Speaking & Showing

KnowNow has been invited to this year’s EcoTech show in Brighton on June 11th & 12th.   This will be the 3rd year I have attended but the first time I have been as a participant.  KnowNow has both a stand and a speaking slot.

We will be showing off the Beat House project on stand E36, showcasing the technology and telling the story as to why we picked the components we did and what we expect to happen with this project.   Plus, I will take the opportunity to talk about some of the other exciting new innovations KnowNow has been involved in, from our smart cities consulting and design service, to our big data expertise and the award-winning Flood Event Model.

Innovation Speaking Slot at EcoTech Show

KnowNow will be in Seminar area 3 in the Innovation Zone on Thursday 11th, speaking at 1040.   I will be giving the audience an overview of some of the smart city innovations that KnowNow has been investing in over the last 18 months

We are at the beginning of a story in two ways.  Firstly, the big picture is that smart cities are becoming serious even though we are a long way from this being the new normal and a pub talking point.  Secondly, at least on a small scale, we can demonstrate how being green, eco, and ‘sustainable’ is not niche, extreme, or cranky.  The reality is that it should be fabulously boring and everyday.  Hardly worth talking about in fact, except for the smile and the extra cash. What’s wrong with that?

Beat House

Beat House is a conventional-looking four-bedroom house in a National Park, conservation area with all the wonderful entertainment that brings! Beat House has no heating system in the traditional sense. What Beat House will have though is a whole bunch of sensors and intelligence. This will make Beat House smart yet boring.   Except when it comes to paying a low energy bill!

Beat House has a soul supplied by its wood-burning stove and a small heat source from four electric towel rails.  Heat retention is from Beat House itself.

So why is KnowNow involved in Beat House?  Simply because it is a fantastic example of putting a unique value on information.   KnowNow is an information innovation company after all and Beat House is all about Information Innovation.

Am I a Flight Engineer?

The originator of Beat House – David Pepper – likens having information to hand about your house as the same as a flight engineer checking the systems on a plane. Bearing in mind your house is the most expensive single asset you will likely own. Plus, with energy bills even in an eco-efficient house in the future still to be high (or similar to what we currently pay today), the idea of not having any information about how your expensive asset is performing from an energy perspective is perverse. Yet, that is precisely where we are today. Therefore, putting in this sensing infrastructure is not science fiction but common sense!

The end goal for KnowNow is to take the Beat House data supplied by the CurrentCost sensors; and then run some data analytics on our IBM Bluemix-hosted data warehouse. KnowNow will then determine a series of proactive actions that will lead to a more efficient use of the available energy.  These actions can be sent

back to Current Cost and its Quel so the homeowner has an analysis as well as a real-time view.  Plans for the future even go as far as sending instructions to an actuator to control something else (e.g. open or close a window).

So if you want to know more, or if you too would like your very own next-generation home sensing solution then come and see us at the EcoTech Show.

Thanks for reading, Chris.