RIP Google PowerMeter and Microsoft Hohm – Home Power Consumption Metering Products are Almost Dead

Much to my dismay, I have to report that Google and Microsoft are both discontinuing their home power consumption products, Google PowerMeter and Microsoft Hohm.

Personally, I think this sucks – but do you know the official reasons why?

Microsoft:
“…Due to the slow overall market adoption of the service, we are instead focusing our efforts on products and solutions more capable of supporting long-standing growth within this evolving market.”
Google:
“…Our efforts have not scaled as quickly as we would like, so we are retiring the service.”

So basically, Google and Microsoft put these products out there to give us the ability to literally monitor and evaluate our home power consumption to make us self-aware of the way we spend electricity.  Apparently, at the rate that we adopted these products, Google and Microsoft aren’t happy.  Bye-bye, home monitoring products.  This really sucks.

We could spend the whole day blaming people or departments or our generally care-less generation.  Were these products advertised well enough?  Did people stop watching Jersey Shore long enough to see the ads, or even care about the impact they have on the world?  Did the energy companies that didn’t sign up for either of these products just not want people trying to reduce their energy consumption?  Something my divorce taught me was that there is no reason to waste time to point a finger to the blame; instead, point the finger towards change and making yourself better.  We need to make this better.

How do we make this better, JimOnLight.com readers?  Together, we are one huge body of concerned and informed lighting lovers.  I believe in us!  How do we teach America and the world how important it is to be in touch with the impact we have on the planet?  Even more difficult, how do we teach the companies that make money on how much power that we use understand that it’s in their best interests for us to figure out how to better use our electricity?

Check out the Google announcement for the death of PowerMeter (and Google Health too, subsequently) and the announcement of Microsoft’s discontinuation of Microsoft Hohm.