My experience of smarter living

This is the conclusion to a series of articles in which I explored Remote Heating Control – a technology of the future. Learn more about this series by reading the introductory article, called stepping into the future of smarter living.

Three months ago, I wrote an article in which I told you how British Gas had approached Technology Bloggers and asked if I would like to have Remote Heating Control technology installed for free, to test the technology as part of their don’t take our word for it (DTOWFI) campaign. Remote Heating Control is a technology of the future, and therefore they wanted reputable bloggers to test it out and give their honest feedback in order to help people (consumers) understand the pros and cons of getting the technology, and just generally what it is like to live with an intelligent (or smart) heating system.

Now my part in the DTOWFI campaign is coming to an end – this is the final article in my series. In this article I am going to summarise my journey with the technology, highlight the advantages and disadvantages and give you my honest feedback as to my experience of Remote Heating Control.

I hope that home-owners (potentially you) will be able to use this series to evaluate whether they feel they would benefit from installing Remote Heating Control.

Installation – The Start Of The Journey

My journey with Remote Heating Control started on Thursday the 16th of August, when a British Gas engineer called Nick came to my house and set up the hardware I would need to run the technology.

British Gas remote heating control

My British Gas smart linked thermostat

First Nick installed a wireless receiver near to my boiler. Then he removed my old thermostat and replaced it with a band new LED display, smart linked thermostat. Finally Nick installed a wireless hub which I plugged into my internet router. These three devices now communicate with each other and between them and the myHome internet portal, determine what my boiler should be doing. Clever huh?

For more info on the installation, check out my article on: how is Remote Heating Control technology installed?

First Impressions

In the next article I discussed what my first impressions of Remote Heating Control were. I explored the myHome online interface, from which I was able to control my heating online. Once I had my login credentials, it was easy to login and navigate around the site.

I was impressed with the amount of data and functions that are available to me. For example, I can see what the temperature has been in my house over the last 24 hours, or the last week, or even month. I am also able to see a weather summary, letting me know what the temperature has been like outside recently, and what to expect in the near future.

At the time of writing article three, I was yet to use the technology on a daily basis, as it was mid-September and still relatively warm.

Setting Up A Heating Schedule

Two weeks later (early October) I published my next article, in which I let you know how I found setting up a schedule for my heating. In summary, it was really easy, I just had to choose what temperatures I wanted my house to be and when, and then drag some sliders accordingly to make a rather complex, but easy to understand, schedule.

Remote Heating Control Schedule - Advanced

My heating schedule

My heating is now designed to fit around my daily variations in lifestyle. I get up later of a weekend, so my heating doesn’t come on until later. I go to bed later on Friday and Saturday, so my heating keeps my house warmer for longer. Instead of me having to adjust my heating to my daily life, my heating now knows what to do and when – meaning little need for interference from me. Check out the article for more on setting up a remote heating schedule.

Daily Changes

From mid-October, I was using my heating on a daily basis, however unlike last year, I wasn’t turning it on and off daily, or controlling it via the thermostat. My heating was doing all the hard work for me, turning itself on just before I woke up/got home, and turning itself off when I went to bed/left the house.

But what happened when my life didn’t fit perfectly around my heating schedule? Say I knew I was going to be home 20 minutes early, would I have to come home to a cold house? No I wouldn’t, thanks to the myHome smartphone app! It was really easy to download and install, and after logging in with my normal username and password, I was able to instantly adjust my heating. Quite literally I could change the temperature to 18°C and in the 10 minutes it took me to get home, my house would have warmed up.

I have found that there is nothing wrong with using my smart linked thermostat (my houses internal thermostat) to control my heating, it works very well in fact, however I just don’t seem to be using it. My heating schedule seems to be regulating things rather well for me, and when I want a change making, a quick alteration on the app, or a text is often much faster and easier.

For more on my views of what the technology is like to use, check out the: using Remote Heating Control on a daily basis article? The article also contains more information about the myHome online portal, what can be found there, what you can control etc.

A Scenario

I recently had the thought, what if I were to go on holiday? My heating is set to a schedule, which I would have to change. I wouldn’t want to have to change the schedule just for my holiday and then reset all the temperatures and time periods when I got home. Well I wouldn’t have to.

All I would need do is login to the myHome app and set my heating to ‘OFF’. It is usually programmed to ‘Auto’ which means stick to the schedule, but were I to set it to ‘OFF’ then it would just lie dormant. When I get back, on my way home, a quick SMS of ‘HEAT AUTO’ or just setting the heating to a specific temperature via smartphone or text message would get my house lovely and warm for my return. It seems that there isn’t much that this technology can’t handle!

Basically if there is going to be a disruption to your ordinary daily life, and you don’t want your heating to be wasting money on unnecessary heating, you can effectively stop the schedule. Likewise if you want your home to be hotter than it is you can override the schedule for that period.

The Money

One of the key factors in the technology for me is the money. I want to be green and save gas, whilst at the same time use the technology to help me save money. So, do I think that Remote Heating Control will save me money?

I haven’t any bills to compare yet, and the weather does vary year on year anyway, so it is hard for me to tell, but from what I have seen so far, my honest answer is yes, I think that the system will save me money.

The way I have programmed my system, it stops my house from getting really cold when I am not there, so it should take less gas to warm it up when I get home. Also the fact that I can instantly change the temperature via the internet, or my phone mean that if I am out of the house, I am still in control, whereas before I couldn’t be. Therefore any mistakes I make – like leaving the heating on when I am going out – I can fix before my boiler burns away my money heating an empty house.

To Conclude

I am really pleased that British Gas asked me to become a part of the DTOWFI campaign, as it has not only given me an insight into the future of smarter living, which I have been able to share with you, but also an amazing system which I now use to control my heating with.

I would personally recommend the technology, as I feel it has the potential to save me a lot of money, whilst helping me limit my environmental impact, at the same time as letting me live slightly more comfortable.

Thank you very much for following the series, I hope it has been interesting and educational. I also hope it has been useful to people who are considering getting a Remote Heating Control system.

I would also like to say thank you for all the comments I have received on the articles during the course of the series. I am more than happy to answer questions and give my opinions, just ask anything you may have either on the relevant post, or below.

My final thank you goes to British Gas for letting me test out a technology of the future.

… and that’s the end of my second series! 🙂

Openworld showcases cloud and virtualisation advances

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As Oracle OpenWorld draws to a close for 2012, the announcements filtering out from the event included headline-catching advancements from the world of business software.

However, the attendees’ attention was divided by the inevitable comparison with last years’ conference. That event unfortunately coincided with the death of Steve Jobs, the news spread during the closing speech by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a close friend of Jobs’, who was comparing the similarities between Oracle and Apple.

Many reports continued after the 2012 OpenWorld to compare the difficulties both companies have faced throughout the year and the way each of the tech giants are led. Both companies combine hardware and software but Apple are viewed as innovators whereas Oracle is only just catching up with the crowd, particularly in areas previously dismissed by Ellison.

OpenWorld 2012 was generally considered a success by the IT sector even if a number of observers thought that it lacked innovation. The technologies announced highlighted a number of ways the roles within oracle jobs will be evolving as the firm advances with virtualisation and cloud computing.

One of the announcements during the conference focused on the new Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine. The role of this product is to compete against SAP and permit consumers to move their IT jobs to the internet from data centres.

Oracle - Manage many as one“You can access all of these services across the network,” Ellison said. “It took a long time to build a complete suite of cloud applications and the all-important platform, which we call Fusion middleware… We have a huge advantage in platform solutions in the cloud because we are the number one platform company in the world.”

Ellison’s own desires may have overshadowed the outcome of the conference.  In an interview with CNBC, a financial news channel, taken just before Oracle OpenWorld launched for this year, Ellison covered a number of topics ranging from Oracle to his Hawaiian island Lanai.

If the success of Oracle was ever in doubt, a browse through Ellison’s ambitions may clear the issue up.  With a current fortune of $41 billion, he recently bought 98% of Lanai, and also hopes to one day own his favourite NBA team; the Los Angeles Lakers. Previously Ellison bid for the Golden State Warriors and mentions liking the Chicago Bulls too.

Oracle Openworld 2012 proved to be a successful conference for consumers and businesses alike. The countdown begins for what Oracle can come up with for Openworld 2013.

Sponsored: The rise of the Ultrabook

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Before you read any further you should know that as a writer I have been offered a small fee to produce this article, and will receive a (very small) fee for every person in the UK who watches the video – for a limited time. That said, this in no way affects my objectivity or impartiality, and I endeavour to make this article as interesting as any other on the blog. Our policy as a blog is to only accept paid editorials which are of interest to the writer, and which we believe will be of interest to our readers. Funds raised help us to maintain and improve the blog.

The word Ultrabook has become somewhat of a buzzword in the computing industry in recent times, but many people don’t really know what it means or refers to. What is an Ultrabook?

It really is amazing how fast paced the technology industry it. Go back 3 years and tablets didn’t exist and just 6 years ago smartphones didn’t either.

Netbooks

The first variation on a laptop was the Netbook, which went on sale in 2007. A Netbook a term used to describe laptops which are lightweight, portable, lacking in external ports and cheap. Most Netbooks don’t have CD drives and as far as I am aware none have floppy drives as standard.

Netbooks were deigned as a cheaper alternative to a laptop which is ideal for using on the go. The rise of Netbooks was deigned to improve the portability of a laptop, as despite laptops being more portable than desktops, they often weren’t practical for using on the go.

Ultrabooks

Last year laptop makers went a step further in the long-term development of the device and created the Ultrabook. Ultrabooks were designed to be as portable as a Netbook, but the next level up in terms of speed, practicality and storage.

Ultrabooks are very well designed laptops with powerful processors, designed to use less power and therefore have a better battery life. Ultrabooks are like Netbooks in that they are very portable, but they are also powerful.

Most of the big technology firms are now making Ultrabooks. Acer, Dell, HP and Samsung all have their own brands.

The majority of Ultrabooks are powered by Intel’s powerful ‘i‘ processors. Intel Core i3 processors are what you find in most Ultrabooks, these are very powerful and cope well with multiple operations. Some Ultrabooks have Intel Core i5 processors which, are another step up from the i3 – more power leading to better handling and greater possibilities. There are now a few Ultrabooks which run Intel Core i7 processors, which are lightning fast! i7 is rare though, as most people would never need to a processor which that fast.

One recent addition to the Ultrabook market is Acer’s Aspire S5. It is currently the worlds thinnest Ultrabook, measuring a tiny 15mm closed and a staggering 11mm when open – it beets the competition by some considerable margin! Dell XPS 14 for example is nearly 2.1cm when shut (almost an inch) whereas the Aspire S5 is less than 1.5cm.

Acer Aspire S5

The Acer Aspire S5 – a powerful Ultrabook.

Acer’s Aspire S5 is not only ultra thin, but also ultra light (starting to see why it’s called an Ultrabook?) weighing in at 1.2kg. The screen is an impressive 13.3 inches making it pretty much the same size as a 13-inch MacBook Pro. That said the equivalent MacBook weighs 2.06kg, 0.86kg heavier than the Aspire S5 – that’s like carrying the best part of an extra bag of sugar around with you!

Ultrabooks really do showcase the amazing technological advancements that have been made in the last few years. Devices are getting smaller, thinner, less power hungry and more powerful, and the Aspire S5 is no exception.

Technology firms seem intent on advertising their new devices in the most innovative way possible at the moment, and Acer have produced an advert in-line with this trend for their new Ultrabook. If you are interested, take a look at the ad below to see the Aspire S5 in action – quite literally in action!

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So what are your thoughts on the Ultrabook trend? Do you think that portable is the future, and desktops are destined for the scrapheap, or is there a future where they co-exist?

Which is your preferred option, the usually slightly cheaper, but less capable Netbook, or would you rather spend a little more to have a much more powerful, performance built Ultrabook? Personally I would have an Ultrabook any day of the week!

Thoughts and comments welcome below 🙂