Come on a thought experiment with me.

I have invented a new image compression format. It shrinks images to 50% smaller sizes than AVIF and is completely lossless. Brilliant!

There's only one problem - it is 1 million times slower.

If it takes your computer 10 seconds to compress an AVIF, it'll take 115 days to compress using my new format.

Is that worth it?

There are five aspects to think about here.

Time

If you're someone like, say, Netflix - this might be fine. You can throw a whole bunch of cloud servers at the problem, so you're not time-bound.

If you're a smaller service, or if you require instantaneous image compression, this is a pointless format. The time-cost - let alone processing costs - is prohibitive.

Space

If you're a library with billions of images - storage costs are a real concern. Halving those costs could save you more than it would cost to recompress all your images.

But storage is pretty cheap these days. Terabytes of storage are easily in range of home users. Is the cost of encoding worth it given that space isn't a limiting factor?

Transit

The Netflix logo is downloaded a hundred million times per day. So would a massive saving in bandwidth costs be worth the trade-off? Probably, yes.

If you pay per MB for your Internet access, you'll probably welcome this new codec. Saving money is great.

But how much does bandwidth really cost? Is it that expensive for either party?

User Experience

I've only mentioned the speed of encoding so far. Most codecs are asymmetric; they take a long time to encode but are fairly quick to decode.

Image formats like JPG and PNG are displayed practically instantly even on modest hardware. What if my wonderful new image format takes a couple of seconds to decode and display? That might be unacceptable. Asking the user to buy a new computer or upgrade their software may also be impossible.

Power and Pollution

I think this is what it comes down to. How much energy does it take to create and use these images? I don't know how much CO₂ it costs to transport a GB of data from one side of the planet to the other. And I don't know how energy efficient data centres are around the world.

I suspect that this is an impossible calculation. This daft image format would be a disaster if run on coal-powered server which sent data over a solar-powered fibre-optic cable. But, conversely, if we have a wind-turbine powered server sending data over the Deep Space Network to Mars (expensive and bandwidth-constrained) then this format is probably less polluting.

I worry that new compression formats face diminishing returns when faced with massive power costs. If the power required to encode and decode images continues to get larger, it could outstrip the savings made on transit and storage.

Energy Saving Trust

@EnergySvgTrust

A quick way to #saveenergy at home is to turn off tablets, laptops and consoles as soon as you stop using them, and ideally unplug them.

This is a big potential #energy saver and could save you up to £30 a year.

Find out more here:
ensvgtr.uk/pS1ut

#EnergyEfficiency pic.x.com/q2CWdlkaBH

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This is known as "Vampire Energy" and, amusingly, is a bit of a Zombie statistic. Being the party-pooper that I am, I emailed the Energy Saving Trust to ask how they calculated the stat. They replied quickly with:

The calculation for £35 savings from turning off stand-by devices per year per household comes from average 201KWh for stand-by power times GB average standard electricity price 16.471 £p/KWh, then rounded to nearest £5.

201KWh comes from “Further Analysis of the Household Electricity Survey Early Findings: Demand side management”.

Please note that the term “stand-by” used in this situation also include device on idle mode.

Please refer to the report in more detail about the assumptions used in the analysis. Here is the link for this report: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/275483/early_findings_revised.pdf

OK, let's take a look at the 2013 report.

First up, what disclaimers do they have?

Straight away they say that it's hard to measure low power devices - so they've been rounded up. But at least they're honest about their methodology.

So, what devices did they monitor?

I'm not sure how many people were still using VCRs back in 2013 - Dixons stopped selling them in 2004. I'd bet hardly anyone uses them now. If you still use one - please switch it off at the wall when not in use!

Set top boxes still exist - but most TVs now have digital decoders built into them. When the TV is on standby, the "STB" is also on standby. Drawing a tiny amount of electricity. But, OK, not everyone has a new TV.

What about things like Sky boxes? Well, the report mentions two issues:

Yes, you can switch these boxes off at the wall - but then they won't record the programmes that you want.

As the report was being published, Sky updated their boxes so they'd be eco-friendly. I'm told that this mode is now the default - but it may be worth checking to see if your devices have an "eco" setting. That will do more good than unplugging things.

It's not just AV equipment contributing to this "vampire" power. Computer equipment is also included:

Again, the report acknowledges that things like modems and routers don't really count as "standby" because they can be in constant use. If you want to check your TikTok in bed, you don't want to have turned off the WiFi.

Laptops have a high average "standby" because they use the first few hours charging their batteries. So, again, legitimate use rather than "vampire" use.

The report also looks at things like microwave oven clocks, tumble-dryers, dishwashers. Some of these do use a considerable amount of standby power. Although resetting the clock on the microwave every morning may not be the best start to your day.

That all feeds in to the 201kWh per year figure.

There's also some discussion about the idle power for things like doorbells, smoke alarms, burglar alarms. They have a significant power draw - but I don't think anyone would suggest that it is sensible to switch off your alarms overnight.

Remember that original Tweet?

Energy Saving Trust

@EnergySvgTrust

A quick way to #saveenergy at home is to turn off tablets, laptops and consoles as soon as you stop using them, and ideally unplug them.

This is a big potential #energy saver and could save you up to £30 a year.

Find out more here:
ensvgtr.uk/pS1ut

#EnergyEfficiency pic.x.com/q2CWdlkaBH

---

It suggests turning off tablets - which are not included in this report. Go buy a cheap Watt-meter and see how much "vampire" energy it is using. Once the battery is fully charged, it will use very little.

Similarly, laptops - even older ones - won't draw too much electricity once they've gone to sleep.

Consoles? Sony publishes stats for the PlayStation. Some of the older ones will use up to 4W in "rest" mode. That allows the device to check for updates and to power on quickly. If you switch it to low-power mode, it'll use less than a Watt.

This "advice" is bunkum.

Should you switch your devices to "eco" mode? Absolutely! Will it save you £30? Not even close.

Update - 27th April 2022

This zombie stat is doing the rounds again today. Here's a Twitter thread where I go into a bit more detail about it.

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

I looked into these claims when they were made last year.

It is mostly nonsense.

Here's what I found shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/10/n…

Sadly, the BBC don't link to the original British Gas research.
Pushing responsibility onto the consumer is, ironically, gaslighting.None

BBC News (UK)

@BBCNews

‘Vampire devices’ cost UK households £147 a year bbc.in/3xX0yOY

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My friend Paul Curry recommended the APC SMT1500i. It usually retails for around £700, but I found a refurbished one for £200

Let's put it through its paces!

It's a chunky monkey! And weighs about 25Kg. So best set it on the floor, or a really sturdy shelf. It's about the same size and shape as a PC tower - with an array of blinkenlights and buttons on the front.

It's pretty simple to use. Plug it in to the mains using the supplied kettle leads. It'll make some beeping noises and the batteries will start to charge. This causes the fans to spin. They're not overly noisy - but they turn off after 3 hours when the unit is fully charged. The unit sits passively quiet until there's a power cut.

You'll notice that on the back are eight IEC sockets. You'll need an IEC to UK plug adapter in order to connect your electronics.

And... that's it. I charged the UPS, plugged my kit in, then unplugged the UPS from the wall to simulate a power cut. It immediately started beeping, to let me know it had lost power, and its little lights started flashing. And, most importantly, all of my gadgets stayed on!

It can output 1kW for about 6 minutes - for a more modest 400W, it'll run for half an hour. So should be able to keep most gadgets going but it isn't going to run your gaming rig for several hours.

Importantly, it has serial control, so you can tell your servers to gracefully shutdown when the power goes out. Let's take a look!

Linux Usage

The RJ45 port is not, sadly, Ethernet. It's a serial port. Kinda redundant as there's a USB-B port as well. Plugging it in to a Linux machine gets you this on lsusb: 051d:0003

Although APC provide their own software, it seems a bit outdated and doesn't fully support Linux.

There's a good tutorial to get the UPS talking to Ubuntu.

Once that's done, you can monitor the battery from the command line. I wasn't able to find a way to upgrade the firmware, or do anything fancy like that. But it seems to show all the basics.

Overall, it's a great little UPS.

We installed 5kW of solar panels on our roof in 2020. Half are East-facing, half West-facing.

Over a full year, they've generated 4,165kWh.

By comparison, the average UK household uses about 3,800kWh of electricity per year.

But working out exactly how much we've used is slightly trickier. We have a smart meter which reads our import and export. And a generation meter which shows how much we've generated.

MATHS!

Our Import - that's the electricity we buy from the grid - was recorded on our smart meter:

Meter Reading on 2020-03-21 was 1,904kWh
Meter Reading on 2021-03-21 was 4,665kWh
Total Import = 2,761kWh

Our export - when we sell electricity back to the grid - was also recorded on the smart meter: 2,768kWh.

We exported exactly the same amount as we imported! We are net energy neutral!

How much did we use directly from our panels?

Generated: 4,165 kWh
Exported:  2,768 kWh

Generated - Exported = Domestic Solar Use

4,165 - 2,768 = 1,397

1.4MWh went directly from our panels into our gadgets. That's about a third of what we generate.

So, our total consumption is:

Import + Domestic = Total consumption.
2,761+1,397=4,158

Roughly, our annual electricity use is 4.1MWh. That's the same as we've generated from our roof.

Offsetting Usage

We got a 2kWh battery a few months ago. It has enough storage to charge up during a summer's day and discharge over night. Ideally, we'd have a couple of MegaWatt hours of storage to charge in summer and discharge all the way through winter. But that tech is a long way off.

We try to run things like the tumble-dryer and dishwasher during the day to make use of the green energy. The big electricity cost is our oven - it's hard to run that during the day if we want a hot meal in the evening.

Our overnight use is a fairly constant 100W - a bunch of smarthome devices and fridge/freezers doesn't take too much. Not many efficiencies to be found there. Some things just need to run continually.

Having spent a year working from home (thanks COVID!!!!) our domestic usage is significantly higher than previous years. WFH means that our computers consume lots of electricity in the day, and our TV & games consoles are powered all through the evening.

Money

In an ideal world, we'd sell electricity for the same price that we pay to import it. Sadly, that's not the case. See "Some thoughts on selling electricity back to the grid" for the details. Basically, we pay 15p/kWh to buy electricity, and we sell it back for 5.5p/kWh. When we sell electricity, the money is taken off our monthly bill.

Over the full year, we've saved about £365. Basically a quid a day. Or, to look at it another way, we've reduced our electricity bills by 60%.

It isn't the most profitable investment - but it makes me extraordinarily happy. And, if energy prices rise, we'll save even more.

What's Next?

We're currently with Octopus Energy (get £50 if you join using that link). They offer a time-of-day tariff. Prices fluctuate based on electricity demand. If we can hook our batteries up to their API, we can discharge the battery when prices are high - and potentially sell back to the grid at a more profitable time.

I blog about our solar panels a lot. But they are pretty boring. They just sit there working. The cost of installation varies depending on where you are in the world and how complicated your roof is. But our small roof generates all the electricity that we use in a year.

This isn't the future - it is now.

Sadly, last year, it died. It was prototype hardware, and these things happen. Moixa offered to replace it with an updated model - which was generous of them. While we were waiting for the new model to come in to stock, we moved house. Then COVID happened...

Anyway, long-story-short, we now have a shiny new 2kWh battery installed!

The batteries came delivered like this:

And were installed in this:

And then wired in like this:

Then given a slightly less industrial look like this:

It has many blinking lights to tell us how it is doing.

It was a bit of a chore to get installed. We had holes drilled in walls. Then we needed to get our electrics checked. Then it needed to be commissioned. Not helped by various lockdown restrictions. But we got there in the end. Moixa were superb at keeping us informed all the way through the process.

How it works

It's slightly more complex than you may think.

• Solar power is generated on our roof as DC.
• An inverter in our loft converts this to AC and pumps it into our consumer unit.
• If we are using electricity, the solar power flows into our house.
• If there is surplus solar power, it goes back to the grid. Our SMETS2 smart meter records how much we have exported.
• A clamp on the tails under the meter records the flow of electricity.
• If we are exporting, the battery sucks up the energy to store later.
• If we are importing, the battery pumps out the energy to use immediately.

Phew! Got that?

CONNECT IT TO THE INTERNET!!!!

Every single thing in my home connects to the Internet. EVERY. THING. The battery is no different. This allows for two useful things:

1. Monitoring of the battery - by myself and Moixa.
2. Adaptive charging
3. Being hacked

The monitoring function is available via a website. It shows simple diagrams like this:

You can also see more complex minute-by-minute graphs.

I'll write a later blog post about the API and how it can be used.

The adaptive charging is interesting. It can, theoretically, look up the weather forecast to work out when it is optimal to charge and discharge. Similarly, it could work with your energy provider to see when their spot rates for electricity make it worth selling.

I'm with Octopus Energy who do some interesting things with adaptive pricing.

Power Cuts

One important thing to note - home batteries do not help you if your area has a power-cut. If there was a cut, the battery might pump power back into the grid - this would be a risk for any electrician working on the grid.

Cost

The cost of battery storage is high.

• Initial install: £500
• Removal of old battery: £175
• Fitting of new battery: £450
• Compensation for original battery not working: -£200
• Cost savings from original battery: -£125

Total: £800

By comparison:

• Tesla PowerWall costs around £6,000 for 13.5 kWh
• Duracell costs around £4,500 for 3kWh

More comparisons are on the Which Guide to Solar Batteries.

Is it worth it?

In monetary terms - no. Probably not. Electricity prices are about £0.14 per kWh when purchased from the grid. So the maximum it can store is about £0.28 worth of electricity.

I can sell my surplus solar electricity at about £0.055 per kWh. So the energy I store for later use, I could have sold.

So I "lose" 5p by not selling it, but "gain" 14p by not buying it in. Call it 9p per kWh.

If the battery charged to full every day of the year, it would save us around £100 per year. So a payback period of around a decade. That improves if electricity prices rise.

But it's not (just) about the money. This is an investment in the future. I believe that distributed local energy storage will play a huge part in our future energy mix. I want to make sure that companies like Moixa have customers and that people will see the benefits of home storage.

Our solar panels produce all of the electricity that we use in a typical year. But we can't make use of all of it. Ideally, we'd have a MegaWatt battery which charged all summer long. But, for now, I'm quite happy with this little box whirring away in the corner.

Discounts!

If you buy a Moixa solar battery and mention my name, you'll get a £200 discount - and I'll receive a £200 incentive.

Score!

If you switch to Octopus Energy we both get £50!

⏻ ⏼ ⭘ ⏽ ⏾

They’re available to use in the browser, in emails, and messages.

Here’s how they look, in both dark and light mode:

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Anyone with iOS 14 able to see these 5 symbols?
If not - who do I still know at Apple that is willing to listen to me grouch at them?

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

If you've got the new iOS, I'd love to know how our new Unicode Power Symbols render.
⏻ ⏼ ⏽ ⭘ ⏾
UnicodePowerSymbol.com
THANKS GANG!

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Mark Baker

@Mark_Baker_UK

Replying to @edent@edent Yup can see them on iOS 14 👍 pic.x.com/hpue9dgaku

---

Sadly, Android users still can’t take advantage of these new symbols. Although Google have added them to their Noto fonts – they show a curious reluctance in rolling them out to Android. Hopefully this new iOS availability will help them reconsider.

If you’d like to add these symbols to your computer or your website, you can download the Power Symbols font or Google's Noto Sans Symbols 2.

Huge thanks to the gang at Apple for helping bring these characters to millions of users. It's fantastic to see a tiny proposal to a standard suddenly be made available world-wide. Although it isn't technically an emoji, I'm excited to see people using it for all sorts of things.

Straight up, it looks like a plastic toast rack. It's a chunky beast, but surprisingly lightweight. You won't have trouble lifting it, but it stays firmly in place.

Round the other side are 10 USB ports. Well spaced out, not too cramped.

It might be nice if they lined up with the rack, but that's a minor quibble.

There's a fan inside the unit, although I never got it to switch on.

Good airflow all round. It takes a standard "kettle" lead. I was happy to see a UK plug - complete with earthing - came with the unit.

Wired up competently, and with a 13 amp fuse. OK. Let's test drive this thing!

I thought I'd try and tip the unit over by placing a 10 inch Android tablet at one end. But the unit's centre of gravity is just right. Let's pile on the tech!

MOAR TECH!

The slots are just about wide enough for a MacBook Air to fit in.

EVAN MOOOORE TECHHHH!!!

2.4 amps is sufficient to power a Raspberry Pi. Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of those!

BUCKAROO!

Yup, the Nintendo Switch also fits.

OK, let's press the big button at the back and see if it explodes...

All the devices switched on. Those that support fast charging were able to draw the maximum current from it.

There is a fan inside the unit - to prevent overheating - but I wasn't able to get it to come on, even with all 10 devices charging.

Downsides

There's a lot to love about this mega-charger, but it isn't without flaws.

Firstly, it costs seventy quid. I guess £7 per charger isn't too bad - especially for a high power one. You also only need one plug socket.

USB-C devices are supported, but there's no USB-C specific slots. You won't get the advantage of USB-C fast charging. You can charge your new gadgets - but at slower speeds than with a dedicated charger.

Cable management is a bit horrific with 10 things plugged in. That's inevitable unless all 10 devices have a charging port in exactly the same place.

If I was going to be nit-picky, I'd prefer the USB slots to be spaced out in line with the "toast rack". It might be good to have individual LEDs for each slot.

Conclusion

If you've got 10 devices that you need charged simultaneously... This is probably as good as it gets.

You can buy the Ntonpower 10 port USB charger on Amazon.

Here's a video of me controlling them from my Amazon Alexa:

The latency seems a little slow - hard to tell if that's Amazon only relying on US data centres for Alexa skills, or the connection to my home. Once set up, it works well. Oh... but the set up experience...

Set Up

I'll be honest - configuring a smarthome for voice control is still a pain in the arse. This is mostly Amazon's fault - but it doesn't help that all the kit I use has non-standard interfaces.

Here's the long journey I took to install the skill, configure it, and finally use it.

1. Read the eWeLink tutorial on setting up Alexa.
2. I'll assume you've already set up your Alexa, connected it to the WiFi, and configured the app.
3. In the Amazon app, go to Settings.
4. Select Skills
5. Search for eWeLink (not Sonoff!)
6. Select "eWeLink Smart Home Fan".The "fan" refers to the fact that this is not an official app, not that it only controls fans.
7. Enable the skill.
8. This takes you to the web browser which then redirects to the "coolkit" site.Usually I would tell you to be wary of putting your password into a random site - but this is, apparently, the same company as eWeLink and Sonoff. Confusing, isn't it?
9. Log in with your email address and password and you're eventually redirected back to Amazon
10. Close the browser and return to the Alexa app.
11. Ignore the fact that it is still asking you to enable the skill, exit this page and go back to the home screen of the app.
12. Go to menu, Smart Home. Then click on the Smart Home Skills.
13. Click on the EweLink skill.
14. That just gives you reviews. Because Amazon don't bother with usability testing their apps.
15. Go back and click on the icon for eWeLink.
16. Now "Manage Devices in Smart Home".
17. Oh, we're back here again! Select "Devices"
18. Scroll all the way to the bottom and select "Discover".
19. Wait. And marvel at how crap Philips Hue must be to need extra support text.
20. Hopefully the new eWeLink devices will be displayed.
21. You can exit the app and use voice control.

Bloody hell! No normal person is going to bother going through that many steps, are they?

Oh, and that's not even the worst part! When I first set up the lamp, it wouldn't work. Why? Because I already had an Alexa group called "lamp". There's no feedback in the app - and it's impossible to rename device in Alexa. The Echo just pathetically says that there's a problem - but not how to solve it. So you have to delete the devices, rename them in the eWeLink app, then re-add them.

Alexa is a UX disaster. If you deviate a millimetre from the happy path, you'll be lost in the woods without hope.

This is not the future.

Kit used in this demo

• Sonoff POW review - buy it.
• Sonoff S20 WiFi plug - buy it
• WisQo smart lightswitches - buy them

This is the Sonoff Pow - a WiFi enabled in-line power switch.

Set Up

Wiring up the Pow is relatively easy. The cover to the terminal block is secured with a simple screw.

I found the opening a little cramped - but it's easy to open up the entire unit. Which gives us a full view of the circuitry. There's an unpopulated header on the bottom left - yup - this thing is hackable!

A reminder, working with electricity is dangerous - if in doubt, consult with a trained professional.

The latches on the terminal block are stiff, but that's probably a good way to stop the leads from falling out.

Once wired up, and power applied, the LED starts flashing.

From there, you can install the Android app and connect the Pow to your WiFi.

In Action

Your system doesn't support WEBM video.

Cost

You can buy the Sonoff Pow on Amazon UK for £14.

Buying direct from the manufacturer is around $11 + $4 shipping

If you splash out, you can buy the Sonoff G1 - which has a GSM modem built in. Add a SIM card and it will connect to GPRS. Only $20!

Hacking

As with other Sonoff products, this is built on the ESP8266. As the manufacturer says:

Apart from traditional consumers, Sonoff Pow is a very exciting product for those into hacking, since four program ports have been reserved for burning external firmware. Now, isn’t that thrilling?

There are a range of firmwares available on GitHub, and YouTube videos showing how to take control of the device. There's a burgeoning community of bloggers with some great tutorials - see Tinkerman and CNX Software.

Verdict

As with the S20 plug, this is a great little unit. It's easy to set up, the app works reasonably well, and it is dead cheap.

The power monitoring seem fairly accurate - it picked up the exact wattage of my lightbulb - and the timers worked.

As with the S20, its usefulness depends on the electronics you have at home. If you have devices which regularly need turning on and off from the mains, this is perfect. The addition of monitoring makes it useful for anyone energy conscious.

The app is adequate - not brilliant. There's no public API - which is a shame - but you can rewrite the firmware if that bothers you.

Amazon's Echo Smart Home doesn't work natively with the Sonoff. There is a 3rd-Party Alexa skill - called eWeLink Fan. It's not as easy to set up as a normal smart-home device, and judging from the comments on the Sonoff website suffers from some problems.

If you're handy with wire strippers, it's a great little gizmo. Ideally it would be built into appliances - but as a way to add IoT smarts to an old device, it's pretty good buy.

You can get the Sonoff Pow on Amazon UK for £14.

Buying direct from the manufacturer is around $11 + $4 shipping

All my house has Alternating Current circuits. Therefore, I need an inverter to change the DC to AC. This is inefficient.

Most of the electronic devices I own are powered by DC. So I plug little wall-warts into the AC sockets to convert back to DC. This is also inefficient.

One of the DC devices I'll be getting soon is the Maslow Battery. It's like the Tesla home battery. A several kWh array which can power my home once the sun has gone down. It discharges via AC. Again, another inefficiency.

• Solar Panels - DC-AC
• Maslow Battery Charging - AC-DC
• Discharging into the mains - DC-AC
• Powering a phone, computer, TV, etc - AC-DC

Generally speaking, inversion is around 95% efficient. Worst case scenario, that's an 18.5% loss of energy through inefficiency.

Now, it's not all doom and gloom. The Maslow battery has a dedicated DC circuit which can power light and some USB devices - that takes us down to a 10% loss.

It Doesn't Have To Be This Way

Those of you who've studied history may recall "The War of the Currents". In the early days of electricity there were constant arguments over how electricity should be distributed - AC or DC? Think of it like the iPhone/Android war of its day.

There were lots of scare stories over AC (used in the first electric chair) and DC (you won't be able to let go of the wire) - but both are equally deadly if mishandled.

Eventually - and I'm simplifying - the world settled on AC for long distance transmission of electricity. It's perfect for keeping polluting power plants away from residential areas. For general use in the modern house, DC is far more practical.

Can we change the world? Would it make more sense to carry on distributing AC power - but have every home use a single, efficient inverter?

There are a few devices in the home which would still need unadulterated AC - fridges, cookers, vacuum cleaners - which can still run off the power supplied to the home. So perhaps we still need dual circuitry in our homes.

Consider these plug sockets which you can retro fit -

But that's still using lots of small inverters rather than one big one.

And it uses the older version of the USB standard. USB C will allow for 100W to be delivered via a standard cable. So you can power laptops and TVs, as well as smaller devices.

Perhaps, in the glorious future, all our power-sockets will be USB-C by default - with a few legacy AC connections for older devices.

Isn't that what we want? An efficient transport mechanism transformed once into DC for the devices which need it?

Ah well, a boy can dream, eh?

A couple of months ago, I asked this question on HackerNews

I was looking for the electrical "standby" symbol - AKA IEC5009 / IEEE1621. You know, the circle with the line through it. The one that's on every single bloody piece of electronic equipment produced since the mid-1970s.

It's not in the Unicode standard.

I can, if I want, have a snowman ☃ or a reversed rotated floral bullet ☙.

What other useful and/or important symbols are missing from Unicode?

Well, Joe Loughry took up the challenge and, with the gracious help of Bruce Nordman, wrote up a proposal which has been submitted to the Unicode consortium!

The proposal will be considered in early February - and I'll let you all know the outcome.

In the meantime, we've created a Web Font which you can use if you want to display the symbols.

We based our estimations on the Europa Solar Calculator which estimated that they would generate around 2,700 kWh per year.

Annoyingly, we haven't been able to hook the panels up to the Internet, so I can't get daily readings. So, every three months we have to manually look at the meter. Last month, after a year of operation, it stood at...

03172.42 kWh

That totally busted through our estimations!

The last three months saw them generate a whopping 489 kWh.

Now, I'm not sure if the weather this year has been particularly favourable, and I've no idea if next year will be as sunny, nor do I know whether the panels effectiveness will degrade over time.

But, still, that's pretty damn impressive!

Money Money Money

The current Feed-In-Tariff set by the Government (and guaranteed for 25 year to rise with inflation) is around £0.454 per kWh generated, plus £0.03 per kWh exported to the grid. It's assumed that 50% of what you generate is exported.

That means, over a year, our solar panels have earned us, roughly £1,500! (The price has recently gone up, so it's not a straight calculation.)

That's comfortably ahead of our expectations of £1,200 per year. It also doesn't take into account energy savings - we don't live there - so with the recent energy price rises, that's a decent saving for the tenants.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how they perform over the next twelve months.

If you'd like solar panels installed, I can highly recommend Sunny Future Solar.

He was half right. We've settled on USB as the standard  - simply because it's ubiquitous.

A few days ago, the ITU finally caught up with the rest of the world and endorsed micro-usb as the standard for all phone chargers.

Sam Manchin tweeted about now seeing USB charging stations in hotels.

In Hotel USB

For the last few years, every device I've bought has had a mini-usb charging port.  My phones, camera, BlueTooth headphones, spare phone battery etc.  It means I only need to take one charger on holiday. If i forget or lose it, I can guarantee that someone in the room will have a USB cable.

So, why am I a bit annoyed?

Well, I banked on mini-USB - the new standard is micro-USB.  Or is it the other way around? Either way, I'm stuck with devices which will either need little converter dongles or I can buy new kit.

New Vs Old. Or vice-versa.

Now, there are some very good reasons why the new is better than the old.

• More insertion cycles - you can plug it in and out several thousand times before it will break.
• You'll have to buy newer kit
• There's a grip on the bottom which means you need a bit more force to remove it - should stop accidental unplugging
• It's orientation is less well defined, meaning you'll spend more time wondering which way up it goes.
• It's smaller, meaning your new RAZR won't need to be any bigger than a wafer thin mint
• It will charge things at 5V and 100 milli-amps.   Unless you're on USB 3.0, in which case it's 150 mA. Better make sure that your cables are forwards compatible.

So, there's some good and some bad.  Overall, I'm glad there's a standard - even if it is mildly inconvenient for me in the short term.