Oh, man, this is just too cool. And sadly I just upgraded to an iPhone 4, not 4s (I am both a sucker for a deal, and normally filled with buyer’s regret). But anyway, this guy used the Radio Thermostat API (which I mentioned in my last post) together with a Siri hack to add voice control to his thermostat. How awesome is that? (The thermostat he used is the 3M-50 available at Home Depot, a rebranded version of the CT-30 available at Amazon
Looks like his code is here.
I love it when device manufacturers realize that they can do well by selling a device with documented interfaces, in the hopes that a nebulous community of hackers will invent cool new things for it. So I was pretty happy when the Radio Thermostat Company of America announced that they had an API available for their wifi thermostats (such as the 3M-50 at Home Depot or the CT-30
Click for interactive graph
In an earlier post I had tried out a few ways to figure out if our energy-saving efforts with respect to natural gas use were paying off; I did a few bar graphs of therms per day, per heating degree day, rolling yearly averages, etc. I knew that I needed to normalize for the weather using Heating Degree Days, since natural gas is our primary heating fuel, and I probably needed to find a way to separate space heating from water heating, which have different conservation methods, and which may or may not be weather dependent. Continue reading
In my last two posts I talked a little about our utility usage for electricity and for water; last up is natural gas usage. (I don’t think I’ll ever start weighing my garbage, but who knows). Continue reading
In my last post, I talked about how I keep track of our electricity usage, to be sure that our efforts at efficiency & conservation are staying on track. But that’s just one of 3 utilities; water has been another focus in our house. Continue reading
Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Efficiency — power is ever stealing [into your home]. — Me, with apologies to Wendell Phillips, Thomas Jefferson, or whoever said it first.
Almost exactly a year ago I posted about switching my kitchen to some PAR20 LED bulbs, talking about the economics of them, given their very long (50,000 hour) expected lifetime, and 5 year warranty.
The bad news – last night one quit on me. 
Continue reading
I’ve done everything I can to eliminate incandescent bulbs from my house, relying largely on CFLs. This has helped me dramatically reduce my power bills – but with some drawbacks. Continue reading
Ever wonder what the energy flow through a net meter looks like when you have solar on your house? No? Well, if you did, take a gander at the graphs above (click for a bigger version). Continue reading
I read an article over at Green Building Advisor.com, with the title/subtitle “Is the Green Movement Just Spinning Its Wheels? Can individuals make a real dent in climate change, or does our future hinge on government intervention?”
It was a fairly gloomy take on things. Continue reading
