Have you ever wondered how much energy your blender, toaster, coffee maker or other appliance is using? With the ever increasing cost of energy, understanding consumption patterns is a very important part of minimizing energy usage. The Wireless Energy Monitor enables the real-time collection of consumption data as well as remote on/off control. The data can be viewed locally by connecting via an ad hoc Wi-Fi^® connection or remotely by connecting to a cloud server. This reference design can help kick-start your own connected home, smart appliances or smart energy designs.

The Wireless Energy Monitor is part of our Connected Home platform. At the heart of the design is a low-power nanoWatt XLP 16-bit  PIC24FJ256GA106 PIC^® microcontroller. Energy consumption is monitored by the MCP3901, a two-channel analog front end with high-accuracy 16/24-bit delta-sigma Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs). The SST25VF032B supplies 32 Mbit of Flash to store data locally in off-line mode. Date and time stamps are kept accurate by the stand-alone MCP79410 Real-Time Clock/Calendar (RTCC) with battery backup. The energy consumption data is transmitted via the agency-certified (e.g. FCC) MFR24WB0MA Wi-Fi module.