At the Embedded Systems Expo, Ubiquitous exhibited a power strip which features a built-in wireless LAN, called the iRemoTap.

This power tap can display the power status of devices connected to it from a PC or mobile phone, and switch their power on and off remotely.

“At Ubiquitous, our business is software development for embedded systems, and we have our own OS. This OS runs on just a few kilobytes, and the OS and software components needed for a network stack and wireless communication can be put in a module containing a microcontroller and wireless LAN chip. And using serial connection, even sensor systems can be accessed easily via wireless LAN. Ordinary taps with microcontrollers can be connected via wireless LAN, and that was the first thing we worked on. So our first goal was enabling our software solution to provide cloud support, even for ordinary wireless LAN taps, very quickly at low cost.”

This system enables you to switch off devices you’ve forgotten about, and receive a mail or tweet if power consumption exceeds a specific figure. This lets you know if you need to conserve power, without always having to keeping tabs on power consumption.

“People sometimes realize, “Oops, I forgot to turn that off!” So we think people will need to be able to switch devices off from outside, rather than on. For example, if you think, “Did I remember to switch that off?”, it’s reassuring to be able to see whether something is on or off. We think people will come to value the ability to switch things off by remote control.”

Regarding future development, Ubiquitous and its partners plan to investigate the possibilities, through R&D and prototypes. The aim is to offer this kind of power tap for a retail price below 10,000 yen.

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