How it works

To use Calc-Electric you need to have a traditional electricity meter like the one shown below or an electronic meter with an led which flashes as power is used (see bottom of page).

If your electricity meter is like the one shown here you will notice that in the middle of the meter there is a rotating disk which you see edge on. This disk rotates faster or slower according to how much electricity is being used, and by counting the number of revolutions of the disk you can accurately determine the rate of electicity you are using in your home.

Calc-Electric is a piece of software for your pc which measures the rotation of this disk using a standard pc webcam. You'll notice that the edge of this disk has a dark mark on it, often in black or red, and this is what the Calc-Electric software is looking for.

Within the software the rotations are stored and various screens show you the rate you are using the electicity, how much it is costing, and how your usage has varied over long periods of time. You can record the data for days if necessary, view it as graphs, and export the data to excel to do your own study of it.

If you have a digital meter like the one on the right, instead of there being a disk which rotates, there is a flashing light. Calc-Electric can read these flashes just as it would read the disk rotations described above, and can handle the results in exactly the same way as already described

Use Calc-Electric to identify the power consumption of individual appliances as you switch them on and off, and also to identify electricity that you are using even when you THINK that you have switched everything off.

Calc-Electric is more than accurate enough to identify the power used by appliances on standby.

To see some of the things that Calc-Electric can do, visit the Screenshots page.