Well, the polar bears have begun their migration back north to the loft. It was my first experiment with an ambient device and the Christmas tree was certainly hard to ignore, especially when Jo complained the bears had gone off again! As a result, I updated the arduino sketch a bit to just briefly flash the bears off every three minutes when our energy use was high instead of turning them off completely. Still annoying apparently (kind of the point!) but the bears did manage to stay under arduino control all Christmas with only a few breaks on manual! A few observations now that the experiment is over:
- I don’t think having a display like CurrentCost’s in the house makes a huge difference after the initial discovery phase. That’s not to say that the display is pointless: it is much easier than checking the meter, and the cost estimate is great, but after I found out what wastes the most energy, I rarely look at it. Is that the same for most people?
- On the other hand, having a Christmas tree flashing when a lot of energy is being used is much harder to ignore! Not really an all year round solution but I’m sold on the idea of ambient devices. I hope to have a more compact one soon. It would be nice to have a simple indication near the front door as well for quick checks that everything is off before going out.
- Energy use alone wasn’t enough information to tell whether the house was occupied or not. I had planned to leave the lights on automatic all the time, so they would turn on when we arrived home and off when we were out. A daft idea with hind sight because the fridge and central heating were enough to confuse the poor polar bears.
- The arduino does a great job controlling Home Easy devices. I had it set up to send ‘reminders’ on a regular basis, which seems like a good way to make sure things are in the right state without any acknowledgements from the Home Easy receivers. (Also quite entertaining when the lights pop back on after someone turns them off with the normal Home Easy remote! I’m easily amused!)
- This was the first project I ‘completed’ with the the arduino, and it was almost useful! Well, I enjoyed it at least, and it’s got me thinking more about the next project: the ambient orbs if Farnell ever ship the TLC5940 I ordered, or a wireless programmable thermostat.
Notes from a small field 