

How Smart Meters Can Reveal Behavior at Home, What We Watch on TV - throwwit
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-10/your-outlet-knows-how-smart-meters-can-reveal-behavior-at-home-what-we-watch-on-tv.html

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jjp
A link to the research paper referenced
([http://www.nds.rub.de/media/nds/veroeffentlichungen/2012/07/...](http://www.nds.rub.de/media/nds/veroeffentlichungen/2012/07/24/ike2012.pdf))
were they explain the methodology including how they had to capture
electricity consumption at a higher resolution than the smart meter broadcast
and also that the TV had dynamic backlighting. The actual method of predicting
usage based on brightness of screen and some of the false positive problems
they had is interesting and also the inability to identify some kinds of
broadcast (such as tv news) because the picture didn't change enough.

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oniTony
> ... had to capture electricity consumption at a higher resolution ...

Interesting to note that at a high enough resolution, one can start extracting
crypto keys.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_analysis)

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ap22213
This is an interesting research investigation, but it hardly fits into
(current) real-world applications of smart metering, at least in the US. In
the US, distribution utilities are capturing usage data in 15-30 minute
intervals. Some may go as far as 5-minute interval data. But, even at that
level, I would think that the granularity of consumption aggregates way too
much load activity to pinpoint individual devices or specific activity on
those devices.

Maybe someday we'll see metering at 5 second, or smaller, intervals. But, at
that point, the only advantage would be specifically to monitor household
behavior. Utilities already have more data then they know what to do with.
And, if the goal is to identify a household's TV viewing, well, there are
better ways to get that data, aren't there?

Then, aren't there technical challenges for capturing 5 second intervals? From
what I understand (not being an EE or hardware person), the smart grid RF mesh
networks are on the 900MHz band, which have limited spectrum and lots of other
usage. In my dealings with mesh network vendors, I have gotten the sense that
bandwidth is pretty limited.

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__david__
Hmm. So now I need a device that consumes random amounts of power to mask my
TV?

On a side note, has anyone looked into the wireless protocol that these smart
meters use? I'd love to be able to read my own meter…

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WatchDog
I was under the impression they used standard cell phone networks.

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bdamm
Many use Wi-Sun. [http://www.wi-sun.org/](http://www.wi-sun.org/) There's a
number of different specific implementations. (Disclaimer: I work for SSNI)

Some use cell networks, but cells are not really that well suited.

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jmnicolas
I'm sure you can make marvels in a controlled environment ... but how you're
going to know what someone watch on TV, while someone else in the house is
using a hairdryer, the washing machine is running and a second TV is used in
conjunction with a console.

Good luck with that.

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TeMPOraL
Signal processing is a centuries-old field of engineering that deals with
exactly that problem. We already have theoretical framework and practical ways
of dealing with signal identification and separation problems.

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Executor
This technology must die out if we value privacy. Why isn't there an opt-out
option?

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clockwerx
I bought an EnviR just to get real time readings of my usage!

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Gustomaximus
This is a super interesting area. I think it's one of those technologies that
will really open the door for some cool tech to follow.

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majika
Onwards we march to dystopia.

Thanks, everyone at Onzo; you're solving the world's problems. /s

