Would you be interested in this?

A2Z said:
What a pointless idea, cant see any reason why it would be needed, sorry :p
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Orange had this idea years ago.

If you left the oven on smart house would text you and ask if you wanted to turn it off.

In principal it's not a bad idea but at the same time wouldn't need it as if I've left the oven on it's because I'm cooking my dinner whilst I'm out
 
The concept is nice, however the "market-ability" if that is even a word is very difficult, it appears you're trying to create a product for a problem that does not exist e.g. if someone leave a light on, and goes on holiday, they'll just get over it and pay the extra money on their electricty bill.

Having said that, I do like the concept, but how would you market your product, whats the target market/audience? don't you think its a bit too gimmicky to have a long product lifecycle?
 
We have plugs at home with a remote control so you can turn everything in the house off from the living room(/wherever). Useful to save 10 seconds before going to bed but paying for it..? Haha
 
I personally think OP requires remote charging of his sexual pleasure devices. Too many times has he come home to find them floppy and immobile.

:p
 
What if the sockets were £15 each and the switching was free, plus free iphone app?

The sockets have other features built in i didn't mention. They can log power consumption and give real time readings back to your phone.

Also they have inbuilt temperature sensor, light sensor, and movement detector - doubling up for home security applications. They can send alarms to your phone when an 'event' is triggered, for example movement detected during certain hours, or temperature exceeded.

Plus they look as cool as something Apple Inc developed. Slim design, discrete and clean look.

Thanks for the opinions so far.
 
Goldy said:
What if the sockets were £15 each and the switching was free, plus free iphone app?

The sockets have other features built in i didn't mention. They can log power consumption and give real time readings back to your phone.

Also they have inbuilt temperature sensor, light sensor, and movement detector - doubling up for home security applications. They can send alarms to your phone when an 'event' is triggered, for example movement detected during certain hours, or temperature exceeded.

Plus they look as cool as something Apple Inc developed. Slim design, discrete and clean look.

Thanks for the opinions so far.
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Will it make a cup of tea for me and change the toilet roll too?

I think £15 is ambitious when you take into account the production costs and shipping (which is a big chunk). If you see the one I linked to is £99 based on GSM, all this new functionality is going to cost time and effort, as well as multiple prototypes.
 
as mentioned there are various versions of this available on the market and there are people who want (and use) them.

Its been around for a very very long time (I did some proof of concept work during a summer job in the late 90s triggering sockets over WAP :D) - have a search for Home Automation and X10.

The biggest problem is the price point, if you could do a webconnected smart socket cheaply with companion apps / web interface it would be interesting, X10 plugs come in at about £20 but you then need all the additional stuff to get the setup working which runs into the hundreds very quickly. In theory a webserver on a chip combined with a small wireless chip shouldn't be overly expensive to produce on mass, the problem would be getting it to connect to the home wireless (securely) and route out...
 
Goldy said:
Plus they look as cool as something Apple Inc developed. Slim design, discrete and clean look.
Click to expand...

For £15? I think not. Do you know how much R&D and tooling costs Apple (and one presumes other such companies) have? You'd never make your money back and I am not sure that even if it was a white plastic block you'd make any money as even that is expensive to tool up for or get produced.
 
Ok, £15 might be a bit over optimistic.

To keep the costs down, 1 socket is the master with a GSM modem. It communicates with other sockets in the home over a RF mesh network to transmit data. All external communications come through the GSM gateway master socket.

All of the stuff already out there looks like cheap tat, with circa 1980's remote controls.

To be honest I was not completely taken with the idea myself. I can't say i've even been in a situation where I have needed to turn something off or on when out the house.

Maybe if it could feed the dog as well?
 
Scottish power offer something similar which allows you to turn stuff on and off from your phone. Also transmits usage data so you can see how much was being used.
 
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