What does smart energy mean to you?

Why aren’t people snapping up smart energy tech?

So how can we grab the attention of our fellow energy consumers and convince them that smart energy makes their lives easier, more convenient and saves them money? It’s not as though we have a shortage of ways to do it; a quick internet search shows us energy monitors, apps and countless articles about ways to be green  – all of which save people time and money. So what’s the catch?

‘Smart’ is confusing

Just about everything is smart: phones, TVs, homes, grids and even cities. But ‘smart’ isn’t used in the same way in every case. It can (and should) mean ‘intelligent’ or ‘connected’, but in some cases it’s just marketing jargon to imply ‘really really cool’. And I don’t know about you, but I find ‘really really cool’ quite hard to quantify. The true meaning of smart

A truly smart device has ideas above its station, mixing form, function and purpose to become a lot more than the sum of its parts. It’s the reason your smartphone thinks it’s a PC and your PC thinks it’s a mothership. The more connected we are to things and the more they talk to each other the more we can achieve with one interface. We now regularly ask our phones to wake us up, tell us the weather for the day and find a place to go out to dinner.

So how can we make energy smart?

The missing link could have a lot to do with how energy saving is perceived; we’re wise to greenwash and not as motivated by cost saving as we are interested in our own personal comfort and enjoyment of the home (I’m sure there are exceptions to this sweeping generalisation – but our extensive customer research has shown time and again that ‘saving £1’ is not as important to families as ‘I want my home to be comfortable’).

Mixing business with pleasure

We undoubtedly need to look again at the way we produce and market smart energy products – ones that don’t patronise and over-promise but genuinely excite us. That’s why we at geo, the brains behind Cosy, are looking at new (and old) ways of powering the home. A hybrid home, if you like. Just like a hybrid car uses a mixture of traditional and emerging tech, we’re interested in creating a hybrid home. We aim to:

  • bring together smart heating (yes I’m looking at you, Cosy) and energy monitoring to help people enjoy their homes, whether that’s through comfort, saved energy or minimised spend.
  • make technology accessible and human – not created in response to an idea someone had down the pub but designed for real people in real life situations. 
  • take our customers on a journey: build a product range for the home that grows with you and can be added to as tech take-up takes off.

Bringing smart home

So what do you think? Are you excited by the hybrid home? Are you moved by cost, convenience or carbon? What does smart energy mean to you? Let me know your thoughts on this fully functioning, high-speed, instant email address (Notice I didn’t say ‘smart’.)