If I want, I can pick those values off my smart meter using RS232. I have a project to do that, actually.
If that's not enough, I'll buy an used Janitza power monitor and poll it frequently.
It's not as viscerally satisfying as a proper paper chart recorder keeping tabs on it all. Plus if you lose power completely you can still read the paper chart.
By candle light if necessary.
There's a serious point here about the quality and usability of modern user interfaces versus more traditional ways of doing things. When I want a bench PSU for something I inevitably pull out one of the old ones that have real, proper 10 or 25 turn knobs for the voltage and current settings. I've got two HP measurement PSUs that are better in every regard - electrically - but require me to tap in the voltage and current on buttons, and promptly forget what they were set to when they are powered off (as opposed to the
outputs turned off). Both the measurement supplies are
at least one digit both more precise and accurate than the old truly analogue supplies but they languish because the old supplies are so much easier to use.
The same with a putative chart recorder. If I had one, a glance at it would tell me the state and history of the mains supply. Like Mäns, I could get that from a smart meter, but it would require complex interfacing, hitting buttons to display the figures I wanted (or hitting a web page) and generally be more
fuss than just standing up, walking to the chart recorder and just glancing to get the full picture.
Sadly I think for instrumentation we are still groping blindly to find modern, mostly digitally implemented, user interfaces that are better than the analogue user interfaces they replace.