Making Wall Outlets Safer—and Smarter

By Brent EhrlichThe last decade has seen an explosion in the variety of products available to monitor our energy use and provide complex “smart” controls. There’s still plenty of room for new ideas, however, as shown by SafePlug outlets, made by 2D2C, Inc. Originally designed to protect occupants against electric shock and fire, SafePlug is the only plug-and-play system that uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to help track energy use from

individual appliances and turn them on and off remotely.