I am having all sorts of fun today with new gadgets. I went to Ecobuild recently and talked to the good people at Owl about their electricity monitors. I have been meaning to get an electricity monitor for ages , especially as I regularly recommend them to other people. Anyway, I thought it was high time I got one and stopped procrastinating.
Then when I chatted to them they showed me their new gadget for controlling the heating this replaces the old wall thermostat with a new one that is connected to the internet. This allows you to control your heating usage from a computer or your phone and as a by product it also uploads your electricity usage in real time to your account so you can look at graphs, analyse your usage at different times of day etc.
I got it in the post yesterday and have been setting it up today. First I set up the electricity monitor
Then I connected the Intuition device to the internet and the electricity monitor, this was slightly trickier but I got it right second time. Now my home is filled with devices telling me how much electricity I am using, I think when the fridge is off they may now be the biggest energy user in the house. I guess I will get over my excitement soon but it is quite cool to see my electricity use on a website:
The next step is to change the boiler thermostat and connect that up to the system as well. I need to turn the power off for that and fiddle with mains wiring so I will wait until my partner is around and she can drag me away when I electrocute myself. A full update on that tomorrow.
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