Re: Product idea

On 2/17/2025 4:43 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-02-17 22:55, Don Y wrote:

On 2/17/2025 1:23 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

My computer room stays one or two degrees above other rooms. A desktop computer, some peripherals, printer, switch, wifi AP, a minicomputer with display...

>
Houses, here, use forced air HVAC (for the most part).
But, virtually all are built on slabs and are devoid of
(distributed) return air ductwork ("Supply" is high;
"Return" is omitted).
>
So, open room doors are the primary means of recovering
air from those rooms.  CLOSE a door and you seriously
impede air flow IN and OUT of said room.

 Is that Canada? Because I have seen that in Ottawa. Originally for heating, later AC added.

No, I'm in the southwestern US.  "Building" (construction) conventions
are very different, here.  Everything is "fast and loose".
E.g., roads, here, are asphalt on top of hard-pan.  No sub-base
for drainage, etc.  Cheap (low quality) windows, doors, etc.
Doesn't matter how much the house costs (we have friends in
multimillion dollar homes -- that set out BUCKETS each time
it rains!), it's just a different mindset.
To be fair, heating isn't much of a problem.  E.g., it was 75F today
(mid February) and will likely drop to 40F tonight.  Contrast that
with other parts of the country that might see a HIGH of 40F...

OTOH, most floorplans are "open"; more than half of the
floorspace CAN'T be "isolated" in such a way.
>
The point being that one can easily (deliberately or
accidentally) "capture" waste heat in a room.  This
is a win for places like bathrooms where you typically
want to step OUT of a shower into a WARM(er) room
and not the cold of an air-conditioned space!
>
Even without anything "on", there is a large quiescent
load:
- three switches (25W ea)
- printer (sleeping)
- print server (laserjet has no NIC)
- 12 "idling" UPSs (with loads "off")
- all the servers/workstations "off" (needing power for LoM)
- all the devices (monitors, NASs) with "soft" power switches
>
I'd imagine there's at least 100W there, 24/7/365.
>
But, one doesn't see any real downside as there isn't
a line-item on the electric bill that makes clear the
cost of these inefficiencies.  And, the HVAC does a
reasonably good job of insulating us from any associated
PHYSICAL discomfort!

 Heh, my electricity company does write in the invoice what they think I'm spending electricity on. Like so many Kwh for the fridge, the clothes washer, etc. It is ridiculous.

But that only makes sense for "nominal" homes and energy usage.

I had a gadget to actually measure the power consumed at a socket, but it broke. Like if its internal software got corrupted. I should get another one day, and find out what my computer socket takes.

I have a "Watts Up" but it is really just a novelty item.
I can plug the refrigerator into it and let it "watch" for
a week to summarize energy usage.  But, the label on the
front of the refrigerator already told us what the appliance
is EXPECTED to cost to operate over the course of a year.
Did we actually factor that into our purchase decision?
Or, did we look at the features, size, cosmetics, etc.?
To truly monitor your usage to a point where you can
make intelligent decisions about how to modify your
*behavior*, you need more data ANNOTATED by your "reasoning
at the moment".
The refrigerator door is opened/closed probably 50 times
each day.  When I make the marinade for our Sunday lunch,
I will take out SOME of the ingredients.  Measure them
and return them to the refrigerator in groups -- as I fetch
other ingredients.  How much ($$) is it worth for me to
operate in more of a "batch" mode:  take out ALL of the
ingredients, measure and mix them, then return ALL of them
to the refrigerator?
Each of my UPSs reports on its load every minute (drops a
report on a server that I have configured to accept these).
But, would reviewing that data lead to any meaningful
behavioral changes on my part?  Will I rearrange which
apps are running on each machine to get the lowest
energy consumption?  How will that inconvenience me
(even neglecting the effort to rejigger everything)?
Will it be "worth" that inconvenience?
Having all those devices "sleeping" (1W or less??) vs.
trying to eliminate those loads by ADDING more switched
outlets?  Is it worth the hassle to switch the monitors
OFF when the associated computer(s) are sleeping?  Or,
just let them "sleep", as well?