Monitors that cut costs and improve energy efficiency

The panel communicates wirelessly with the outlets,turning appliances off or on when instructed,or suggesting ways to change energy use in the house,he said.The Intel display is meant to entertain as well as instruct,Jensen said. Family members may use its built-in camera to leave video messages for one another. They can also run dozens of applications on the monitor,looking up addresses in the Yellow Pages,tracking packages and checking for weather and traffic conditions.

Tenrehte Technologies,a company based near Rochester,has developed an alternative device,called the Picowatt,that lets people use their smartphones or laptop computers,for example,to control lighting and appliances like air-conditioners.

The Picowatt,which plugs into an ordinary wall outlet,is small — slightly larger than a cellphone charger. But it can communicate with the Wi-Fi router on a home network just as laptops do,said Jennifer Indovina,chief executive of Tenrehte. Plug an audio system,for example,into the Picowatt,then plug the Picowatt into a wall outlet,and it will calculate information on energy use and beam it to the router,she said.

Manufacturers are also making appliances that might someday be adapted to communicate directly with utilities. Steve McMaster,the chief executive of Sam Six,a company in Portland,that develops software for utilities to make transmission of electricity more efficient,would like to see devices in a home fitted with computer chips so that they could use a wireless network to report directly to utilities. “The utility could talk directly to the dishwasher,for example,” he said.