Cisco follows Google, Microsoft in leaving home energy management

Like Google and Microsoft before it, Cisco has decided to pull down the curtain on its Home Energy Management offering, a combination of a controller and services that it announced last year. The move mirrors Google's recent decision to kill its PowerMeter and Microsoft's upcoming mothballing of its Hohm energy monitoring service.

The lesson here? Creating a viable home-energy management solution - one that people will actually willingly pay for, use and benefit from - isn't as easy as it might seem, even for the smartest of smart-technology companies. When it comes to persuading homeowners that investing their money, time and effort into watching their energy use is worth it, the smart-grid industry has some way to go.