This research overview is primarily about energy monitoring. A lot of the consumer services are focussed on electricity energy usage and monitoring but gas usage is of more interest to us because we spend twice as much on gas as we do electricity. In our current home, gas is used for heating, hot water and cooking and because we prefer gas for cooking, we would probably have some kind of gas supply in our next home.
The contextual smart home can save you significantly more on your energy bills that using things like smart thermostats because it has a much greater understanding of what is happening in your home, allowing to to make more intelligent decisions.
Simply by putting our hot water heating under the control of our contextual smart home, we reduced our gas usage by over 18%.
We cover Smart Meters on another page.
In our current home we are using a Loop Energy Saver device. We like this product because it measure both our gas and electricity usage. It also works with any energy provider.
Sometimes it is useful to know how much energy specific electrical devices are using. An instantaneous measurement will show you how much energy a device like a kettle is using for example. Perhaps more useful though, is the ability to measure how much energy a device uses over a time period. This is particularly useful for devices that switch on and off automatically, such as a fridge or a freezer.
These things can be achieved using a smart appliance switch/module such as this Aeon Labs Smart Switch 6, which supports energy monitoring. This is a Z-Wave connected device.
You can also buy numerous types of energy monitoring plugs, which are not 'connected' but have a display to provide useful real-time information and also allow monitoring over a time period.
The only way to really save energy is by using the numbers to change your behaviour. Most importantly though, this only yields the maximum benefits if everyone in the household changes their behaviour.
This is where the contextual smart home can help though. A smart home will enforce these behavioural changes, whilst also improving quality of life.
Energy monitoring in itself is useful if it can save you money but, in the contextual smart home it can form part of the whole home context and enable much greater insight and advanced features. In this example tweet from our @smartest_home, energy monitoring data is pooled with other context to identify the user of the coffee machine and enable a personalised user experience in the kitchen.
Energy monitoring can also be used to detect device and appliance usage to safety and telecare applications. In this example tweet from our @smartest_home, energy monitoring data is pooled with other context to detect occupancy and presence in the bedroom. The duration they are on for is monitored, to ensure they haven't been left on. After a defined period of time they will be switched off automatically and notifications sent to inform family members that preventative action was taken.
In both examples, the appliance/device is essentially being used as a source of occupancy and presence information. This the becomes part of the whole home context and can be used to enable many other advanced features and services. We are using energy monitoring to provide intelligence, which then allows our contextual smart home to save us energy and money.
Phantom energy (or vampire power) is the electricity used when equipment is switched off but still plugged in. Many devices continue to use electricity when they are plugged in and off. Typically this includes anything with a 'standby mode' such as TVs, audio equipment, DVD players, games consoles, etc.). And it's not an insignificant amount of power. Phantom energy can account for 15% or more of the total electricity used by these devices.
The best way to avoid this wasted energy is by unplugging these electronics when they are not in use. Most people don't do this though, because of the hassle involved or the fact that the plug is hidden away behind furniture, etc. Using multi-way distribution boards or extension leads makes it much easier to switch off several devices.
One way to address many of the issues discussed here is to use a 12V power network in the smart home.
We have a separate page on batteries.
