Development of A User-Enabled Load Manager for Electrical Appliances

Advancements in technology in recent times has led to homes and industries utilizing a wide range of electrical appliances; due to the growing number of electric appliances, managing these various appliances becomes inefficient and a tedious task, which consequently leads to power wastage and increase in energy cost. This paper presents a remote switching system which is solely controlled by a user, to centrally control electrical appliances from a web application. The system uses a micro controller and a relay system for controlling electric loads using digital signals. The system also makes use of some database capabilities in storing the current state of loads for real-time observation. A WIFI module is embedded in the system to connect the microcontroller to the internet, thereby enabling interaction with a remote database that stores the states of the electric loads. The developed device could allow users to make informed decisions concerning power consumption, thereby avoiding unnecessary energy cost