blinking
Set Up your Wattvision Gateway with Ethernet in 4 Easy Steps
Step 1:
SmartThings now supports Wattvision.
SmartThings is an app that allows you to control your home through your smartphone. You can turn on and off lights in your home, control the temperature, keep track of your pets, open and close your garage, etc. from anywhere in the world. Now, if your home is set up with SmartThings and you are a Wattvision user, you can track your energy usage on the SmartThings app.
Linking Wattvision data to the SmartThings app is simple
]]>When viewing your house, you can now share via an "unlisted link" -- meaning you can share your wattvision data with users that do not have wattvision logins.
As the owner of a house, you need to activate this feature by clicking on the SHARING tab and pressing "create share link".
You can also deactivate the link once you've created it, locking out anyone that you previously gave access to.
We're just trying to make it easy for you to share and explore your Wattvision data!
Last week, we received an email from one of our users, Troy. He's used Wattvision data to compare different possible rate plans and select a time-of-use rate for his energy bill, saving him $15/month. You can see the spreadsheet he used below! Thanks for sending this in, Troy!
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Exciting! A current student a Princeton is going to analyze anonymized energy data from Wattvision to determine if our users could save money with different rate structures.
"I hope to compare anonymized electrical usage data with historical prices to see how residential electricity bills would change if utilities used different pricing structures. The goal is to see which pricing structures provide the most benefit to users by improving the efficiency of the current rate design and offering incentives for conservation. Also, if possible, I would like to try and study how these changes impact different demographics."
In more simple terms: I want to see how people's electricity bills would change if they didn't pay just a flat rate for electricity. Specifically, which pricing methods allow people with good conservation habits to save the most money, and how they would impact different demographics.- Sharon Gao '15
Guest poster Ted Borer, long-time Wattvision fan and supporter, wrote up the following detailed writeup on the Princeton U Campus energy use, his home's energy use, and the regional electrical grid's usage, during Superbowl XLIX. It's super interesting, check it out!
The 2015 Super Bowl Power Analysis – Now with a value-added look at residential electricity use!!
Previous general comments can be found in the SPEE academic paper.
What can we learn from last-night’s game in particular?
1. DO hire Matt Flynn if you need to catch an oblong flying object, in any position, ever. DON’T call a passing play with half a minute on the clock, trailing by a couple points, and only a few yards to go. Okay we got that out of our system.
2. This game is important to a lot of people. For about five hours the Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland interconnection needs to supply about a hundred million watts more power than on a different but comparable Sunday evening. That’s a LOT of energy.
3. People use a lot of energy very briefly about ten minutes before the game. You can picture millions of microwaves, and refrigerators, and sinks being used as people prepare food and drinks.
4. Almost everyone leaves the TV on for the whole game. So power spikes indicate boredom or hunger when people leave the TV room and operate some additional appliances.
5. Although people enjoy the advertisements, more people leave the room during advertisements than during the game.
6. College students care a little more about the half-time show than the PJM interconnection does as a whole. In PJM a higher % do other activities during half-time.
7. When Seattle got a field goal followed by an interception and a touchdown shortly after half time, a lot of people on campus stopped other activities and focused on the game. These major events caught their interest.
8. From 9:02 to 9:20 there were a LOT of advertisements. Students focused on these and used less power. In the PJM area, people walked out and did something else.
9. When the Patriots got their third touchdown, people thought the game got more interesting and went to get more food or clean up during the ads, but didn’t turn off the TV. When the Patriots got their fourth, everyone sat still to see how the game would end. Very little other activity happened until the game ended.
10. As soon as the game was over, people went out to clean up the kitchen, run the dishwasher, and get ready for bed. There was a similar power spike as soon as the post-game award stuff began.
11. Most people shut off the TV before 11:00.
12. Ditching Roman numerals for Super Bowl “L” is a good idea.
13. NOTE: To make the PJM graph easier to graph and more obvious, I subtracted the overall trend of declining power use through the evening. What is shown on the graph is the incremental additional energy use above the overall trend.
What can be learned from a super-granular look at our single-family home?
1. Electric heating elements turn on and off. They do not modulate. They run steadily at full power until their temperature set-point is met, then they cycle on/off to maintain that set point. You can observe this with the coffee maker, stove, oven, and poultry water heater. You can see that the oven ran at full power as it was warmed-up from 6:45 – 6:58, then began to cycle to maintain temperature. The oven heating elements are probably about 2300 Watts. The coffee maker is about 2000 watts. The poultry water heater is probably about 1500 Watts. About 7:40 the oven was opened several times to remove food. It operated about 15 minutes at full power before reaching and maintaining set-point. We turned it off at 8:18.
2. We do take advantage of advertisements to use the bathroom and get more food.
3. There were about 250 Watts worth of stuff that we could have turned off several hours before we did (computer equipment and many lights around the house are not offering benefit while we’re watching TV).
4. NOTE: To make the household trend easier to graph and more obvious, I subtracted the heat pump and fan energy use. What is shown on the graph is the non-HVAC energy. Assuming that heating the house is not optional, this is more representative of the optional energy use.
THE BIG TAKE AWAY:
1. Pay attention to your energy use. It is interesting. It is important from the standpoint of both financial and environmental stewardship.
2. Study energy use in super-granular detail and superimpose what you know about the system.
3. Learn what uses a lot of energy and what does not use much.
4. Learn the patterns of energy use.
5. To save money and environmental impact, reduce or eliminate low-value activities.
FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS. JUST SAY WHERE YOU GOT IT.
Ted Borer, PE, CEM, LEED AP
Princeton University
Energy Plant Manager
MacMillan Building, Elm Drive
Princeton, NJ 08543-2158
Cell: (609) 731-2327
Home: (609) 466-3322
]]>Last Wednesday Senator Cory Booker launched the SOAR act at a startup pitch competition in Tigerlabs. The competition, co-hosted by TechLaunch and NJ Tech Meetup, featured several pitches from area companies, with Wattvision earning the audience choice award.
Graham Turk pitches Wattvision to Cory Booker:
Learning how to save energy with @wattvision @njtech #sustainability pic.twitter.com/aSQdol7HqV
— NJ Tech (@NJTech) September 24, 2014
Wattvision makes it easy for people and businesses to save money on energy. Used by individual consumers and large corporate entities like Princeton's Sustainability Office, Wattvision's versatile hardware and software helps users understand their energy consumption, helping them save up to 20% off their energy bills.
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