Reply to post: Why

Why

To summarise, many of us, perhaps most of us have devices that function well in semi autonomous mode, heating, fridges, hot water, freezers, even lights, video, DVD recorders or PVRs, garage door openers, fire detector and intruder alarms, etc. With virtually no need for one to see what the other is doing. In a few very personalised personal cases it 'might' be useful to control a few of the items remotely, e.g. the warm up time for heating, though money spent on insulation might achieve more payback. Many of us do not have unoccupied buildings so remote access is achieved via the phone already. For industry where hundreds of device form part of a chain, interconnect is valuable - and frequently best supplied via a cable anyway. For the outside living world it is only niche users, many of which will have their own unique user profile, who will really be interested. Perhaps a lot of the fragmentation is because the market is really fragmented into different user groups with very different profiles?

The other bull filled elephant in the room is the smart meter. Now I might be the most weird set up in the world but things work like this, if the hot water is cold the heating system heats it up, likewise if I am cold I run the heating, if it is dark I turn on the light, if clothes need washing they get washed, if food is raw but needed for a meal it gets cooked, anyone see a pattern here? I do not need s stupid meter to tell me when to do these things or more importantly not to heat the water so I can wash, wash-up, have a bath, whatever. Most of us do what we do at home for a reason, therefore a so called smart device is not an item of desire, but part of a mode of irritation - or more likely another remote control disaster when some twerp turns off your power when food is cooking, the washing is washing you are showering and it is dark.

Except for the possible remote reading of the meter, (if it works), they are another example of a bright solution looking for a way to create an insoluble problem.