Welcome to the OVO forum @Jequinlan and what a great idea for a topic!

It’s great to hear about your interest in keeping things green and I’ve noticed you’ve joined our V2G experience. Looking forward to hearing about your journey, and I hope the anxiety subsides!

I wouldn't say you were typical of this community, as we’ve got a massive range of individuals on this forum with varying points of interest, although, who doesn't love a geek?

@Transparent @ITGeek123 @EverythingNeedsAUserName, I know for a fact are technology and/or EV enthusiasts, and there are lots of topics here from other users about the same areas. It does seem like technology, and how it can be used for energy usage reduction and efficiency is probably this communities niece - good to have you join the ranks! 

P.s You ever though of getting one more Alexa device to round things up? Only having an odd number of Alexa’s in your home just gives me anxiety! 

Welcome to the forum

We are a lovely bunch here! I have been here for 2 years now. We are very alike by the looks of it! I am a cybersecurity engineer, Instead of Alexa it's Google homes/hubs/nests through my house, hive thermostats and a few other things without giving you details what else is in my possession  

I am a Nissan leaf driver myself and have signed up to the heat trial too! Here's to us hoping we get in. 

Awesome @ITGeek123 ! I am a data architect and GDPR consultant as specialty so we play in the same arena! I also have google on a few devices and am fully kitted out with enabled smartplugs and Hue systems for energy saving.

Love the post, nice to meet you @Jequinlan and welcome to our little community!

We’re a mixed bag of users. A lot of OVO members and non OVO members visit to find an answer they need. We’re now offering a large and well rounded range of electric vehicle topics so we do attract lots of EV owners from Google. 

Some, like our top volunteer @ITGeek123 have been around for ages, and have even visited our Bristol HQ office, like for our VIP day where we had smart meter presentations, EV charger Q&As and such. Although I wasn’t able to attend the VIP visit last summer and neither were you ITGeek - is that correct? We had planned another this summer, but as you can imagine, this has been postponed. 

You’re both Zero Carbon Heating Trial applicants, and I’m very much rooting for you to take part. I will be bugging you for in depth and informative content if we do visit to fit the latest in electric heating. You have been warned 

Speaking of informative and helpful content, @Jequinlan if you ever wanted to post about your Alexa device deployment (it sounds extensive and therefore probably very insightful to hear about), get something posted. See ITGeek’s Living with Hive smart thermostat tutorial content for an example. Nearly 3500 people have seen this topic, and he doesn’t even remember posting it   Gotta love Google traffic!

Anyway, I’m off to look at your other post on V2G energy saving, see you on the flip side! 

Thanks @Tim_OVO , 

Yes, I may do one about the Combination of devices I use to try to keep the house both secure, but also low energy. the Thermostat post was great, so thanks to @ITGeek123 for that.

If I get selected for the Trail of Heating I absolutely would post Install Photos, blog about usage and experience of the difference it has made!

As I write this I notice that @Jequinlan currently tops the points leader-board. That’s pretty impressive for your first week on the Forum!

I’m a self-builder, refurbishing and extending the 1930’s Devon farmhouse in which we live. I have installed a number of energy-saving features, learning the skills as I progress. This means I also have a good overview of the Building Regulations and some of the innovative new materials and construction methods which are available.

My longer-term background has been within electronics and IT. I worked with microcomputers from before the development of the floppy disc drive, and I’ve designed software for direct sale to end-users. I’ve understood the user-interface from long before it became a job-title!

I prefer my home control systems to be free of tax to the likes of Google and Amazon.

Instead of pre-built Hive and Alexa style devices, I’m increasingly using embedded controllers based on various iterations of Arduino and ATtiny chips, designing my own electronics to link sensors and output controls.

As a member of my local Transition Towns group, I’ve been technically involved with the OpenLV Project, which has been monitoring “Smart” substations in the SW Region. That work has opened up excellent relationships with my DNO, Western Power Distribution, and links with their Network Innovations Dept.

Western Power have now extended the OpenLV project for community groups and taken over the funding from Ofgem. They are generally ahead of other DNOs in meeting targets and innovative strategies.

This has given me a valuable glimpse of the UK’s energy delivery systems beyond our Smart Meters. I can see the direction we’re heading in and the opportunities we now have to take part in a renewable-energy revolution over the next decade.

The mix of people and skill-sets on this Forum is interesting. I would like to see OVO/Kaluza choosing more of the technically-astute Members here to be the bedrock of the Trials they are conducting. The quality of the feedback is more important than how optimal is the chosen test-site!

I think we we need to let go of the old concept whereby OVO is just a company from whom we buy gas and electricity. Instead we should see ourselves as partners, pushing forward the development of energy-related technology for the greater benefit of society.

This Forum has to be the GoTo site for other people to understand how to make better use of renewable energy.

We also need more Discussion Topics which OVO Managers might read as they would an “Employee Suggestion Box”.

The reason this Forum can achieve that has little to do with where @Jequinlan sees himself on the geek-scale. Our strength is that we are a wild mix of customers from different backgrounds.

Thanks @Transparent and a very interesting read! I am heading to devon as it happens next week for my holiday so we will actually be geographically near! I am impressed very much with this forum and indeed agree, OVO isnt seen to me as my supplier but ideally a partner, learning and improving hand in hand. 

We can make the world greener, more energy efficient and friendly all together.

I have to admit i have no idea of a points leaderboard but hey, sounds fun.

If you’re travelling this far west @Jequinlan, remember to adjust your watch… about 50 years back should do it!

And you’ll find the Points Leader-board on the right of the home-page for the Forum.

I feel like I’ve been missing out on all the fun here! Somehow I really feel like I should have abandoned SSE’s offer and gone straight to OVO for my electricity supply when I moved into my flat two years ago…

The kind of user I am is one that really does speak “tech geek” when I get the chance. But while I don’t have the usual Amazon Echo or Google Home/Nest type devices, I do love to try out some kinds of cool new tech that I can smash to pieces with some bugs! And to be honest, Alexa gets a bit boring when everyone’s already discovered all the stuff she can do and done it about 5,000 times in the first week. The novelty kinda wears off after a while.

I’m also a cybersecurity expert, with my main interests in keeping people safe by offering advice and the odd bit of bug hunting here and there (yes, that does mean I am a white hat).

However, I also like to stretch the limits a bit and I am a bit crazy when it comes to my evil genius plans - which is why some people give me the nickname SkyNet Blastoise.

I’m currently in the process of upgrading my home network to go full Ubiquiti UniFi across my entire flat. I kinda think that three 60W PoE capable network switches, two different access points, a compatible modem and a Wi-Fi router so powerful that it has a built-in cooling fan to prevent the ARM Cortex-A57 CPU cool should probably be somewhat more power efficient than my old consumer Netgear router that I’ve had for the last 10 years.

Totally overengineered and completely overpowered for a one-bedroom flat. But hey, if it means I can hook up over 500 devices at once and run almost the entire kit from just two power sockets, that does kinda save resources a bit from fewer components!

And yes, I do also plan to (at least try!) and see how energy efficient my turbocharged setup is in the long run. My theory is that it’s likely to be more power efficient than using a wireless mesh. Since the network switches need to send “electricity” down the ethernet cables anyway to communicate with the access points, I might as well use Power over Ethernet to send actual power juice down the same cable to energise the access points as well. It does also mean that I can disable the wireless mesh features completely too and potentially consider turning off the 2.4Ghz radios, which would make it cheaper to run. After all, I probably don’t need all 10 radios across the entire system running all the time!

And yes, it’ll be interesting to see whether my smart meter accurately detects them too! Hehehe...

Only time will tell.

Thanks for sharing, @Blastoise186 

Better late then never hey? I feel like this online community is still in the early adopter phase myself. Kind of like what crypto enthusiasts say about Bitcoin. 

The climate crisis is a decade long struggle. A decade long period of technological breakthroughs (or failure, let’s not think about that), of working together and sharing knowledge for the betterment of the planet. 

OVO plans to be on the frontline of this. Our community needs to be at the forefront of OVO. So @Blastoise186, the best is yet to come for sure!

This has gone a little over my head, I must say. Some of our more technically proficient members may find it worth a read though. If not, sorry for the tag! @Jequinlan @Transparent 

Hehehe,

Well… Let’s just say that most routers aren’t as powerful as others. And some of them probably also make for good space heaters too. :)

Why put the heating on when you can just fire up your favourite streaming platform, enable Deep Packet Inspection on the router and relax while the router warms the room up. 

Since I’ll be paying for the electricity to run my network kit anyway, I might as well make use of it in creative ways.

@Tim_OVOthe ARM-Cortex processor, which @Blastoise186 refers to, is from the same family as those used in the vast majority of mobile phones throughout the world. They’re known for their high efficiency and low power consumption. You wouldn’t expect an ARM to require any forced-air from a fan to cool it!

ARM was a spin-off from Acorn Computers’ development of a Reduced Instruction Set Computer back in 1985. The company was sold to Softbank in 2016, who over-recruited engineers and ploughed liquid cash into it in the hope of getting a massive return from ARM chips powering the Internet of Things (IoT). The gamble failed and Softbank are now trying to sell it to US-based Nvidia.

ARM processors are possibly within our IHDs, although I haven’t dissected one yet to find out.

They would certainly be a serious contender for an Enhanced IHD which permitted the customer to configure preferences for EV charging and all manner of other domestic Control Devices which are driven from the Flex Platform.

This could effectively combine the functions of the IHD and the OVO App into a single controller with an intuitive interface that could be used by customers who are ‘technology-light’.

It’s a real shame to see ARM Holdings ownership heading beyond these shores. A waste of British ingenuity - just at a time when the UK Government wants to promote a technology-centred post-Brexit economy.

I have no idea why @Blastoise186 wants to pay for electricity to run his growing population of internet-connected devices. He could just hang a solar-panel out of the window and keep a 12v battery topped up!

Hehehe,

Well, that is all true. But there’s a good reason why I can’t really put a solar panel outside my window. My flat faces the wrong direction and a solar panel probably wouldn’t pick up enough sunlight to work properly.

And I won’t just have one ARM CPU in my network kit either. Pretty much all Ubiquiti UniFi kit runs on the ARM architecture and I’m getting quite a lot of it.

I don’t know if I forgot to mention this, but my UniFi Dream Machine is basically a Linux server with a very powerful Wi-Fi radio attached to it and all the other kit could be described as being compute nodes for number crunching. Well that, and maybe tearing packets apart via Deep Packet Inspection! 

In a nutshell, I’m spending maybe just under £1,000 to get enough kit to blast Wi-Fi through an entire two or three storey house… Packed into a one bedroom flat! Just because I can.

But I can also argue that it's more power efficient than some other options! Because somehow, using Ethernet as a backbone for the mesh network probably means the radios on these things won’t be blasting out as much as if I’d used a wireless mesh.

In summary: Completely over engineered, total tech geek kit and absolutely unnecessary for a one bedroom flat. But that’s not going to stop me!