What to do with the some 50 million iPhones that were replaced last year; put them in a drawer, junk them, resell them? People Power provides an interesting approach to reusing these functionally good devices through its recently released People Power Presence. The above video overview with People Power’s CTO and co-founder, David Moss, explains their app which turns the iPhone’s camera into a WiFi connected security camera, adding a layer of home security to their energy efficiency software.

Their model, which doesn’t require any upfront or monthly service fees could be potentially disruptive to service providers and retailers’ plans for subscription-based models and, at the very least, could help build the nascent smart home market by offering a low-cost and simple way for people to experiment with these services.

Adding credibility to People Power’s approach is its award from last week’s TiEcon (read more about TiEcon by clicking here). “This year’s TiE50 awards were truly competitive with over 1200 companies from 20 countries in the running,” said Venktesh Shukla, President of TiE. “People Power truly stood out with their popular Presence mobile app.”

As a side note, thanks to Parks Associates for introducing us to People Power at the 2012 Smart Energy Summit. It was serendipitous that to met up again with founder People Power founder Gene Wang at Parks Associates’ reception at CES this year, where Gene gave me an overview of and encouraged me to film the demonstration of People Power Presence.