Design & Development of StaLoi-Meter: IoT-Based Standby Load Monitoring & Estimation System for Household

People in modern society, especially in urban areas, rely heavily on various appliances and electronic gadgets for daily necessities. These appliances and gadgets are typically controlled by remote handsets and usually left in an “always ON” state to ensure quick and efficient functionality. As a result, they often remain in standby/sleep mode for extended periods. While the power consumed in standby/sleep mode is relatively small at any given moment, it accumulates over time into a significant amount of wasted energy. This contributes to substantial energy loss and increased electricity costs for users. To validate this issue of power wastage, it is necessary to monitor standby power consumption continuously in an average household and generate a database for subsequent analysis. This paper proposes the design and prototyping of the StaLoi-meter, a portable, low-cost instrument that measures the supply voltage, current, and power consumption of any appliance that runs on mains supply and transmits the measurement data to a cloud server via Wi-Fi. Users can access real-time power consumption data from anywhere through a cloud-based interface. The work also documents the usage of the instrument for power measurement of two typical electronic appliances and proposes necessary design augmentation to switch off power, as and when required, to minimize power wastage.