As you start to use SwitchHop, you might be thinking, “Why did these guys build this amazing service?” (at least, we hope you’re thinking that ☺ ).

The way we consume power and pay for it has been virtually the same for a long, long time. We blindly consume energy then get a bill for it a month after the fact. That’s kind of archaic considering the technology that’s out there today.

So, we think it’s time for a new experience – one where you can see what you’re consuming and what it’s costing you in real-time. It’s an experience where you can take action mid-month to ensure your bill doesn’t give you a heart-attack when you open it.

And we think home energy management should be social! We’re building tools to let your peers help you identify and achieve opportunities to save energy and lower your bill.

With that in mind, here are some of the guiding principles behind SwitchHop.

You Have a Right to Your Home’s Energy Information

We see a fundamental flaw in “the Smart Grid”.  As taxpayers and utility customers, we’ve shelled-out a lot of money to install smart meters en masse. There were promises of real-time information, the ability to see your bill mid-month and lots of other pie-in-the-sky value statements. Can you hear the crickets chirping?

So far, the promised value hasn’t been delivered.

Sure, utilities have gotten value out of smart meters. The “smart grid” has enabled them to introduce fancy new fee structures like “Time of Use” and it lets them save considerable money through features like remote meter reading.

But wasn’t the point to give us – the customers – some value? We paid for the things through taxes and/or higher rates. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to actually use the tools we bought? After all, power is a basic necessity these days. Can’t live without it. Isn’t it our right to see our power usage information when and how we want?

We think so. So we built SwitchHop to be the experience we want from our utility. We want to see our information in meaningful ways and use it to lower our bills. We’re also in the process of building a buddy system that’ll let you help each other save some coin. There’s also a budgeting system with alerts in the works.

This is how we think a modern utility experience should be, so we’re delivering it to you. Enjoy!

We Want to Make Power Sexy

Yes, we’re serious. Why should dealing with your power consumption and energy bill be such a drab, boring experience? Maybe if it was fun and easy, you’d be more into it! One of our main goals is to make you WANT to look at your power usage and reduce it.

That’s why we’re making a very conscious effort to ensure our design is fun and – more importantly – our interface is easy for you to use. We’re not going to bog you down with overly complicated reports or facts and figures that need to be interpreted by an electrical engineer.

Not everyone’s an analyst. Most people don’t have extra time to waste tracking their energy use. We get that. We’re here to make that as simple as possible for you and create a community of people who will help you out.

Just like you, we’re people with personalities. We embrace that – you’ll notice our quirkiness sprinkled throughout our tools.

Conserve Energy & Save Money – That’s It!

Our goal is to help you understand your power usage, conserve energy and save some money in the process (and hopefully have some fun while you do it). That’s really all there is to it.

We’re using the tool everyday at our homes to do the same thing and are committed to sharing everything we learn with you as we go along.

We’re not aiming to save the world (although we would like to make a dent in the universe). We’re not claiming that we’re going to help lower greenhouse gases and we certainly aren’t going to post ridiculous tickers showing all the fictional CO₂ we’ve abated.

SwitchHop is just here to help you be conscious of your energy use. If that’s achieved, you’ll naturally use less power and save yourself some money too.