Home Camp

Home Camp news round up

• The 21st Century Living Project (a collaboration between the Universities of Surrey and Plymouth, Homebase, the Eden Project and Acona) has come up with some interesting results for home energy efficiency geeks. Given £500 to spend on environmental improvements, 80% of households took at least 1 energy saving measure. Information and incentives – it’s what works chaps.
• Although we know that chargers aren’t really the problem, it’s still nice to see some innovation that stops them vamping it up in your home. Hopefully this means we can all stop talking about the evils of phone chargers, and start worrying about the things that really matter.
• Nice video here on the internet of things as explained by fellow Home Camper @andysc – including a lovely metaphor which describes connecting up data as like growing a central nervous system for the planet.
• Loving this blow by blow walk through of the online dashboard for the Powerhouse Dynamics EMonitor. A circuit by circuit home energy monitoring system available in America for a hefty wack of dollar. What’s nice about it is the variety of visualizations which break down each of the energy guzzlers in the home. Apart from facilitating stalking your kids late night food habits, there’s no doubt that this could have some very nifty applications once you got your appliances talking to each other along the lines of the internet of things as explained above.
• PassivSystems home energy manager is certainly ticking the Economist’s boxes. The real appeal here is the clever automation which learns your habits and means you don’t have to remain switched on to your energy use all the time in order to optimize it. This fella will do it all for you.
• A further boost announced in the US to fund innovation in green infrastructure will focus on grid solutions, new transmission technologies and more energy-efficient air conditioners.
• Here at Home Camp we tend to get excited by the possibilities opened up by smart meters and the smart grid. But it seems smart meters aren’t flicking everyone’s switch and so the Smart Grid Coalition has been formed to find ways to communicate the benefits to consumers. I’m kind of surprised this didn’t occur to them before the backlash started to build – it’s fairly obvious that not everyone is going to be keen on change. To be really successful the Smart Grid Coalition should try and get some community groups into their team, otherwise they risk an ‘us vs. them’ situation and they won’t ever really get what people’s concerns actually are.
• Over on the Greenmonk blog it seems as if any European anti smart grid groups may not have so much to worry about – @tomraftery has his finger on the button when he says the problem is that the incentives just aren’t there for utilities to push forward the creation of smart grids.
• Here in Britain, the smart grid seems to be on course. The mainstream media has picked up on British Gas’s plans to get ahead of the game on mass installment of smart meters. More like a download of the press release than an analysis of whether this is a good idea or not, there are a few nuggets here on what looks likely to be the first big, fat smart meter roll out to 1m homes in the UK.
• Interested to hear that the team behind Tendril Vision studied behaviour economics as part of their approach to designing a new smart meter. But did they get it right? The Tendril Vision presents information on energy use in a continuous real time display, which its makers compare to a clock in style and function. But I can’t help thinking that you only ever look at a clock if you want to know the time. How will this device attract the attention of people who aren’t that interested by their energy use? I’m inclined to agree that it’s unlikely to work unless the device can actually provide real time pricing information and even then, in terms of behaviour change, you need to put the information where the eyeballs are already looking to get real results.
• Microsoft Hohm is now available to third party device makers.
• RS components are to become the exclusive global distributor for the Arduino, ever popular with the Home Camp community (via @stuartpoulton)
• The Google PowerMeter API is now available for all to publicly use who have a smart meter device. There’s been a lot of interest and some initial confusion around how to do this in the Home Camp Google Groups but @Riotgibbon has now cracked it and blogged it. We look forward to hearing more from him about how it works once the data starts coming through
• And finally, if you haven’t already, we seriously recommend that anyone interested in Home Camp check out @mikethebee’s fantastic weekly podcasts which comprehensively update on the latest news on a more regular basis.

April 5, 2010 at 10:43 am ohrworm 1 comment

Home Camp news roundup

• A little bit of research here to remind you, in case you’d forgotten, that smart meters are BIG, and they’re only going to get bigger. If you like your reading long, dry and sub-divided then this is a helluva one stop shop for the latest on where smart meters are at.
• Excuse me while I just wipe the drool off my chin, you can now check out what Intel *might* look like when it’s released to the grabbing hordes.
• Interesting perspective on why Google’s PowerMeter is one of the shorter kids in the class. Still, slow-growth could be beneficial to working through the niggly little problems that usually come about with mass implementation.
• Looks like the Aztech device will feature big in the US’s smart meter picture. Having read the brief article, I was expecting something a bit more whizzy than this. It was never going to be long before the smart meter boom resulted in the god, the bad, and the, well, a bit boring.
• At the other end of the design spectrum, DIY Kyoto are hosting a competition to re-create the oh so sexy must-have-if-you-have-cash-to-flash Wattson. Deadline is 12th March. Get scribbling.
• Watch out, your kids will soon all be smarty pants with the introduction of smart meters to all schools in the latest Government “carbon cutting” initiative.
• Well, hello there, the latest BlueLine PowerCost monitor seems like a smart little fella – liking the appliance tab and predictive feature!
• And another new kid on the block over in the USA, even though it’s still in beta the WattVision is already winning over followers. I like the fact that it skips the display part to go straight to your computer web browser or smart phone. Who needs extra clunk after all?
• Coffee and chocolates, wine and cigarettes, roses and empty wallets, as if we needed Valentines day to remind us that the best things come in pairs. Well, it looks like the first outing of a pairing I’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. GEO’s Duet, the loved up coupling of gas and electricity monitoring, is being advertised to buy here.
• The next step on the path to Google Energy has been taken. Beware and don’t say we didn’t warn you.
• How do you visualise energy consumption? For some people even the length of time it takes to say home energy monitoring is enough to switch them off, so we should be paying attention to these cool ideas on how to make it just that bit more eye-catching.
• Did you make it down to HackSpace for a look at how arduino fits into the home automation world? Well if you did, I hope you said “cheese”.
• And just for kicks, check this out if you’ve made it to the end of the round up this month.

February 23, 2010 at 4:39 pm ohrworm 1 comment

Home Camp news round up

Wow, you take your eye off the ball for a couple of weeks and the news just goes and snowballs (UK residents – no pun intended). So here’s the latest round up for anyone who, like me, is only just waking up to 2010 half way through January…

• Over at the Guardian, Adam Vaughan has been finding PowerMeter easy to use if a bit of a shock to the system. Admittedly, seeing your electricity consumption on iGoogle at 8am on a cold winter morning might not be best way to start the day. But I’m with Adam on the big question – how can we start to share this data socially?
• Europe has plans for a super grid linking renewable power supplies which could weather proof our future energy supply.
• Over in the US and Canada, Oracle Utilities are touting for clients. A new report, ‘Testing the Water’, highlights consumer demand for more sophisticated information about their water use and water conservation. Smart meters could have a role to play here although utilities companies are unsurprisingly moving slowly due to concerns about the costs of implementation.
• @andypiper tell’s us that Intel have been showcasing a glitzy Atom-powered home monitor system. I’ve got to say, from just a glance at the screen shots, I want one. Judging from the slavering comments on this page, everyone else pretty much agrees. Shame it’s all still in the dream sphere.
• Grassroots home energy monitoring of the kind we HomeCampers love – Say hello to the Picowatt, a Wi-Fi enabled smart plug developed by Tenrehte Technologies that can provide just the same amount of consumption crunching love as you’d get from your smart meter
• Meanwhile, UK start-up PassivSystems have launched their home automation system at CES Unveiled. By learning from your regular behaviour, PassivEnergy will automatically control your energy consumption so that it is more efficient, cheaper & carbon cutting.
• The latest step on the path to Google world domination was taken with the announcement of Google Energy. Good Google says this is to help meet their corporate carbon reduction goals. But over on the other shoulder, Scary Google may be hatching evil plans to move into utilities, despite denials to the contrary. Anyone feeling complacent about Google’s increasingly godlike powers over our digital lives should read @benjaminellis’s blog about a week without Google.
• And finally, if you haven’t already spotted it, check out the below blog post about the HomeCamp meetup tonight at the Windmill near Old Street.

January 20, 2010 at 1:01 pm ohrworm 1 comment