You might not see this on one of those hip Apple commercials for the iPhone: using that nifty little device to check in on how much electricity your home is using and how much it is costing.

Current State software, a concept developed as part of The Greener Grass, taps into your home as a real-time energy use monitoring system and timer for powered devices.

Basically all you have to do is attach “Plug-Ends” to the power devices (after ordering them online), install the Current State software onto your mobile device, and sync the plug-ends to the software.

After that, you can check out a main screen on your iPhone that details kilowatt hours and dollars for your current billing period, plus a graphic that shows different areas of the home and whether they are high, acceptable or low energy consumption. Clicking on areas show close-ups of the rooms, where you can further see which devices are using what amounts of energy.

You can specify goals for each room, and energy is shown as a percentage of the goal (100 percent). You can even compare your usage and goals to those of other users nationwide.

There’s also the control section of the program, which allows you to input timer settings for devices connected with the plug-ends, including an auto timer to further help your home’s energy efficiency.

Arlen Schweiger - Managing editor of Electronic House Magazine

Arlen contributes product news items to electronichouse.com along with his role on the print publication. Got a tip? Send it along!