A significant amount of energy is wasted by electrical appliances when they operate inefficiently either due to anomalies and/or incorrect usage. To address this problem, we present SocketWatch -an autonomous appliance monitoring system. SocketWatch is positioned between a wall socket and an appliance. SocketWatch learns the behavioral model of the appliance by analyzing its active and reactive power consumption patterns. It detects appliance malfunctions by observing any marked deviations from these patterns.SocketWatch is inexpensive and is easy to use: it neither requires any enhancement to the appliances nor to the power sockets nor any communication infrastructure. Moreover, the decentralized approach avoids communication latency and costs, and preserves data privacy. Real world experiments with multiple appliances indicate that SocketWatch can be an effective and inexpensive solution for reducing electricity wastage.

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Forty percent of the world's population, including a significant portion of the rural and urban poor sections of the population in India, does not have access to reliable electricity supply. Concurrently, there is rapid penetration of battery-operated portable computing devices such as laptops, both in the developing and developed world. This generates a significant amount of electronic waste (e-waste), especially in the form of discarded Lithium Ion batteries which power such devices. In this paper, we describe UrJar, a device which uses re-usable Lithium Ion cells from discarded laptop battery packs to power low energy DC devices. To understand the usability of UrJar in a real world scenario, we deployed it at five street-side shops in India, which did not have access to grid electricity. The participants appreciated the long duration of backup power provided by the device to meet their lighting requirements. To conclude, we present an ecosystem which consists of a communitylevel energy shed and UrJar devices individually owned by households, as a mechanism for DC electrification of rural areas in developing countries. We show that UrJar has the potential to channel e-waste towards the alleviation of energy poverty, thus simultaneously providing a sustainable solution for both problems.