Energy monitoring is one of the important applications arising from research in Internet of Things (IoT). Smart meters allow us to obtain periodic updates of energy consumption data that can be analyzed to provide important insights into energy usage. However, design limitations in smart meters only allow the monitoring of the aggregated consumption data instead of real-time consumption data.  In order to increase the value of energy monitoring data, the system should be able to monitor and collect data up to appliance level, and with larger sensing frequency. We develop a prototype device for sensing in smart homes using Wi-Fi enabled communication. Wi-Fi was selected as the technology of choice due to high availability in homes, and issues about energy consumption were ignored due to availability of a permanent power source. The prototype device, henceforth termed as ELIVE device, was named after the goal to record live energy measurements. In order to achieve this, we employed ATMEGA328 microcontroller to interface with an ESP8266 Wi-Fi system on chip (SoC) module, an AC transformer, as well as current transducers. The ESP8266 allows the microprocessor to connect to the Internet very easily through an established WiFi connection, based on serial interfacing requirements. Arduino integrated development environment (IDE) was used to program the microcontroller to obtain energy measurements using an analog to digital converter (ADC) to interface with the sensors.