Comments on: Visible Energy: Fighting Vampires With UFOs

By: Green Tips: Improving Energy Efficiency at Home and on the Road

Green Tips: Improving Energy Efficiency at Home and on the Road — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:59:42 +0000

[...] office equipment will be switched off for longer periods, use a power strip, or energy UFO, to avoid vampire appliances slowly draining electricity. Belkin makes a series of devices that [...]

By: Green Tips: Improving Energy Efficiency at Home and on the Road | iPhone, iPad Weblog

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:07:30 +0000

[...] office equipment will be switched off for longer periods, use a power strip, or energy UFO, to avoid vampire appliances slowly draining electricity. Belkin makes a series of devices that [...]

By: More Energy Management Apps for the iPad

More Energy Management Apps for the iPad — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:59:34 +0000

[...] Energy’s iPad app is a tweak of its iPhone app that is connected to its Energy UFO product, which it launched at our Green:Net conference in 2009 (Green:Net 2010 will take place on April 29). The Energy UFO product includes smart outlets that [...]

By: AT&T Launches Smart Charger to Fight Vampire Power, Finally

AT&T Launches Smart Charger to Fight Vampire Power, Finally — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:30:38 +0000

[...] companies and startups are trying to develop other alternative ways to cut vampire power. Visible Energy has created smart plugs and smart strips to eliminate wasted power and Green Plug envisions its smart adapter technology embedded everywhere. [...]

By: Flex Your Power Energy News - Power Plug » Power-Saving UFOs: Aliens Versus Vampires

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:09:11 +0000

[...] The new UFO powerstrip (Photo courtesy of earth2tech) [...]

By: Chris I

Chris I — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:32:33 +0000

hi Marco, it would be nice if it included an infrared port also, so that a Universal Remote Control could be programmed to turn on appliances via the powerstrip. In this way, it would be possible to control TVs, hifi equipment, etc, without having to leave them running on standby.

By: Marco G.

Marco G. — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:28:34 +0000

@FK: The UFO powerstrip connects to the home network using power line communication. The iPhone uses your WiFi router/access point to communicate through a powerline adapter (that we provide) to the UFO powerstrips.

@Solar Power Lad: Among other things it provides some smart ways to deal with phantom power.

It will go into production in the summer and will cost to the public less than $200. The exact price depends on a number of factors beyond our control and will be determined once we go into volume production. Like all consumer electronics products, it should be expected to cost a little bit more at beginning of its life cycle.

By: Solar Power Lad

Solar Power Lad — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:10:49 +0000

I have been waiting for this kind of thing since I first learned about the scourge of "phantom power". I can't seem to buy a single electronics device that actually turns OFF. Everything I own seems to be on "standby"

By: FK

FK — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 21:25:31 +0000

I think this looks pretty cool.

But, I don't get how it gets the information from the UFO to the iPhone? Does it use WiFi to connect to a router, put the information on the internet and then have the iPhone download it? Or does it connect directly to the iPhone using Bluetooth or something like that?

And what is the expected price?