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What is Power Minder

PowerMinder is a combination of software and hardware. It manifests as a device that provides a visual indication of the current cost of electricity (puns are welcome) as well as when the next cost period will start (and if it is more or less costly than the present one). The idea is this will be a small device that hangs out in the laundry room, kitchen and other places where high energy consuming systems reside. When you have the visual cues from a PowerMinder you can make smarter choices about when to start cooking, laundry and other energy hungry activities. You may not save a lot of money using a PowerMinder but you will be far more aware of the activities you engage in that are costing you that premium on your bill each month.

The Design Spec aka What we are looking to build in code and how we intend it to function.

Is there also an Open Hardware design for this project?

• a schematic will be available for the prototype we've cobbled together.
• a schematic will be available for a standard Arduino (after above is done).
• we will have a shield design at some point in the future.

Can the code run on a "normal" Arduino?

• once we are off the ground, yes it should compile and run on the normal Arduino Uno and others.
• We hope people will help maintain the code's ability to compile on the different Arduino versions.

Why the ATTiny85 hardware platform?

It seems like this entire device should try to be small. The ATTiny85 starts small and has very little (almost no) supporting hardware requirements. It also seems like a nice challenge to get all the design features into a small chip like the ATTiny85. Also it was a joy to find and use the Digistump Digispark product and the fun boot loader it incorporates. The Digispark makes rapid prototyping a joy.

What have you broken so far?

So far at least one real time clock has been fried. Do not reverse polarity on that little chips + and - pins. It will no longer play nice. That same day a Digisprk became very hot as the reversed polarity was not noticed for a short while (no more puns). So a burnt finger tip resulted when checking the board's seating in the bread board.