British Gas robo home remote gets itself into hot water

rules of engagement?

I've never engaged with my thermostat before, either, but I've been turning them up down for something close to half a century.. What exactly does Ms. Bhatia mean?

missing the point much?

Many of you seem to be missing the point entirely and of the same ilk as the old gits back in the 70's bemoaning the increasing interest in mobile telephony. Basically stifling progress with a mindset of "well I dont need it so no one else should have it".

This sounds damn handy. If you're looking to save some money and gain convenience.

- While you're at work, heating down or off and 20 mins before you arrive home, you can flick it back on. Saving money and time spent in a cold house when you arrive home from a stressful day.

- If you're ill or suffering hot/cold flushes, getting up constantly to adjust the thermostat is a pain in the arse (depending on illness, sometimes literally).

We have the technology, why the fuck not use it?

Wasting more money on energy

Another ploy for making money by telling the customer they need to interact with their home environment even when they are not there.For the softies who don't like coming home to a cold house set the clock correctly [OOH there a good way of making extra money lets have an app for that too].

I work 12 hours shifts days and nights,its not that hard to turn it off before I go out or on when I come in so stop making a big deal out of it.

Is the home owner the only person who can control it?

It's just that since smart electricity metering now allows the energy company to ration your energy based upon demand (part of the Grand Plan for cutting electricity consumption), does that mean that the gas company can do the same?

If so, I think I might just keep the one on the wall that I have to turn up and down with my hand.

Not for modern homes.

Sadly, living in a halfway modern home with more than one heating zone, this doesn't fly. Just as well, as I don't fancy replacing 12 thermostats/thermocron at a cost of £199 each. BG had this to say "Multiple thermostats, often termed multi-zone heating are not supported by Remote Heating Control™ at the moment. The system has been designed for single thermostat systems only."

Obvious use ...

work out when the owners mobile is approaching home, and have heating fired up when they're 20 minutes away ?

Could also turn on driveway lights ? And the oven ?

Just a thought.

I like the idea of remotely controlling my heating... not so much now that im a grown up with children... the house is always empty at 9am on a weekday and its always occupied from 3:30 in the afternoon... so the olf thermostat does a good job of controlling the temps...

but, in my past I never knew when id be home (if at all!) so being able to turn the heating and hot water on when I left for home would have been useful...

as for £200? its not cheap, but ive pissed larger amounts up the wall for less useful gadgets....

Who has control?

If you can control it with Their app, maybe they can too....? Bigger Bro is on the way perhaps?

can they prove these save money?

Relative has one of the whizzy "nest" thermostats that are all about Industrial Design. And every 5 minutes he's on the thing turning it up or turning it down via his fondleslab.

I can't imagine that saves much money over the long run as all he's doing is fighting with the expensive "technology" <cough> iDesign <cough> inside.

so being able to turn the heating and hot water on when I left for home

Combi boilers have instant hot water ergo don't waste unused energy storing hot water in a systern tank which leaks energy to the surrounding room or heating unused water.Sounds like you would be better investing into a new system with higher boiler efficiency than in this "toy".

yawn - boring.

And they will still manage to overcharge anyway

Combi boilers v Old Boilers

Combi boilers are like any other tech you get the "cheap and cheerful" end and the "dearer, works better,higher spec and lasts longer type".Ergo you go for a low spec system you get more maintenance and repair bills.As for efficiency you would be lucky to get in the range of 30-40% from an older type boiler whereas a newer well built and maintained boiler can get over 70% efficiency.

I work in IT. Obviously.

I live my working life in a temperature-controlled environment that does not vary by more than 1 degree at any time, no matter what time of year.

EVERY summer, people wander in and tell me how cold my office is, repeatedly, all the time.

EVERY winter, people wander in and tell me how hot my office is, repeatedly, all the time.

No matter what the local weather, people seem to think my room is magically changing temperature. It's not. It hasn't. In many years. Nor have any of the server rooms. I can show you pretty graphs if you don't believe me.

People's perception of temperature is extremely personal and odd. I'm sure if you gave someone an app that did nothing but LOOKED LIKE IT, they'd play with the temperatures just as much and tell you how well it works. That's not a selling point for the system. And, to be honest, until I NOTICE it's cold myself, why would I want to change the settings? It might have been absolutely fine, but no, I've ramped up the boiler "just in case".

If it's a cold day, and I get home, the house will be warmer than the outside anyway and I'll be glad of the (comparative) warmth. Only after 30 minutes or so, after I've acclimatised, will it "feel" cold/hot and I'll want to change the boiler settings. So a remote thermostat does nothing here.

And thermostats are NOT on/off switches. Set it once, when you get the house, and then NEVER TOUCH IT AGAIN. You'll save more energy than any amount of faffing about up and down in temperature. Similarly, if you feel cold but it's 20 in your living room? Chances are that ramping up the heat isn't the answer. Put a jumper on, or check yourself for a temperature, etc. You don't WANT to be submitting to every whim of temperature that your body thinks it has, really you don't. And if other people live in the house, you'll just annoy them and make them feel "worse" 50% of the time you do that. Don't. Agree on a temperature and leave it there, forever.

My workplace (a school) has remote-controlled boilers. It's an expensive system because it has to heat dozens of rooms much larger than any you'll find in a house and it can take hours to get up to temperature. Still, it's set to be at a temperature for the duration of the school day, all year round and it just does more clever ramping up/down knowing what the temp is outside and how long it takes to heat up the building - NOTHING at all that needs remote apps or energy-provider assistance. Why would you want anything else? In fact, it's adjusted so "often", we've forgotten how to do it and the guy who did left last month. It's not been a problem thus far (and this is a workplace that has a legal minimum and maximum temperature, unlike just about every other workplace in the country).

Privacy issues? Who cares? British Gas or any electricity company could know how much energy I'm using at any time if they bothered to adjust the pipes in the street rather than in my boiler cupboard. It's really not necessary to be in there at all for them to do that (which makes me more suspicious of it, actually, but really I don't care enough to worry about it).

The problem is being a control freak. You're not ACTUALLY doing anything when you play with all the knobs and buttons except possibly using more energy than necessary (wonder why the energy companies like it?) and making yourself think you're controlling your environment. You're not. And if you wanted to, there have been devices to do that for DECADES and do a better job.

How about getting on with your life, experiencing cold and switching on the heating only when you of FEEL cold like the rest of humanity? Rather than micromanaging a climate around yourself that annoys just about everyone else who ever visits?

US houses

We have a house built in 89, it is crap..

single pane windows with more holes than a block of swiss cheese

it is a block house (small fortune there) the loft insulation is meh (R19) and the cavity insulation is much the same, though the cavity is quite small ( about 3 inches just enough for a socket box)

We were approached by a glazing firm at our local Members only store (BJ's - like Costco only with a name made for puerile teenage minds like mine) and they tried to sell us their new multi pane glass windows... admittedly they fit in the frames better than ours, but other than that they were just 2 pains of glass not sealed evacuated or filled with noble gasses and such, not triple pained European glory. I was quite upset really... they also showed me tinfoil that I can put on my roof to stop the loft heating up because it makes the forced air ducts get too hot ( mine are actually properly insulated I also said it is just tinfoil and the sun does not directly shine on it so being reflective on the inside of my roof is not that great ( they use one of those infrared lamps shining on raw insulation to prove how awesome it was at keeping out the heat)

the power company give us a "credit" on our electricity bill for controlling when our A/C and or heat is on during peak times ( maybe $2 a month I am telling them to stick it since it is bloody useless anyway)

we set the thermostat to 83 or 84 in the summer (for A/C and 78 (daytime) 68 (night) in the winter (for heat) though it rarely goes on even in winter except for the odd cold morning near freezing...which would be negated if the bloody windows were better!)

it is a programmable timer so does not stay on all the time anyway.

the hot water is solar and barely even uses electric heat ( unless the kid decides to have a 30 minute shower at night, even though she is told NOT to) but then I just turn off the element and they all suffer through cold water mainly because I am an a-hole.

Even in the colder states there seemed to be a big lack of super duper efficient windows and suck unlike the UK and definitely not Europe, and, when you find one out here they charge 3 times the earth and your first born ( I tried negotiating for the second born but they were not interested)

Though it is getting better... Luckily I live in florida so it is not too cold, just wet, the A/C is mainly for dehumidifying than cool... most people down here set the AC to mid or low 70's and complain of super high electricity bills and never seem to think A.) it is too friggen cold and B.) they have the same windows as I do single pane monstrosities with leaks, this is true even for houses built as late as 2002! I guess energy efficiency is more of a luxury add on than a necessity

I saw some houses they have just constructed this year near my neighbourhood they have the same aweful double pane things they were trying to sell me at the store

** apparently they have a Low-E coating to reflect the sun or something... they are still crap, and sash style windows**

ok enough with the ex-pat rose coloured glasses again....

Hot water??

Do people in the UK fiddle with their hot water temperature or even turn the heater on/off that much? I don't know anyone in the US who doesn't set it once and then never messes with it ever again.

I can tell how much it costs me to run mine since it is the only consumer of gas in the summer, and it is less than $20/month. Once when I was gone for three weeks out of the month my bill was only $5, so keeping my water up to temperature obviously costs so little it wouldn't be worth messing with even if I had easy control of it. Maybe people in the UK don't believe in insulation their hot water heaters?

The idea of messing with your hot water heater, especially in a place that only ever needs heat and not air conditioning, is just bizarre to me.

If it's really cold I light the fire with some turf. Bottle or Mains gas is insanely expensive here. If we get really poor we can burn the bannisters, chairs, table etc.

Sounds like a great idea but...

... I'd burn my Granny as fuel before I'd give a penny to British Gas under any circumstances. In the hierarchy of consumer hate nothing else comes close.