Gregory's ServerMy ceiling fan is cooling me down and making it absolutely fine for me to be at 28 degrees, but it's doing that by dumping 40 watts of heat into the room, and can my ceiling fan tell when I'm nearby? Can it bollocks, if I leave the room then it keeps exhausting 40w for blowing onto dead surfaces that can't sweat
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 Moving the heat through fluid would be better than moving it through the air, but we're not even trying to move it through the air, what the heck  @ifixcoinops I recall Gates mentioned wearing a pin that allowed the new house he was building (late 90s?) to turn lights on and off based on his presence. I don't think we need that but we could totally do something with motion sensors, etc. But there's no subscription upsell for that so no chance these days. Turning houses into thin clients. @tehstu the annoying thing is that it's so trivially easy to make a life form detector that everyone who gets a hobby microcontroller does it accidentally before they find out about pullups 🦝 obviously a smart fan would need a big SPDT switch so it could be toggled back to hardwired Just A Fan mode 🐷 obviously a smart fan could have no buttons or switches and just a bunch of shitty capacitive sensors because they're so much cheaper @ifixcoinops omg I have a vornado and it has no buttons, just capacitive plates. Turns on at full blast every time, just outstanding design here The angel on my left shoulder: 👼 If we put electronics in a fan then that means a power supply, and capacitors fail The trash-fingered raccoon technician on my right shoulder: 🦝 There are fans that run off a drill battery  @ifixcoinops Mitsubishi ductless mini-split heat pumps have models with motion sensors. Could just use a zwave or ZigBee plug or even X-10 with a motion senor. There are probably also plugs with motion sensors built in. 👼 DC motor, 🦝, brushes also fail 🦝 Brushless DC motors are also a thing 👼 Ah yes, reinventing the AC induction motor, rock-solid reliable basic tech for over a century, by involving a, what was it, a COMPUTER, yes, 🦝 Alright there are some things to think about, but the answers could save people a lot of money, not to mention the emissions versus air conditioning 👼 But for how long, 🦝? A basic fan will last as long as its owner, how long will your brushless DC computer fan keep going? Will it fail just outside of the warranty? 🐷 pardon me, gentlemen, I couldn't help but overhear...  @ifixcoinops 🧐Smart fan is consuming some power at all times so it can respond to voice commands, and if you do something like wire it to a timer or motion sensor it won't work because it boots up in "spying but not blowing" mode.   @ifixcoinops Probably 30 years ago Bill Gates’ house (on Seattle’s Lake Union, I think) was set so that each room would sense a person’s approach/presence and then turn on lights, audio etc. Your idea should be easily doable. @ifixcoinops I reckon you might be able to do something with #Dyson fans (or any with temperature sensors and an HA integration) and some complicated #HomeAssistant routines! @ifixcoinops I mean ZigBee enabled fans and presence sensors can be hacked together to turn off when no one's around. Yes, it adds complexity, but could still improve power and heat efficiency |
@ifixcoinops There are variable refrigerant flow systems that can do something like this, almost certainly including water heating, but I suspect finding people capable of installing them is extremely difficult in the US. The installer will almost certainly need to travel to you. I suspect most such systems also involve geothermal.
With geothermal it might make sense to connect the refrigerator, since the water will likely be below the ambient temperature. But refrigerators tend to be optimized for room temperature anyway, so I think it would only be a tiny difference from dealing with the air conditioned room temperature.
I close the basement central air vents in the summer to keep the water heater from overcooling the space. I'll open them enough in winter to keep the space warm enough to prevent the resistance coil from operating, but no more.
The water heater seems sufficient to keep the basement dehumidified as well, which is nice. The dehumidifier barely ever kicks on.
@ifixcoinops There are variable refrigerant flow systems that can do something like this, almost certainly including water heating, but I suspect finding people capable of installing them is extremely difficult in the US. The installer will almost certainly need to travel to you. I suspect most such systems also involve geothermal.