Smart heating? Anyone?

We have a lot of dumb radiators in Germany. And I bet everyone else in Europe and the US, too. They all look the same: They have a thing you turn to make it warmer or colder. But they depend on you, and they don’t do anything when you are not at home. We don’t have smart appliances that switch off the energy supply while we are at work and switch back on an hour before we arrive at home.

Who is with me building a smart software that is aware of days you are at home (weekends, german holidays (or wherever you live), maybe pulled from google calendar), keep the bathroom warm when you need it (8 to 10 in the morning), keep the bedroom at a lower temperature than the living room, heat your flat an hour before you return?

All we need is a smart device you can attach to knobs of the radiators:

image from http://www.adpic.de/

and a couple of thermometers in every room, talking to the brain (usb, wifi, bluetooth, whatever) to control everything.
Imagine the amount of energy we could save by turning down the radiators every work day between 10:00 and 17:00. That would be green. And money in your pocket.

I really want to build that! a plugin for mythtv that shows that energy plan, lets you control the temperature on workdays and on the weekend, shows you the average temperature, shows you a room plan, etc, etc, can’t be that difficult. and the electric motor changing the radiator (automatically figures out the max- and min-setting of the radiator, figures out what rooms it can control by heating or not heating) should be fun to build!

contact me. just let’s do it! Who sets up a wiki? Who knows about the tools we need? who wants to set up the interface (if we need one)?

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