Smart power plug

Abstract

In Singapore, the electric tariff has been rising significantly till date. It has been increasingly distracting users over the years to scrimp and save on electricity. The standard plug is unable to keep track of the different household appliances’ energy consumption. In the recent years, there is an increase of electrical providers which make the electrical industry turns into a very competitive sector. Thus, users have to analyze and choose the best provider that fits their household needs. By being able to monitor the household energy usage, user will understand better which appliances consumed the most electricity and have the awareness to save electricity.

This project aims to design a smart power plug prototype to allow users to monitor real time energy consumption in a household. The energy consumption parameters are mainly Voltage (V), Current (A), Active power (P), Reactive power (Q), Apparent power (S) and Power factor (pf). A lightbulb is used as load to replicate a celling light. This will be achieved by establishing communication between web application (Sinric Pro) and microcontroller (ESP32-WROOM-32D) as well as establishing communication between energy meter (CL1xTTL v2.0) and microcontroller (ESP32-WROOM-32D). Through the energy meter and microcontroller communication, it will be able to track the daily, monthly as well as the overall energy consumption of the lightbulb and reflect it on Sinric Pro. Mobile phone and computer are the two main platforms that allows user to monitor their electrical products. Sinric Pro features such as turning on and off with or without a timer can be used to control the lightbulb remotely.

This report covers the detailed process description of the hardware and software development. Experimental results, recommendation in future work and conclusion are included in this report to reflect the process of the working prototype.