Recently, I was notified by NVEnergy that I qualified for a free upgrade to my thermostats (which are just standard mercury-controlled numbers for now) through a program called "
mPowered Home Energy Management."
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| I just use the old-fashioned ones. No breaking in to these. |
The deal is that they install these flashy digital thermostats, and that gives them the ability to remotely adjust your settings by +/- 4 degrees. In other words they have remote control of that aspect of your house. Even so, they would never shut off your climate control if it were very hot or very cold, or make radical adjustments, but the thought of someone else being able to access and manipulate any aspect of my own house is unsettling.
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| How NVEnergy wants to do it. |
This is especially true as the idea of a
smart grid becomes more and more of a reality. What the linked page is ultimately telling you is that
appliances and electrical infrastructure inside your house will be connected to an electrical grid that can gather data about them and allow for them to be controlled remotely, ostensibly by you. But it leads to a whole host of other problems. For example, digital haunting.
Consider
this article in Forbes, in which security experts hacked into houses and gained the ability to turn lights on and off, as well as the TV, and even gather information about the house itself and in one case a child who lived there. They would actually call the people, tell the people they had gained access to their house's automated control, then proving it by doing some pretty ghostly things. It's more an issue of the poor security designed into the products than the invalidity of the products themselves.
See, this is why I stick to the manual climate control. It's all me.
This is creepy. I always thought it would be cool to control part of my house with an app. it would be nice to get rid of the garage door opener, and when in bed not have to get up to turn the light or tv off. But, the fact that a stranger can hack in and control my home turns the whole idea of this off to me. I'm wondering if NV Energy can do this to my thermostat because the digital one in my house was here when i bought the house.
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ReplyDeleteI already have enough ghostly sounds in my house and I do not need any more. I believe that its a great idea but just the thought of having someone controlling the system is a concern.
DeleteAnything attached to a network has the ability to be exploited. The recently deceased hacker Barnaby Jack dedicated his life to pointing out flaws in onboard automobile computers, ATM machines, even pacemakers. It is only a matter of time before someone targets the trending use of "smart" appliances. I just hope that as things get smarter, we are smart enough to implement the correct security necessary.
ReplyDeleteI thought about having this remote digital thermostat installed in my home. My first thought was that it would help me save on my energy bill if the energy company controlled the temperature.There would be no mistakes on my bill as far as how many units I used for the month, especially the summer months when my bill is the most expensive.
ReplyDeleteUntil the energy company installed a new remote control energy meter to replace the old meter that was on the outside of my home. Because the energy company did not need my okay on this project, it made me rethink whether I should trust them putting a digital thermostat inside my home.
However, having a haunted home seems much more serious,the fact that someone could have control of my automation system is scary.I would hate to think that when I come home and drive into my garage that I would not have control of the remote to my garage door for protection. Maybe their should have been more forethought put into the first system and because passwords can be compromised hopefully the new system is safe or has safety features.
I would never allow Nevada Energy touch my thermostats. I don’t think Nevada Energy needs to intervene with the thermostats and control what temperature a person house is. Recently one of my neighbors allowed Nevada Energy to do this to their house. It was supposed to save him money for every hour they would turn off his air conditioner for ten minutes. After two weeks the air conditioner would turn off for 20 minutes, then 30 minutes, and then it was out for around two hours. My neighbor is 87 years old and it was 92 degrees when they finally turn the air conditioner back on. I will never let Nevada Energy have control over my air conditioning.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, your poor neighbor. That does not seem right, it seems they are taking advantage of him. They should have access of his age and know he is probably not that familiar with his new digital termostat vs. his old one he had prior. This should have been put into consideration especially if they are taking on that responsibilty.
DeleteI have one of these and I use the research to save money. The only issue is that the money that NV says I save is from NV energy and no other source. But I like it myself for the fact in those cases that I am away from my house longer then expected and I may have left the thermostat to low.
ReplyDeleteI have a digital thermostat, but its not the newer NV Energy one. I like keeping my temperature at 72, and I won't allow NV Energy or anyone else to change it because THEY think it's better. Besides, I know how much I pay every month and if I wanted to save money, I'm more than capable of changing the temperature myself.
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