SmartMeter.KOM: A low-cost wireless sensor for distributed power metering

Most current smart metering solutions aim at increasing user awareness for their household's electrical energy consumption. Although some smart meters make use of wireless data transfers between their sensor and display units, their integration into existing wireless sensor networks is hampered by proprietary communication interfaces and their lack of re-programmability. Furthermore, the sole availability of aggregate consumption values renders current meters insufficient for novel application scenarios like smart home automation, for which information at device-level granularity and high resolution is vital. We address these shortcomings of existing solutions by presenting SmartMeter.KOM, our wireless sensor node capable of determining the current consumption of individual electrical appliances at high resolution. The platform is based on low-power hardware and incorporates a reprogrammable microcontroller which allows developers to easily deploy new algorithms. Its IEEE 802.15.4-compliant radio transceiver makes its integration with existing sensor networks possible, and thus enables their integration in smart buildings. We demonstrate the versatility of SmartMeter.KOM by presenting prototypical implementations of smart applications and identifying further research directions.