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Product Specifications
Part Number BLI31100
Item Package Quantity1
Product Features
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Product Description
Amazon.com Product Description
The Blue Line Innovations BLI 31100 PowerCost Monitor WiFi helps you better understand your household's energy usage. Compatible with the Blue Line PowerCost Monitor and the Black & Decker Power Monitor, this WiFi unit wirelessly relays information about your electrical usage to Microsoft Hohm. You'll be able to obtain details and charts depicting how much energy your household uses on a yearly, monthly, daily, hourly, and even 30-second basis. The BLI 31100 WiFi unit will help you discover hidden energy hogs in your home, learn how to reduce your carbon footprint, and save money. A Blue Line Innovations PowerCost Monitor or Black & Decker Power Monitor, an in-home wireless router, and a Microsoft Hohm account are required for operation.
WiFi Unit Sends Real-Time Data to Microsoft Hohm
Compatible with the Blue Line PowerCost Monitor and the Black & Decker Power Monitor, the BLI 31100 PowerCost Monitor WiFi lets you track your home's energy data using a Microsoft Hohm account. Once you've set up and installed Microsoft Hohm on your desktop PC or laptop, you can plug the WiFi unit into any household electrical outlet. The device works with accessible wireless broadband to securely relay real-time information from your power monitor to your Hohm account.
Note: The PowerCost Monitor WiFi Gateway is an upgrade accessory--a Blue Line Innovations PowerCost Monitor or Black & Decker Power Monitor, an in-home wireless router, and a Microsoft Hohm account are required.
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 The PowerCost Monitor WiFi works with accessible wireless broadband to securely relay real-time information from your power monitor to your Microsoft Hohm account. |
 Connect via the Internet to your Microsoft Hohm account and learn how to reduce your carbon footprint and save money. |
WiFi Unit Sends Real-Time Data to Microsoft Hohm
Compatible with the Blue Line PowerCost Monitor and the Black & Decker Power Monitor, the BLI 31100 PowerCost Monitor WiFi lets you track your home's energy data using a Microsoft Hohm account. Once you've set up and installed Microsoft Hohm on your desktop PC or laptop, you can plug the WiFi unit into any household electrical outlet. The device works with accessible wireless broadband to securely relay real-time information from your power monitor to your Hohm account.
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Harness the Power of Information
Connect via the Internet to your Microsoft Hohm account and learn how to reduce your carbon footprint and save money. Hohm tracks your current and historical energy data, offering charts in yearly, monthly, daily, hourly, and even 30-second increments to help you view patterns in your energy consumption. Additionally, Hohm provides energy-usage breakdowns that help you identify "energy hogs" and better understand where energy is being consumed in your home.
Hohm also scores your household and compares it to others in the area, so you can determine relative usage. Hohm even offers a personalized list of energy-efficiency improvement recommendations with estimated savings and referrals to local vendors. Moreover, the Hohm community provides a great way to get tips, share energy-saving ideas, compare results with other households, and build project lists based on how much you want to spend or save.
Think Green, Act Smart, Save Money
The Blue Line Innovations BLI 31100 PowerCost Monitor WiFi is a wallet friendly choice for your home. Because this device helps you track and understand your home's energy consumption, it makes it easier than ever to see how you can improve your home's efficiency. The more efficient your home becomes, the more money you'll save, and the more you'll reduce your carbon footprint.
What's in the Box
Blue Line Innovations BLI 31100 PowerCost Monitor WiFi, AC Adapter, USB cable, and installation instructions.
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 Track energy costs over a 24-hour period. View larger. |  Discover overnight phantom power consumption. View larger. |  Track electricity usage down to the minute. View larger. | ||
Product Description
Wi-Fi Accessory for POWER COST monitor - Connect via the internet to analyze your energy usage, save money by knowing the CURRENT cost of electrical usage at any moment.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
This is a great way to bring the "Prius Effect" into your house... you can totally geek out, annoy your children, and alienate your spouse by watching a graph of your energy consumption while pointing at the culprit disapprovingly.
Or perhaps, you could put an "Energy Jar" in the center of the living room where you can collect funds for your next trip to Disneyland or start that fund to buy everyone extra sweaters and blankets as you crank down the thermostat during the winter.
The basic utility of the device is to show you when energy is getting used and potentially identify areas to improve. If you see something happening at 3AM every night, but everyone's asleep and it's winter, perhaps your irrigation system is still running (even though the water is turned off).
A tip: anything with an "analog" clock or timer is chewing up energy. My front-loading washer eats energy while doing nothing (there may be a solenoid holding a door lock open). My microwave eats almost as much energy as my laptop just telling me the time. How you "solve" those problems will definitely depend on how popular you'd like to be in your house.
Depending on your energy "rate structure", you may be able to identify ways to stay out of certain "zones" where things cost more. I live in a place with "Tiered" rates. When you exceed one level, the price per kWhr goes up. So, peak use doesn't matter as much as reducing the "base load" of the house.
I was able to identify a hundred watts of power vampires (and maybe more) in surprising locations, and verify their effect with this setup. By turning those things off, I might stay out of the next higher energy rate tier. If you live in a "time of use" rate area, you might use the data differently.
The point is - with this setup, your data is WAY BETTER than the power company's data - in that, you can see it every few seconds and it's pretty accurate. But, I wouldn't try arguing your bill with it...
This unit works with both the Black and Decker (Black & Decker EM100B Energy Saver Series Power Monitor) and BlueLine Power Cost Monitor sensors.
Note that this unit is also now compatible with Google PowerMeter, but I still prefer Microsoft Hohm. You can't seem to use both at once.
Also, and this is important, this unit absolutely REQUIRES 802.11b wireless support on your router. Some new routers do NOT support "Mixed Mode" (e.g. 802.11b/g, a/b/g, b/g/n etc.) connection. If yours does not, you will be stuck using 802.11b for your network.
The setup was fairly straightforward. When I installed the software, it found a new version of the firmware for the unit and installed it without issue.
One thing to note is that the instructions tell you to "Hold the Reset button until the light stays RED" on the unit in order to get it to pair with your sensor that's out on the power meter.
Don't do that. If you hold the reset button too long, it will erase all the programming you just did on it.
It appears to me that the unit is ready to pair as soon as you disconnect it from the computer and move it to where you'll be "installing" it (near the power meter). The light blinks red and amber at that point. Pressing the reset button didn't change the blinking pattern, and pressing the button on the sensor outside on the power meter immediately paired the WiFi device to the power meter sensor.
One thing to note is that this unit has a very informative web page inside it. It will tell you things about the current link status of your connection to Microsoft Hohm or Google Power Meter, the battery level in your power meter sensor, and the signal strength of that connection.
The device's web page also automatically refreshes the data more quickly than the Hohm site. But it will ONLY SHOW YOU DATA IF YOU USE A SECURE WIFI NETWORK. They warn you about this in the package. But it's just a helpful reminder in case you don't use at least WEP security. Some people scratch their heads when they see a blank page, but Hohm has their data somehow.
I chose to assign the device a FIXED IP address on my router so that I could always get to that web page. If you use DHCP, the Hohm connection will be fine, but your device might drift around your network when your router resets itself. You can fix a DHCP address in your router or in the device setup. Doing it in the router may require re-doing the device setup just because of how your router behaves, so I'd recommend doing it in the device setup.
The device seemed to survive a power outage, and Hohm reconnected as soon as the power came back on.
So, now that you can see all your data, go out and hunt for power vampires!
Or perhaps, you could put an "Energy Jar" in the center of the living room where you can collect funds for your next trip to Disneyland or start that fund to buy everyone extra sweaters and blankets as you crank down the thermostat during the winter.
The basic utility of the device is to show you when energy is getting used and potentially identify areas to improve. If you see something happening at 3AM every night, but everyone's asleep and it's winter, perhaps your irrigation system is still running (even though the water is turned off).
A tip: anything with an "analog" clock or timer is chewing up energy. My front-loading washer eats energy while doing nothing (there may be a solenoid holding a door lock open). My microwave eats almost as much energy as my laptop just telling me the time. How you "solve" those problems will definitely depend on how popular you'd like to be in your house.
Depending on your energy "rate structure", you may be able to identify ways to stay out of certain "zones" where things cost more. I live in a place with "Tiered" rates. When you exceed one level, the price per kWhr goes up. So, peak use doesn't matter as much as reducing the "base load" of the house.
I was able to identify a hundred watts of power vampires (and maybe more) in surprising locations, and verify their effect with this setup. By turning those things off, I might stay out of the next higher energy rate tier. If you live in a "time of use" rate area, you might use the data differently.
The point is - with this setup, your data is WAY BETTER than the power company's data - in that, you can see it every few seconds and it's pretty accurate. But, I wouldn't try arguing your bill with it...
This unit works with both the Black and Decker (Black & Decker EM100B Energy Saver Series Power Monitor) and BlueLine Power Cost Monitor sensors.
Note that this unit is also now compatible with Google PowerMeter, but I still prefer Microsoft Hohm. You can't seem to use both at once.
Also, and this is important, this unit absolutely REQUIRES 802.11b wireless support on your router. Some new routers do NOT support "Mixed Mode" (e.g. 802.11b/g, a/b/g, b/g/n etc.) connection. If yours does not, you will be stuck using 802.11b for your network.
The setup was fairly straightforward. When I installed the software, it found a new version of the firmware for the unit and installed it without issue.
One thing to note is that the instructions tell you to "Hold the Reset button until the light stays RED" on the unit in order to get it to pair with your sensor that's out on the power meter.
Don't do that. If you hold the reset button too long, it will erase all the programming you just did on it.
It appears to me that the unit is ready to pair as soon as you disconnect it from the computer and move it to where you'll be "installing" it (near the power meter). The light blinks red and amber at that point. Pressing the reset button didn't change the blinking pattern, and pressing the button on the sensor outside on the power meter immediately paired the WiFi device to the power meter sensor.
One thing to note is that this unit has a very informative web page inside it. It will tell you things about the current link status of your connection to Microsoft Hohm or Google Power Meter, the battery level in your power meter sensor, and the signal strength of that connection.
The device's web page also automatically refreshes the data more quickly than the Hohm site. But it will ONLY SHOW YOU DATA IF YOU USE A SECURE WIFI NETWORK. They warn you about this in the package. But it's just a helpful reminder in case you don't use at least WEP security. Some people scratch their heads when they see a blank page, but Hohm has their data somehow.
I chose to assign the device a FIXED IP address on my router so that I could always get to that web page. If you use DHCP, the Hohm connection will be fine, but your device might drift around your network when your router resets itself. You can fix a DHCP address in your router or in the device setup. Doing it in the router may require re-doing the device setup just because of how your router behaves, so I'd recommend doing it in the device setup.
The device seemed to survive a power outage, and Hohm reconnected as soon as the power came back on.
So, now that you can see all your data, go out and hunt for power vampires!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
It does the job, but can sure be annoying to get configured. The fact that it is only 802.11b and flakey with some newer routers is also a pain - but I've managed to make it work with my gear (mostly). I found going with a static IP setup to be the best route. I think overall it's probably about $50 overpriced.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
This unit took about an hour to set up. Make sure you use the exact SSID and password--case sensitive! Then it seemed to stop working, and on the website only seemed to capture 60-70% of the day. Some days more; some less. I have no idea why. The web interface through Microsoft is quite good.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Cannot get to work - says it's connected but not
I love the PowerCost Monitor, but the WiFi Gateway not so much. It's quite expensive at $118 for a simple bridge. But worse than that, it just doesn't work. Read more
Published 21 days ago by Kenneth Hamer
Microsoft Hohm will be discontinued
I went to the Microsoft web site for Hohm and found the following announcement:
"Hohm Service Announcement
We have made the decision to discontinue Hohm on May 31,... Read more
"Hohm Service Announcement
We have made the decision to discontinue Hohm on May 31,... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Francois
Needs Mac Install
It would be such a simple thing to create an installer for Mac. Seems like they've been promising it for over a year. Read more
Published 2 months ago by RobertF
Amazingly short range.
The device is working properly, but I'm amazed at the short range. I have the device sitting on a window sill, with line of site the the electric meter, 4 feet away-- And the PCM... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Margaret Clark
It works but not for the novice to setup
I am a very technical person and data comm is my job. This device works great once it has been setup but that is not trivial. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Tech Prof
DO NOT BUY - Microsoft Hohm Service discontinued May 2012
I own this product and have had it less than 1 year - only to find that it is now going to be useless when Microsfot discontinue the service on May 2012.
Published 10 months ago by Mark Brown
Powercost? - Upfront Cost First
This product is WAY too expensive. Almost $150 just for internet connectivity? On top of another $100 monitor? Read more
Published 12 months ago by Matthew B. Dowell
Disappointing Technology
I was very disappointed with the Blue Line BLI31100 Monitor WIFI Gateway. The device would couple to the Microsoft Hohm website and work for about four hours or so before losing... Read more
Published 15 months ago by mooney1
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