hiya bucks in Bourne End, Flackwell Heath, Marlow, Wycombe, Wooburn April 2014 | Page 10
The 50plus
Home automation
is coming - like it
or not
The level of automation you have in
your home has increased vastly in the
last 30 years. But one part of the home
that has resisted progress is the house
itself. This is going to change and the
driving force will be your electricity and
gas meters.
rates by time of day
so the concept of
peak and off peak will
be vastly expanded. In turn the
ability to control energy consumption in a far
more detailed way than currently available will
be needed by consumers and this will need
home automation.
The Government, supported by the utility
companies, is planning to have ‘smart
meters’ in every home by 2020. The idea is
that consumers, given the ability
to monitor energy usage far
more effectively, will reduce
consumption.
None of this will happen overnight but you
won’t be able to hide from it and there are
difficulties. Firstly systems are likely to be too
complicated for many users for
whom simplicity is the order
of the day. Secondly I don’t
have a lot of faith in the home
maintenance sector to keep on
top of the coming changes. Far
too many boiler maintenance
personnel are already finding a
simple concept such
as wireless thermostats
a headache.
There is likely to be pressure to
automate. Smart meters will enable
utility companies to charge differing
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The manufacturers,
service suppliers
and the maintenance
industry are going to
have to pull their socks
up to ensure what is supplied is user friendly,
with simple diagnostics when something goes
wrong and easily maintainable. My suspicions
are that this is going to take more effort than is
currently recognised.
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