February 2012

Tweet-a-Watt

The Tweet-a-Watt was one of the first projects I built from an article in Make magazine. I've since built many more.  It also introduced me to Limor Fried and her company Adafruit.  It turns out I already had the very Kill-a-Watt unit in use which was to be modified for the project.  So mostly I needed the XBees and some other parts.  The full Adafruit tutorial is here.The XBee was a tight fit in the case but everything turned out very well.  Even the green LED practically looks like it belongs on the original Kill-a-Watt.  I've used the Tweet-a-Watt in various ways moving it around to monitor different devices at home and at work.  I've also gone on to use XBees for other short-range wireless applications around the house.