The Poles Lane post box is plastered in tinsel so it must be time to accept that it’s almost Christmas. For everyone I haven’t managed to send a card to, here’s a little tree inspired rhyme…
We three trees, not in a park,
One in an office, one in the dark,
One on a table, that’s not very stable,
It’ll probably end with a spark!
Merry Christmas!
It’s lasted a few years but sadly our old Christmas tree failed the strictest quality control standards required for indoor duties. Luckily there was an opening for front garden decoration, so it’s not out of work just yet. Doing a fine job too I think:
The lights are plugged in to a Home Easy socket, so I may be dusting off the arduino to control them, which would be an ideal excuse to give a Pachube Dashboard a try… as soon as I’ve finished the Christmas shopping that is!
Since a few people seem interested/skeptical on Twitter, here’s a very quick explanation of a small update to the kitchen lights. Since getting a Current Cost meter it’s been obvious that the biggest waste of electricity are the halogen spotlights in the kitchen. (It amazes me that ordinary incandescent light bulbs are being phased out while at the same time many new houses are full of halogen bulbs, but that’s for a future post!)
Most of the time the two lights under the cupboards would be good enough, but the switch for those is a bit hidden away, so we usually use the five ceiling lights instead. The first part of the cunning kitchen light plan is to connect the two worktop lights to a Home Easy remote control ceiling switch. Now we could put an ordinary remote switch in easy reach next to the main light switch but where’s the fun in that? I got tentative spousal approval to use an indoor PIR remote control instead…
Results so far seem promising: the lights aren’t triggered walking past the kitchen because the sensor is looking inwards from above the existing light switch, and there’s often no need to resort to the manual switch to turn on the electricity burning main lights… which is actually quite lucky because they aren’t there at the moment!
Only temporarily removed due to some planned ceiling painting* but it was a good excuse to automate the backup lights.
* Well, it seemed pointless painting the tiny ceiling in the porch on it’s own, so the kitchen is getting a fresh coat as well.
Notes from a small field 