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

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#341

Post by argiopetech » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:14 PM UTC

barelyauser wrote: post #335

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…

This problem can easily be solved without any device at all. Of course, it demands education and "intelligent behavior". If people only had the curiosity to read the specs on a heater and see "2000W" of power, and compare it to "15W" of power on the specs of the LED bulb. Same for water. One can just place a bowl under the faucet and measure the time it takes to fill up. Now you have your water consumption rate. We c…

If we're comparing apples to apples all the time, sure. I think it's pretty obvious to most people who care to look that a 60w conventional bulb uses more energy than a 15w LED bulb (which, for the record, is the 100w conventional equivalent). Consider, however, these questions:

If my 2000w heater is running on the 800w setting and turns on when my room has dropped below the point I consider acceptably chilly and turns off above that point, how much electricity have I used in the last hour?

If I have 3 15w LEDs on a dimmer and run them intermittently throughout the day, how much electricity have I used in the last hour?

If my TV is off, but plugged in, and accesses the Internet a few times a day automatically to check for new versions, how much power has it used today?

I think this makes the case for, at least, a kill-a-watt style device. A whole home solution with sufficient report granularity and a report interface visible in the home would be worth the extra trouble, IMHO.

Edit: For the record, these are all real-scenarios from my house.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#342

Post by jart » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:17 PM UTC

xerox13ster wrote: post #98

kelnos wrote: post #53

> There were two strings printed with labels “SSID” and “Pwd”. I froze in horror. They wouldn’t dare. It is literally 3 meter distance. These are embedded devices, they do not need this complexity… Not surprising at all. I would expect that a lot of these are bought as retrofits, and not as a part of new construction. Running wires through existing walls can be annoying, and they don't want to put that barrier to sal…

> A 3A fuse would burn out in a fraction of a second if you tried to do that. he bought it on Amazon. He has every reason to be worried that it won't burn out. Louis Rossman did a video[0] where he put 8 amps through a 2 amp fuse and left the room for quite a long time, I think it was several minutes with 8a going through a 2a fuse. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU

Amazon had one of their buildings in California shut down a few months ago by the fire department when a generator started smoking. It was probably due to a bad fuse they bought off Amazon. https://signalscv.com/2023/07/fire-breaks-out-at-amazon/ That's how blinded by their avarice Amazon has become; they can't even protect their own house. Notice how the Nilight fuses (https://amzn.to/3S06G2n) are still listed, even after a YouTube video with 300,000 views demonstrated that their 2 ampere fuse takes 10 amps to blow. I even had an electrical fire in my house recently, due to components that I purchased off Amazon. I know Amazon monitors Hacker News PR closely, since they took down those ChatGPT generated listings within minutes of us posting them here. Yet they do nothing about product listings that put our lives, and their own lives, in critical danger.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#343

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:26 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #290

wkjagt wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think even people who don’t have diabetes could benefit from this. Would having access to my own glucose levels throughout the day give me some insights into how what I eat influences my own mood, energy levels etc?

Might, but as a non-diabetic your body self-regulate, so you'd usually see a large increase in blood sugars followed by a large drop as insulin blood levels increase and trigger its handling. And because the sensor needle goes through the skin it must be replaced pretty regularly, and if it's not covered by insurance it's not exactly free (the link from the sibling indicates £57, that's per fortnight). My diabetic co…

[deleted]

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#344

Post by philwelch » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:43 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #338

snickmy wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered why we cannot find hot filled appliances in the old continent. Also, I wonder why compressors in heatpumps are not multi-speed (basically energy consumption can be modulated). If you are an expert please let me know I'd love to talk more.

> I always wondered why we cannot find hot filled appliances in the old continent. You can find them but they'll be in the semi-professional space and above (relatively expensive high-duty). They're very rare in the consumer space because - it requires running more hot water lines / extensions, historically houses are built with lots of cold water lines but hot water lines only where required - for their heating requ…

> for their heating requirement, a normal electric plug is more than sufficient in the land of 230V, this is is a similar issue to kettles basically

US uses a split phase system so you can combine two 120V circuits to get 240V. This is how most heavy appliances are wired.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#345

Post by mnw21cam » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:44 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #338

snickmy wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered why we cannot find hot filled appliances in the old continent. Also, I wonder why compressors in heatpumps are not multi-speed (basically energy consumption can be modulated). If you are an expert please let me know I'd love to talk more.

> I always wondered why we cannot find hot filled appliances in the old continent. You can find them but they'll be in the semi-professional space and above (relatively expensive high-duty). They're very rare in the consumer space because - it requires running more hot water lines / extensions, historically houses are built with lots of cold water lines but hot water lines only where required - for their heating requ…

Also, in quite a few houses, the initial run of water out of the hot tap is cold for quite some time until the hot water has either made it round from the hot tank, or if you have a combi boiler system then after that has fired itself up, got up to temperature, and then the hot water has made it round the pipes from there. It may be that the washing machine uses so little water that most of the water it gets from the hot supply is cold, wasting all that energy.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#346

Post by ImPostingOnHN » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:48 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.

Just as a thought exercise, if anything was possible:

UBI seems to work towards the goal of making sure people don't die due to lack of resources (it is a basic income, after all). It's less clear how it works towards the goal of reducing carbon emissions.

Rationing, on the other hand, has the potential: Natural resources (publicly owned ones anyways), and perhaps natural limits like how much CO2 the skies can take, are collectively owned by the people. So it could make sense to distribute those amongst the people. The people could then sell them in a free® market. This means we can work towards both goals at once: Those seeking to pollute more, could simply buy the carbon credits from their fellow people, who can now better afford to live. And, at the same time, total pollution is capped-ish, depending on the scheme.

As a fun note, UBI is just rationing out the available funds for UBI, so it would suffer from any rationing-specific failings that carbon rationing would suffer from.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#347

Post by masklinn » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:49 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #344

masklinn wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always wondered why we cannot find hot filled appliances in the old continent. You can find them but they'll be in the semi-professional space and above (relatively expensive high-duty). They're very rare in the consumer space because - it requires running more hot water lines / extensions, historically houses are built with lots of cold water lines but hot water lines only where required - for their heating requ…

> for their heating requirement, a normal electric plug is more than sufficient in the land of 230V, this is is a similar issue to kettles basically US uses a split phase system so you can combine two 120V circuits to get 240V. This is how most heavy appliances are wired.

Right but that means you need a special setup either way. In europe you just have a normal electric plug, nothing special.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#348

Post by mnw21cam » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:49 PM UTC

argiopetech wrote: post #341

barelyauser wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem can easily be solved without any device at all. Of course, it demands education and "intelligent behavior". If people only had the curiosity to read the specs on a heater and see "2000W" of power, and compare it to "15W" of power on the specs of the LED bulb. Same for water. One can just place a bowl under the faucet and measure the time it takes to fill up. Now you have your water consumption rate. We c…

If we're comparing apples to apples all the time, sure. I think it's pretty obvious to most people who care to look that a 60w conventional bulb uses more energy than a 15w LED bulb (which, for the record, is the 100w conventional equivalent). Consider, however, these questions: If my 2000w heater is running on the 800w setting and turns on when my room has dropped below the point I consider acceptably chilly and tur…

A while ago I bought one of those plug-in power monitors, and went around measuring everything I could find around the house. It's a worthwhile exercise, I think. You can leave an appliance plugged into it for as long as you like to get an average. I was able to make a pie chart of where my electricity is used in my house, which was enlightening, and led to some useful changes.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#349

Post by masklinn » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:49 PM UTC

mnw21cam wrote: post #345

masklinn wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always wondered why we cannot find hot filled appliances in the old continent. You can find them but they'll be in the semi-professional space and above (relatively expensive high-duty). They're very rare in the consumer space because - it requires running more hot water lines / extensions, historically houses are built with lots of cold water lines but hot water lines only where required - for their heating requ…

Also, in quite a few houses, the initial run of water out of the hot tap is cold for quite some time until the hot water has either made it round from the hot tank, or if you have a combi boiler system then after that has fired itself up, got up to temperature, and then the hot water has made it round the pipes from there. It may be that the washing machine uses so little water that most of the water it gets from the…

That is true, I assume hot water appliances handle that case internally, but that's yet more complexity.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#350

Post by gabrielhidasy » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 4:50 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #240

PeterisP wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely from a materials perspective, 2x cheap WiFi-capable microcontrollers (e.g. esp8266) will cost the manufacturer something like $4-$5 total for both devices - which is comparable to 3m cable+connectors+cheap chips to handle the cable connection (even ignoring the cost of some person to install the cable which is far more expensive than that) so indeed I don't get why the author considers that doing the connectio…

> so indeed I don't get why the author considers that doing the connection over WiFi is somehow wasteful. Power consumption. Up front vs ongoing cost; the creators chose to minimise the up-front cost in favour of a marginally higher ongoing cost.

Is it really a problem? An ESP8266 (which is not the most efficient thing, but is very cheap) uses about 0.5W while transmitting, much less most of the time.

For reference, I have some smart outlets that I measured using a while ago, pulling about 0.05W on average from the wall, or 36Wh a month. That's about as much energy as making 500ml of coffee or charging a phone 2-3x.