My new project: a camera sends an image of the electricity clock to a server that does ocr and submits the value to the electricity company on the 5th of every month

Current progress: spent 4 hours trying to get emails to work in scala when i found on an obscure forum that you have to enable insecure app access in your gmail to use smtp

If you care about security of your data at all I wouldn't use Google services. They read emails and contents of Google Drive. I don't know if a bot does this or what. I only use it for throwaway stuff.

@Demolishun the amount of electricity i use in the apartment im renting is not really confidental data

@tekashi It could be, it could be that higher amounts used means you are either growing pot (lamps) or you are a reptilian and need a warmer climate.

edit: FBI actually tracks electricity usage as an indicator for possible drug production.

In what country do you live ?
Here it’s automatic already. The electric meters send data directly to power company. And I know couple of other countries where it is the case too.

@NoToJavaScript In the US a lot of our electrical infrastructure is still decades old and is only being upgraded as things fail/convenience allows.

@powerfulparadox In this case, maybe a SendGrid free account is enough to send one email a month ?
You can even define template, with number(s) as parameters and manage it without even touching your app.

@NoToJavaScript if that was an option i obviously wouldnt be building this

@Demolishun Yep. Power and water are both tracked and analyzed, to the point where the power company can tell exactly when and how often you do your laundry, if you watch TV, how many computers you have, etc. The water company also knows how long and how often you water your lawn, and send you fines for watering too often.

It's disgusting.

@Root I dont belive in such precision. Some items can have similar electric footprint.

@Demolishun What if i have a server? Why does high energy usage mean drug production? You can use a shit ton of energy for a lot of cool stuff.

@Gregozor2121 I didn't either until I saw it broken down in my electrical bill. Some of the entries are generic, but it's still accurate.

@Gregozor2121 Although this doesn't apply to only sending yearly or monthly or such usage numbers, its been proven in the Netherlands that smart thermostats (they also monitor power usage and such) which constantly send data, can actually very accurately establish patterns of usage but also of sleep, when people go out, and so on.

The UN (I thought, or EU level) has officially stated that those smart things can be used as mass surveillance devices!
(@Root)

@Gregozor2121

The identification of resource consumers surely bears a statistical approach under different certainty levels.

Nevertheless, you get high fidelity indicators to 'fraudulent' behaviour. Triggering further investigation.
Not just in the US but all over the world as soon as the tech level allows it. Europe including. They just don't talk about.
This is a thing since 2013.

And nevermind the stuff we read and write. Here or on our local & / air gap devices. All infrastructure has been built to exponentially outreach the supervision of the local / 'legally targeted' groups. The latter are information of around 2006 or earlier.