The TED MTU 5000 Transmitting Unit & Gateway is a professional-grade home energy monitoring system developed by The Energy Detective (TED) to track, analyze, and display electricity consumption in real time. The system is built around two primary hardware components: the Measuring Transmitting Unit (MTU) and the Gateway. The MTU permanently installs inside a property's main circuit breaker panel, using two specialized current transformer (CT) clamps hooked around the primary incoming power lines to track live voltage, amperage, and power factors. Rather than running new wires through walls, the MTU utilizes advanced Power Line Carrier (PLC) technology to send its collected data directly over the building's existing electrical wiring to the Gateway module. Designed for standard 120/240V single-phase 60Hz services, the baseline system enables homeowners and facility managers to identify immediate energy drains, change usage behaviors, and save an average of 8% to 15% on monthly utility bills.

Serving as the central processing hub or "brains" of the ecosystem, the TED Gateway is a compact, wall-plug module that receives, interprets, and logs data transmitted by the panel-mounted MTU. It features a built-in web server running native Footprints software, allowing users to log in through any standard web browser to access live dashboards, historical bar charts, and cost projections. Equipped with an Ethernet port, the Gateway connects directly to a local wireless router to push consumption metrics to smartphones or smart home automation platforms like Home Assistant. The hardware architecture is highly expandable, supporting up to four independent MTU units simultaneously to track subpanels, individual large appliances, or net metering details for wind and solar power generation systems