JUL 01

Within a week of each other, Google and Microsoft both announced that they were pulling the plug on their home energy management services after only two years of them being active.

Last week, Google said that it was giving up on its PowerMeter online software that allowed people to track their home energy use and pinpoint ways make their home more efficient and end up with cheaper electricity bills.  The reason was that not enough people and utilities were signing up for the free service.

Microsoft has given the same reason for ending its Hohm service, a similar program that offered a sleeker interface and a greater depth of information regarding consumer's energy use patterns and the related costs.  Hohm was also free, but Microsoft had planned to make it into a paid service.

Home energy monitoring and management is a necessary part of lowering our overall energy use and living more sustainably, but it's possible these programs were launched a little too soon.  When smart grid technology starts reaching more areas of the country and people start becoming more accustomed to using technology to tweak their energy use habits, these type of programs will be more popular, but it seems the interest just wasn't there yet.

via Earth2Tech

Comments (5)

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Good Show
written by RwFlynn, July 04, 2011

Here's hoping they got some good usage data out of this for future energy management programs.

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written by Eric, July 05, 2011

Free market forces don't always deliver good outcomes. Blindly trusting in the market to deliver reform is a cargo cult.

This situation requires federal legislation in order to force change.

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no promotion effort
written by Glissade, July 05, 2011

Seems like they did little to promote and market these services and did no lobbying for quicker adoption of smart grid technology that would use these products. It's not like Google and Microsoft can't influence these sorts of things. Quitters.

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Little promo, but possible future implications
written by Jacob Ballard, July 06, 2011

This is the first time I have heard of these services, I love the idea of them, but they should have been more widely publicized (just look at how much attention Google + is attaining). Google has been doing some great things in sustainability, and may take this project back up in the future.

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written by John, November 07, 2011

to Glissade: yes, Google will better develop their own cell phones to ensure quick profits. For the last decade they only copy Apple and Microsoft products. Today, they decided to kill Facebook and promote their own Google+ to sell even more ads and their own products.

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