Mr. Mayer argues that everything is right on schedule. 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. 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. And as a security safeguard, it will only be used to monitor. Remote-control functions will remain off the Net and in the control room. Engineers will log onto a password-protected Web page to monitor key statistics.