The document discusses leveraging smart meter data to recognize appliances. It proposes a scheme to analyze recorded consumption information from smart meters to provide an appliance-specific breakdown of energy use. It describes simulating smart meter data for resistive, inductive and capacitive loads. Changes in power characteristics when appliances are switched on/off could be detected and compared to signature databases to identify individual appliances. However, challenges include smaller appliances being masked by larger household activity and continuously variable appliances being difficult to detect.