1. A method of remotely identifying at least one unknown appliance, the method comprising: a) independently metering waveform data transmitted from said at least one unknown appliance via at least one corresponding multi-port monitoring device over an elapsed time period; b) wirelessly transmitting the independently metered waveform data from said at least one corresponding multi-port monitoring device to a co-located system controller; c) constructing one or more appliance signatures at said co-located system controller for said at least one unknown appliance from the wirelessly transmitted waveform data; and d) processing the one or more constructed appliance signatures at the system controller to identify said at least one unknown appliance.