Creative Connectivity

UK Smart Metering Plan Delayed

Today in Parliament, the UK Secretary for State for Energy and Climate Change – Ed Davey, announced that there would be a one year delay in the GB deployment of smart meters. That’s not a great surprise to anyone. Rather than copy what has been deployed in other countries, the UK industry has been developing specifications to make our smart metering system the most complex (and expensive) of any deployment anywhere in the world, and complexity takes time.

However, the timing is not great. Anyone following smart meter deployment will have noticed a distinct slowdown over the past few years. Some of the larger US utilities have already rolled out smart meters, helped by $83 billion of stimulus funding. A significant chunk of Australia has them as well. But as stimulus funds have dried up, so have the bulk of smart meter deployments.

The one remaining gung-ho project was the UK one, where previous ministers had been keen to pull it forward. A lot of the rest of the world, particularly other countries within Europe, who are working out how to address the EC directive on smart metering, have been waiting and watching to see how we’re doing. On the surface it’s looked good. Underneath there are conflicting interests which have been building up delays. Unfortunately the timing of today’s announcement plays to quite a lot of those underlying politics, which could further derail the future of the program.

Bluetooth Smart and the Growth of Appcessories

Most people have never heard of Appcessories, but they’re set to become one of the biggest growth areas of the decade, with a potential market value of over $130 billion by 2020, as shown in the new report “To Ubiquity and Beyond”. Most analysts have missed them, as they’re made possible by the convergence of a set of disparate elements coming together, most notably the incorporation of Bluetooth Smart in mobile phones and tablets, low cost and easy to use silicon for hardware developers, and published APIs which allows developers of phone Apps to talk to connected devices. Throw in the innovation that is arising out of crowd-funding initiatives like Kickstarter and indiegogo and you have the ingredients for a new revolution in connected consumer goods.

What is an Appcessory? Think of a cuddly toy for your three year old which interacts with the story on her tablet. Think of the stylus you use for sketching on your iPad, where squeezing it changes the thickness or colour of the lines you’re painting. Or a motor and rudder you clip on a paper plane which lets you control its flight by tipping your smartphone from side to side. LED lights that come on when you enter the room, which you can program the colour of, or which even sense your mood from the way you’re walking. Armbands that know you’re about to point at the TV and tell it to change channel before you even move your finger. Clothes that tell you they need washing. Many things that until recently were the preserve of science fiction, but are about to become possible and eminently affordable.

Green Button – The Damp Squib of Smart Energy

If Google can’t make it work, call in a US Senator. That seems to be the approach to consumer energy engagement in the US, where shortly after the demise of Google PowerMeter, US Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra challenged the energy industry to come up with an analogue of the Blue Button, called the Green Button.

The Blue Button is a good idea. It’s a scheme, pioneered by the VHA, to let patients download their medical records in a standard format, so that they can be shared with doctors, hospitals, emergency responders and other caregivers. It lets patients add personal and insurance information and supports a host of detailed medical data. When it was launched it was with the expectation that it would “improve the quality of patient-clinician interactions”. Over one million members of the VHA now use it, and it’s being adopted by other healthcare organisations in the US because of its success in improving that interaction.

The rather naive hope was that Green Button would do the same for energy, but the analogy quickly breaks down. Whereas most healthcare workers see helping patients as an integral part of their contract, most utilities don’t. Trying to claim any analogy between the Blue Button and the Green Button is really just a bit of sly marketing to try and disguise the fact that most utilities only want to work with their customers if it’s for their own benefit. Utilities don’t sign a Hippocratic oath. The only oaths they utter are those against regulators, the fuel poor, late payers and air conditioning users who don’t sign up to demand response programs.

Potatoes win Prizes – Gamification, Loyalty and Viggle

Over the past few years I’ve been working in the mHealth and smart energy sectors. Both have a common belief, which is that consumers will do things that are in their own interest – namely spend time and effort in order to save themselves money and keep themselves fit.

That mantra has seen a raft of new companies appear in each sector, directly targeting the public with products that attempt to change consumer behaviour or lock them into a brand. In the mHealth sector most have realised that medical or clinical approaches are too difficult, so have euphemistically renamed exercise and dieting as health and fitness. Meanwhile, energy utilities are attempting to improve their image by rolling out customer engagement programs, whether that’s in the form of green button apps in the US, or in home energy displays in the UK. Both hope that this will result in customer loyalty for their brand, attracting new customers and retaining existing ones.

In recent months both sectors have latched onto gamification, often as a result of hiring strategic marketing people from web and mobile phone companies. They’ve taken to gamification like enthusiastic bricks to water, hoping it will change the way consumers value their products and buy from them. I think they’re sadly mistaken. As proof, I’d cite the success of Viggle, which illustrates exactly what the average consumer wants from gamification. Viggle let’s you win points by watching TV. It’s nothing to do with better health or savings on your energy bill – it’s the couch potato dream of free pizza for mindless inactivity.

NHS claims 200% of Global Telehealth Users

If you’ve been following the UK health pronouncements on telehealth, you’ll be aware of the policy of recruiting 3 million patients to become telehealth users by 2017. And if you’ve been following the industry analysts you’ve probably spotted the recent report by InMedica, suggesting that by 2017 there will be 1.8 million patients using telehealth worldwide. In other words, the UK’s program will be responsible for around 200% of telehealth patients. I know we did well at the Olympics, but that’s setting the bar rather high.

It suggests that either our ministers in the Department of Health are doing a Chris Huhne, or else the analysts are being uncharacteristically understated about the future.

The Curious Cult of the Connected Thermostat

Last month, Nest Labs managed to haul in a further $80 million of VC funding for their Internet-connected smart thermostat. That’s good news for Nest, but makes one wonder what the investors are hoping to get back? There is no questioning its success in the US. Nest claim to be shipping about 40,000 thermostats every month. That equates to around 5% of the 10 million a year US market, which has historically been dominated by Emerson, Honeywell, Johnson and Lux. But how much of the other 95% can they win?

A basic programmable thermostat in the US costs under $20, not the $250 price tag of the Nest. As such, Nest appeals to those who like buying technology and form rather than function – it’s no surprise that it sells as an accessory in Apple Stores in the US. It has all of the glamour and pizzazz of Apple products, but with a worrying limitation – it is just hardware – there’s no service model. In other words, it’s a bit like an iPhone without an App Store.

There is no doubt that it’s a lot easier to use than most conventional thermostats, which seem to be exclusively designed by engineers who failed their user experience courses and want to get their own back on society. However, there are plenty of alternatives which are cheaper, just as easy to use and which work outside the US. And there have been for the last few decades. But these alternatives have historically failed to sell. That’s changed, but this new generation of connected wireless thermostats has an Achilles’ heel – they need someone to support the web service for their life, which may be ten to twenty years, and I can’t see where that’s been factored in. So is Nest going to feather the pockets of its VC backers, or make an omelette out of their investments?