The UFO Power Center by Visible Energy is a power strip on steroids. It acts as a power strip, home energy monitor and electric appliance timer all in one.
From the UFO Power Center How It Works section:
The UFO Power Center is used as a regular power strip that provides four 110 Volts sockets. The energy used by each socket is measured separately and automatically logged. Once the UFO Power Center is configured to join your Wi-Fi network, you can use our free Energy UFO application for iPhone and iPad to monitor and manage your energy consumption.
There are 4 main features that Visible Energy highlights on their website for the UFO Power Center.
1) Power Strip Functionality
The UFO Power Center features four sockets that can power 110 Volts electrical appliances in the U.S. and Canada.
A different color identifies each socket and an LED on each socket indicates when it is active. The UFO Power Strip can provide up to 15 Amps total, spread across the four sockets in any configuration.
2) Power Meter
Unlike regular power strips, the UFO Power Center can measure electrical consumption on each individual socket in real time. One month of energy consumption is stored on the UFO for each socket. An LED light on top of the UFO changes color from green to yellow and red, indicating different levels of total power consumption. These power levels are configurable by the user.
3) WiFi Communication
When plugged into the UFO Power Center, your appliances can be monitored and controlled across your home Wi-Fi network. Your iPad and iPhone become remote controls for your appliances. The UFO connects to Wi-Fi access points using 802.11 b/g/n and WEP, WPA and WPA2 encryption.
4) Automation (turn on/off electrical devices with a automatic timer)
Appliances can be turned off and on automatically, based on a user-defined hourly schedule for each day of the week. Automation is also used to eliminate standby power consumption of appliances that don’t need to be “always on” or that depend on the availability of other appliances. This is possible by assigning different roles to sockets and relying on the UFO’s ability to detect small changes in current.
