Creative Connectivity

UK Parliament calls for Evidence on Smart Metering Programme

As readers of my blog will know, I am concerned about the GB Smart Metering programme, not because of any issues with smart meters per se – they can be an important part of a smarter grid. My concern has always been that the GB programme will fail to deliver most of the potential benefits of smart metering, instead saddling consumers with the cost of a lot of obsolete technology.

Now it looks as if that message may be getting across. Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee has just started an evidence check and is requesting input from anyone with relevant views on the GB Smart Metering Programme. You have until midday on 28^th January and can submit comments on their website. It claims they will be “pre-moderated” and that “Your comment will not be treated as formal written evidence to the Committee.” I hope that’s just standard wording and not a devious attempt to dismiss evidence.

Some initial mistakes pushed the technology in the wrong direction. Instead of correcting them, DECC has applied more and more complex sticking plasters whilst denying the underlying issues, to the point where the programme is now:

The most complex system in the world
The most expensive system in the world
Based on technology which is heading to be obsolete by the early 2020s.

To justify its value, DECC has ignored evidence on consumer behaviour, relying instead on wishful thinking from academics and consultants. As more is learnt from other deployments around the world it is clear that the benefits have been vastly overstated. One utility – British Gas, almost certainly has enough data to provide a clear picture on long term benefits, but this has not been released, probably because it would torpedo the current impact assessment.

I believe it is the time for a thorough review to ensure that Britain gets the smart metering system it needs. If the current programme continues it will almost certainly overrun on cost. Parts of it will be obsolete by the time the deployment is complete and a new replacement programme will need to start by the end of 2020 if the meters are to continue operating, with all of the associated costs. It has all of the hallmarks of a major IT disaster, but one where the public will be more conscious than ever before of the true cost of a Government screw-up, because it will be clearly visible on their inflated energy bills.

The UK Government departments and Non-Departmental Government Bodies have widely different approaches to basing policy on evidence. At its best we have NICE – the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which is world recognised for its competence in using evidence to direct clinical and prescribing policy. However, at the shallow end of the evidence pool we find the desperate doggy paddling of DECC, whose mandarins still pursue the approach of policy leading evidence, i.e. they make up their minds about what they want to do, then manufacture the “evidence” to support the policy.

Is Hearing Loss the New Diabetes?

The twentieth century has seen many revolutions in the way we live our lives. One of the less discussed is that it has given us the mass ability to actively injure our health. Over the last fifty years, the miracles of modern science have turned the medical profession 180 degrees, sending maladies to the grave rather than its patients. To compensate, we’ve taken the opportunity to find highly successful ways of throwing that newly found health and longevity away. Throughout the twentieth century we have developed generational and lifestyle diseases on a massive scale as we live longer and indulge our addictions. From smoking and lung cancer, alcohol and cirrhosis, to fast food, obesity and type 2 diabetes, humanity has shown its unerring ability to put short term pleasure ahead of long term health. Each of these diseases impact society, not least because of the cost of supporting a population which is avidly collecting a growing range of self-inflicted, long term chronic conditions.

Another one, which we don’t talk about and generally don’t want to hear about is quietly joining the list of widespread chronic conditions – hearing loss.

The Battle for Mesh. Bluetooth vs Thread?

It’s a New Year, which means it’s time for the annual week of madness in Las Vegas which is the Consumer Electronics Show. For four days, the electronics industry comes together to tell consumers what they ought to be buying, whilst analysts and the media try to predict what will really be the hot product sector for the coming year.

Over the last few years, as PCs, tablets and phones have lost their wow factor, that’s proven to be a little more difficult than it used to be. In 2014, the consensus was that wearables would be the next big thing. They have definitely made strides beyond basic step counting, but are still smouldering rather than setting the world on fire. Instead, the innovation which caught the public imagination at CES in 2014 was the selfie stick.

In 2015, the smart money was on smart homes. But with a few exceptions, consumers felt the smart thing to do with their money was to buy more selfie sticks. This year, the pundits will probably predict that 2016 will be the year of the drone. My guess is that most consumers will still prefer to buy selfie sticks. Unless someone comes up with cheap drones that take selfies*.

Of course, like all good works of fiction, the CES show contains a number of interesting subplots, one of which will be the battle for mesh.

LoRa vs LTE-M vs Sigfox

There‘s a battle going on for the infrastructure technology that will support the Internet of Things. Currently the three most talked about contenders are Sigfox, LoRa and LTE-M. There are a lot of other alternatives and it’s quite possible that none of LoRa, Sigfox nor LTE-M0 will win, but that’s another story. If you search for LPWAN (Low Power Wireless Area Networks) you’ll see that the battle for supremacy is a hot topic. It’s largely because of the impending loss of the GPRS networks which power much of today’s M2M business. As a result, almost every day you’ll find another article debating their respective technical merits.

I’m going to argue that these comparisons miss the point. Which technology will win depends far more on the business model than on the underlying technology. The three technologies listed above are interesting to compare, as they exemplify three significantly different approaches to an IoT business, which can be broadly summed up as:

Sigfox – become a global Internet of Things operator
LoRa – provide a technology that lets other companies enable a global Internet of Things
LTE-M – evolve an existing technology to make more money for network operators

Between them they promise to help us get to the predicted 50 billion connected devices in 2020. A winning solution could allow the IoT to take off and make its supporters a lot of money. The ones that fail may be limited to niche applications and lose investors hundreds of millions of dollars. Only one is likely to win. It’s also possible that all of the current pretenders could lose. So let’s forget the technology and look at the business models.

GB Smart Meters Delayed Again. Again.

It’s that time of year when the days get dark and cold, and the energy media turns its interest to the possibility of power cuts in the coming winter. Which also means it’s the time for DECC to slip out their Annual Report on the Roll-out of Smart Meters, in the hope that no one will notice it.

As expected, everything’s slipped, but this time, for the first time, we get an example of how DECC fudges the benefits figures they claim justify the smart metering programme. I sometimes wonder whether I’m the only person who reads these reports beyond the rose-tinted executive summary, as if you dig beneath the spin, they tell a clear and repeated story of a project that is going badly wrong. So for anyone who didn’t make it past page 6, here’s the truth about what’s happening with the GB smart metering deployment.

What sort of Hardware Startup are You?

Everybody seems to agree that it’s never been easier to start a hardware company than it is today. After years of being eclipsed by software and services, hardware is sexy again. However, that doesn’t mean it’s any easier to be successful. Over the past few years I’ve mentored a number of startups and realised that their expectations often don’t match the reality of what they are. That doesn’t mean they can’t succeed, but it does mean that they’re probably wasting effort trying to be the wrong sort of company. There are lots of different models which can be successful, but a company is most likely to work if it knows where it is going and what it wants to be.

Hence this article. If you’re contemplating a hardware startup, or have already taken the first steps, you need to think seriously about what you want to be doing in five or ten years’ time and how you’re going to get there. It’s every bit as important as getting your product out. Recognising that gives you the best chance of achieving your goal and minimises the risk to your investors and employees – considerations which should be at the top of your priority list. It still won’t be easy, but if you can reduce some unnecessary pain by getting the right model, it will certainly be a lot less stressful.