And consumers can talk back, adjusting the temperature at home via a Web browser or wireless phone. Michel Mayer, IBM's general manager of pervasive computing, is a passionate advocate of wiring up everything. Three years ago this was science fiction,'' he says. But he admits cost is an issue. Eventually, though, these features must become standard, even if companies charge you for the actual monitoring.
Cost is one factor, but the industry also needs to do a better job of proving benefits.
Consumer appliances should work as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Some people can already program their air conditioners over the phone. It would be even more helpful if our air conditioners could download weather information and the latest rates from the electric company and program themselves accordingly, leaving us out of the loop and saving us some money. I want people to look at this and say I can't afford not to have it,'' says Ed Cannon, the company's president. Like any big utility, KCPL already has monitoring systems in place in all of its substations, but they are designed to detect and fix critical problems, and can usually be accessed only in the control center.