Improving the efficiency of home heating

My research group recently launched myJoulo, a project aimed at increasing awareness of how energy is being consumed in the home. The project gives away free temperature sensors, which collect data about how the temperature of your home varies relative to the temperature outside. It then asks you to upload the data, in order to provide personalised feedback detailing how you can reduce the price of your heating bill. The whole process is available for free to anyone living in the UK. For more details see the press release.

Video on unsupervised training methods for NIALM

I recently created a video describing my recent work on unsupervised training methods for non-intrusive appliance load monitoring systems. A high quality version of the video is available from the ORCHID project website, although I thought I'd also include it here for convenience:

Popular Mechanics predicts NIALM to become reality in next 110 years

A Popular Mechanics article recently compiled a list of technology predictions for the next 110 years. One of the forecasts sounded oddly familiar:

"Smart homes will itemize electric, water, and gas bills by fixture and appliance. Shwetak Patel, a 30-year-old MacArthur Fellow, is working on low-cost sensors that monitor electrical variations in power lines to detect each appliance's signature."

Good to hear people are getting excited about energy disaggregation, although personally I hope it doesn't take the full 110 years to become widely available.