Electric and water usage program

Question

Hello Guys i would like to make a program to monitor my household water and electric consumption. It doesn't need to be interactive itself with the water and electric meters the user would need to input reading himself after taking them. I would like it to be user friendly so that the wife or any other member of the family would be able to use it. my idea is to have a window with input fields were the user is asked to enter water readings electric readings date readings have been taken and time.(these need to be stored so that calculation can be done ) after the user will continue to enter data. Obviously the program has to hold meter charges for water and electric meters rates per units consumed on some amount of units and another rate on some other amount. For both water and electricity. THE OUTPUT. This would be ideal to show Previous readings dates readings were taken (water/electric) Latest readings dates readings were taken (water /electric) Amount of days from previous to latest readings Give estimate bills for both water and electric separately and total of both Show meter charges and after include them in total. Cost per day according to the days between previous and latest readings Units consumed per day for Water and electricity. Any idea how to go around this? Thanks in advance

azzo stones · Answer

Thanks for your reply now I will start with the projects and let you guys Stephanie how it all evolves.thanks

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Requests for complete solutions often don't get much help in forums such as this. If you make your questions more specific then you are more likely to get help. So start by designing the forms and the data. Your other thread about how to save the data is a good (better) start. I will take a quick look at the list you have here and suggest what forms you might want. You will need a configuation form (call it what you want to) for the rates. I assume they will be constant and the same for a household. You might want to think about what to do if the rates change but initially at least you can ignore that possibility. You can have a form for current (new) readings. That data could be stored with the date of the reading. If relevant you can use the current date for the date of the reading. A form showing results. You can have a grid with one row for each reading. You need to decide whether you want to use Windows Forms or WPF. If you are not sure the start with one for now and you can learn the other later. Most developers around here will say that Windows Forms are old technology and not worth learning but if you want a job supposedly Windows Forms are used more frequently for desktop (non-web) applications. One advantage of WPF is that Silverlight is used very much for web sites and Silverlight is a subset of WPF.

azzo stones · Answer

i know it might be complex but life is complex too so what do we do stop breathing ??

theLizard · Answer

For what you want to do it is very very complex I have written an application to do this (not water) you can download a copy from here you will soon see how complicated the process of determining consumption and cost is.

azzo stones · Answer

Hi thanks for your reply I have seen such devices but i wanted to do something useful while practicing some c sharp code. Help is always welcome since i am a newbe.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

There are devices you can buy that you plug into the wall and then plug an appliance into it and the device tells you how much the appliance costs in terms of electric usage. That way you know exactly what device is expensive. Don't ask me how to use it though.

azzo stones · Answer

Hi thanks for your reply as repots I think it would be best to have them simple and user frendly.

Jiteendra Sampathirao · Answer

Hi Let me know which type of reports do you want..Pictorial reports or Data view reports..... for pictorial reports use nevron charts or fusion charts..... for dataview reports use crystal reports.... Use Sql server databse or mysql will be good.. hope it help you........