What's that touchscreen in my room? • Hacker News Board

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#301

Post by Qwertious » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:07 PM UTC

jonathanlydall wrote: post #204

failingslowly wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you want people to be more environmentally conscious [...] they need far better data This is one of the reasons all UK homes are being fitted for free with smart meters. (There are others, such as enabling better grid control.) > You want to be able to see usage to a resolution of at most 5 minutes. My one updates every few seconds and has a set of traffic light LEDs at the bottom giving a visible guide to energ…

As evidenced by the article, the problem is that some of these devices within less than 10 years can become essentially bricks. I think these devices must be required to send the data to the utility company and the utility company must be forced to make the data easily accessible in a standard format so that independent analysis is trivially possible. This way you don't have a situation where a device manufacturer go…

>As evidenced by the article, the problem is that some of these devices within less than 10 years can become essentially bricks.

>I think these devices must be required to send the data to the utility company and the utility company must be forced to make the data easily accessible in a standard format so that independent analysis is trivially possible.

The core problem is that these devices are garbage, and nobody cares. I don't mean that scornfully, I'm saying these devices are way over-provisioned and yet are unreliable anyway because they are very carelessly designed, and nobody cares because 1) they have no economic incentive to care, and 2) in the software world it's normal for cheap devices to fail within 10 years, and the people who refuse to accept this norm have no recourse except building their own piece of electronics (i.e. take up a hobby).

Demanding they provide the data 'in a standard format' lets us put lipstick on the pig, it doesn't actually solve the core problem of the device being a piece of shit.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#302

Post by concordDance » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:09 PM UTC

hgomersall wrote: post #283

concordDance wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Waster" isn't really a coherent concept when taken outside of an individual's value system. What might be waste for one person might simply be a sensible use of resources for another. Doing for a drive to the countryside for a walk? Having a long and relaxing bath? Go-karting? Using a heated pool? Keeping the heater on a single house-level timer so they don't have to think about it rather than planning ahead what ro…

Taxes just push the problem into poor people. If you want a fair solution we should have carbon/resource rationing. In fact, I'd prefer a solution in which the governments work hard (much harder than they are) to bootstrap the brave new world so everyone can benefit from a sustainable world.

Rationing is ridiculously inefficient.

People's desire for heavily carbon consuming things vs lightly carbon consuming things varies massively. If you're worried about the poor don't ignore the externalities of their consumption but subsidise them directly via UBI or somesuch.

Rationing is a very worst of all possible worlds solution, losing you all the benefits of trade.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#303

Post by chefandy » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:10 PM UTC

alexfoo wrote: post #192

chefandy wrote: post #17

Weird to see some micromuse thing listed as the service listed for 1534. I worked for them back in like 2006 and we got eaten by IBM/Tivoli and I don't believe they kept the name for anything? I always knew nobody really updated those but man, really nobody updates those.

1534 was the port used by the license manager (elmd - Elan license manager). The bane of many a Netcool installation until we joyfully ripped it out post IBM acquisition. -Alex (Micromuse 1997 to 2021).

I was wondering what it was. I only worked on Proviso out of Massachusetts so I never even touched anything that was Netcool proper.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#304

Post by nagisa » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:10 PM UTC

jonathanlydall wrote: post #128

A few years ago I came to the realisation that if you want people to be more environmentally conscious or economical in terms of utility consumption, (electricity, water, gas, etc), they need far better data than a single figure per month. You want to be able to see usage to a resolution of at most 5 minutes. That way people can spot things like “having my electric heater on for those couple of hours used more electr…

> Now I just wish I had something as convenient for monitoring water consumption.

You can set this up non-invasively with ultrasonic flow meters like the TUF-2000M. It isn’t cheap, but it does work quite alright if you don't want any of the risks associated with cracking open your pipes.

(There are also cheaper options if you don’t mind opening up your pipes too.)

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#305

Post by joemaller1 » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:13 PM UTC

“hello_stranger.txt” feels like something I would’ve written as a 11 year old pretending to be a mad scientist.

I’m going to start leaving those files on every system I touch. Thank you Nikita.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#306

Post by hgomersall » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:14 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #302

hgomersall wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes just push the problem into poor people. If you want a fair solution we should have carbon/resource rationing. In fact, I'd prefer a solution in which the governments work hard (much harder than they are) to bootstrap the brave new world so everyone can benefit from a sustainable world.

Rationing is ridiculously inefficient. People's desire for heavily carbon consuming things vs lightly carbon consuming things varies massively. If you're worried about the poor don't ignore the externalities of their consumption but subsidise them directly via UBI or somesuch. Rationing is a very worst of all possible worlds solution, losing you all the benefits of trade.

We don't want trade. We want people to reduce their carbon consumption. In any case, you could always allow trading of rations.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#307

Post by nagisa » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:17 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #299

teekert wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree fully, I believe that my Home Assistant energy dashboard has done more for our energy consumption than any other measure. If you’re in the Netherland you can get something like a “slimme lezer”, plug it into the p1 port of your energy meter and it will pop up in Home Assistant with the right sensors. The energy dashboard will give an overview of your gas and electricity usage, solar production, proportion use…

> If you’re in the Netherland you can get something like a “slimme lezer”, plug it into the p1 port of your energy meter and it will pop up in Home Assistant with the right sensors. If only the meters had ny power nearby or offered a 5V USB port on it so you could plug in your reader and forget it. But no. Now I'd have to keep a small Li-ion battery living in -20C since the meters are typically outside and there is n…

P1 ports in the newer standard versions supply power.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#308

Post by CaptainMarvel » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:27 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #201

verisimi wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consumer element is the sugar to help the masses swallow the pill. If it was just about the consumer, the unit would never report its findings back to base. But blurting back your information is integral to, well, all smart devices. That is the point. Once the government has that info, it will be able to come up with bespoke taxes for you according to what it ordains as fair use. 'Your showers are too long', 'you…

I don't understand your point - these meters only report your overal usage, not what is using the energy/water. It's letting you skip the step where you manually upload the reads every couple months or whatever, or worse, where the energy company employee has to visit your house to read them in person. Why does it matter if I upload my meter reads to my provider every month or if the device reports it automatically?…

That’s not quite right. All new smart meters have the ability to report electricity usage minute-by-minute.

You _currently_ have the choice to only report month-by-month, by kindly asking them to only do that. However, I agree with verisimi, and I believe that it’s only a matter of time before the government via energy suppliers can monitor your real time electricity usage.

It’ll be dressed up, of course, as being in your best interest, but you won’t have a choice. Smart meters were sold as being beneficial for customers, but in reality they take power away from people and consolidate it in energy suppliers.

At the most basic level this is a history of when you are at home or not.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#309

Post by CaptainMarvel » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:29 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #223

userbinator wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the "smart" meters don't report live usage back to providers Either they can be easily upgraded to do that, or they already are and the energy company merely gives you the total every month to maintain the impression that they aren't. If the meter-reader needs to visit periodically, you know with much greater certainty that they aren't gathering live data.

>>Either they can be easily upgraded to do that I mean no offence, but you are literally just guessing and not talking about technologies that people have in their houses. The smart meters here in UK, the latest SMET2 standard ones, cannot broadcast live data back to the grid because they simply don't have the bandwidth to do so, they use low frequency communication back to the area controller and they can barely rep…

I mean no offence, but you are literally just guessing and not talking about technologies that people have in their houses.

Hilarious that I’m sending your own words back to you.

I worked at an energy supplier. I saw minutely energy readings from customers with my own eyes. It was a lot of data!

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#310

Post by mywacaday » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 2:31 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #270

jonathanlydall wrote: post #128

A few years ago I came to the realisation that if you want people to be more environmentally conscious or economical in terms of utility consumption, (electricity, water, gas, etc), they need far better data than a single figure per month. You want to be able to see usage to a resolution of at most 5 minutes. That way people can spot things like “having my electric heater on for those couple of hours used more electr…

I have a friend that is diabetic (a number of friends, actually). He has been doing a pretty lousy job of managing his diet. Until his doctor prescribed a monitor for a few weeks. This is a device that looks like a big Band-Aid that you put on your arm, inserting a fine needle under the skin, and communicates with an app on the phone, reporting things like glucose levels. Once he realized the effects of the foods he…

This company is offering it as a service https://www.limborevolution.com/, it's expensive though. I haven't used it but the owner has had a few success. Shaq is also an investor.