I worked in a company that provided remote power monitoring.  We put a box in your circut breaker panel and monitor your power use.  Its kinda neat, but way more intrusive than I imagined.<p>It didn&#x27;t occur to me how much you can learn until looking at power consumption home page of our demo house when the owner was on vacation (owner = boss).  All the circuits are flat.  
A manager at the company who installed it too, came hold and told his wife &quot;I see you came home at 3&quot;.  He knew because he could watch the power come on.  We could count loads of laundry done and watch the sun rise from solar panel output. Then there is the awkward conversations when you know the dog walker didn&#x27;t walk as long as they said they did.<p>I was glad the company transitioned to monitoring businesses, but I left after a few years for unrelated reasons.