Redmond, Washington — Striving to save some energy for itself, software monopolists Microsoft over the weekend announced that it is pulling the plug on its free online “Hohm” consumer energy management application because of poor uptake.
Hohm, an electricity-monitoring tool aimed at helping people discover ways to reduce power consumption. However, the move to shutter Hohm, announced on the product’s community blog last Thursday, comes less than a week after Google said it is axing PowerMeter, a similar energy monitoring product. Hohm will go dark on May 31, 2012.
“The feedback from customers and partners has remained pretty promising throughout Microsoft Hohm’s beta period,” the company said in a blog post. “However, due to the sluggish overall market adoption of the service, we are instead focusing our efforts on products and solutions more capable of supporting long-standing growth within this evolving market.”
Now, in the open territory, there is at least one existing alternative, however: WattzOn, which said it is in the process of advancing to a new and improved service, with better tools for consumers to manage their home energy consumption.
Sayonara, Hohm. (Credit: Screen capture by Martin LaMonica/CNET)
When it first unleashed Hohm two years ago, Microsoft said it plans to sign on utilities to feed utility bill information into Hohm. But alternatively, people needed to manually input data into the application. Hohm was still listed as a beta product.
Hohm is a free Web application that presented people with a tool for understanding energy use and finding ways to improve efficiency. Simply put, Hohm allowed consumers to view how much electrical power and gas they consume in a given month, with suggestions on how to lower their consumption. To utilize it, people filled out a lengthy questionnaire to build a profile of their home and the application, using Department of Energy research lab data, would provide suggestions to improve efficiency.
The decision to halt development is not a big surprise to people who closely follow home energy management products, as Microsoft had struggled to sign on a large number of utilities as partners. Besides, the site recently evolved into service to manage connections for electric cars.
Despite pulling plug on Hohm, Microsoft said it will “continue to concentrate on developing products, solutions and partnerships that span a wide spectrum of industries, such as power generation, distribution grids, buildings and transportations systems.”
“Together with our associates, we will continue to develop technologies that help people and organizations reduce their impact on the environment,” the Redmond, Washington-based company said.
Like Google, Microsoft touted a number of ambitious plans to expand the service. It sought to develop a way for utility companies to upload user information directly to the application itself. It formulated a kit with the makers of the PowerCost Monitor to use a home’s broadband connection and Wi-Fi to send meter data directly to Hohm so consumers can see real-time and historical electricity data.
Nevertheless, the two products were so identical and lagging in customers, it appears both Microsoft and Google were simply waiting for the other to blink first — a game of green chicken, if you will.