There was a flash somewhere in the video of the house's computer display showing how much power was being used and indicating it was switching to solar panels when the sun was out.
I think the home is kind of the last frontier of digitalization of everyday life. I want my exact power bill/consumption information to be visible on my computer somewhere in a similar way to Amazon's AWS dashboard, and I want to be able to turn on and off lights and stuff remotely.
All the technology for this exists, and it's very simple. But new homes just aren't built with it because there's no great company building the connection between the physical infrastructure of the home and the internet with great hardware + software.
Most new built-in central heaters and air conditioners have a standard digital communication interface that can easily be plugged into and controlled by this home computer. All power outlets and light sockets are connected to the powerline, and it's trivial to send data along powerlines.
The sensors to detect how much and at what temperature water is flowing through your pipes are cheap. You could probably build a totally connected home for a few hundred dollars (just for the hardware). That includes the power consumption information for every light socket, light switch, and outlet; every water socket, sink, shower, etc; and your heating and air conditioning system.
Can you imagine how much money you could save if you could see a dashboard of what is sucking up power in your house? Or if your house detected when all of your cars left the garage and lowered the heater target temperature? Or optimized light automatically by turning the dimmer up and down based on the natural light? Or sent you a text message when you left the doors unlocked in the morning? Or the heater is sucking up more power than normal for a longer time, so it gets shut off?
I think the home is kind of the last frontier of digitalization of everyday life. I want my exact power bill/consumption information to be visible on my computer somewhere in a similar way to Amazon's AWS dashboard, and I want to be able to turn on and off lights and stuff remotely.
All the technology for this exists, and it's very simple. But new homes just aren't built with it because there's no great company building the connection between the physical infrastructure of the home and the internet with great hardware + software.
Most new built-in central heaters and air conditioners have a standard digital communication interface that can easily be plugged into and controlled by this home computer. All power outlets and light sockets are connected to the powerline, and it's trivial to send data along powerlines.
The sensors to detect how much and at what temperature water is flowing through your pipes are cheap. You could probably build a totally connected home for a few hundred dollars (just for the hardware). That includes the power consumption information for every light socket, light switch, and outlet; every water socket, sink, shower, etc; and your heating and air conditioning system.
Can you imagine how much money you could save if you could see a dashboard of what is sucking up power in your house? Or if your house detected when all of your cars left the garage and lowered the heater target temperature? Or optimized light automatically by turning the dimmer up and down based on the natural light? Or sent you a text message when you left the doors unlocked in the morning? Or the heater is sucking up more power than normal for a longer time, so it gets shut off?
It could be monit + munin for your house.
Someone please build this. Or I will.