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Call For Manuscript Submissions - Real-Time GIS For Disaster Management
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nature.com/collections/bjdhbfi <-- shared link to submission details
--
[note that I have NO affiliation with this journal, the guest editors, etc]
[I wonder if anybody from FEMA has compiled use case / effectiveness / robustness on/of the #WaffleHouseIndex in the southern USA, especially related to hurricanes?]
#GIS #paper #mapping #spatial #manuscripts #callforpapers #callformanuscripts #submissions #callforsubmissions #realtime #disaster #management #mitigation #prevention #preparedness #response #recovery #risk #hazard #naturalhazard #naturalhazard #emergency #remotesensing #earthobservation #satellite #drone #sensor #socialmedia #WaffleHouseIndex #datasets #AI #InternetOfThings #research #monitoring #evacuation #planning #resourceallocation #hazardmapping #realworld #global

🆕 blog! “Gadget Review: Windfall Energy Saving Plug (Beta)”
★★★★☆

The good folks at Windfall Energy have sent me one of their interesting new plugs to beta test.

OK, an Internet connected smart plug. What's so interesting about that?

Our Windfall Plug turns on at the optimal times in the middle of the night to charge and power your…

👀 Read more: shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/03/gadge

#electricity #gadget #internetofthings #review

Terence Eden’s Blog · Gadget Review: Windfall Energy Saving Plug (Beta)
More from Terence Eden

Gadget Review: Windfall Energy Saving Plug (Beta)

shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/03/gadge

The good folks at Windfall Energy have sent me one of their interesting new plugs to beta test.

OK, an Internet connected smart plug. What's so interesting about that?

Our Windfall Plug turns on at the optimal times in the middle of the night to charge and power your devices with green energy.

Ah! Now that is interesting.

The proposition is brilliantly simple:

  1. Connect the smart-plug to your WiFi.
  2. Plug your bike / laptop / space heater into the smart-plug.
  3. When electricity is cleanest, the smart-plug automatically switches on.

The first thing to get out of the way is, yes, you could build this yourself. If you're happy re-flashing firmware, mucking about with NodeRED, and integrating carbon intensity APIs with your HomeAssistant running on a Rasbperry Pi - then this isn't for you.

This is a plug-n-play(!) solution for people who don't want to have to manually update their software because of a DST change.

Beta

This is a beta product. It isn't yet available. Some of the things I'm reviewing will change. You can join the waitlist for more information.

Connecting

The same as every other IoT device. Connect to its local WiFi network from your phone. Tell it which network to connect to and a password. Done.

If you run into trouble, there's a handy help page.

Website

Not much too it at the moment - because it is in beta - but it lets you name the plug and control it.

Turning the plug on and off is a single click. Setting it to "Windfall Mode" turns on the magic. You can also fiddle about with a few settings.

The names and icons would be useful if you had a dozen of these. I like the fact that you can change how long the charging cycle is. 30 minutes might be enough for something low power, but something bigger may need longer.

One thing to note, you can control it by pressing a button on the unit or you can toggle its power from the website. If you manually turn it on or off you will need to manually toggle it back to Windfall mode using the website.

There's also a handy - if slightly busy - graph which shows you the upcoming carbon intensity of the UK grid.

You can also monitor the energy draw of devices connected to it. Handy to see just how much electricity and CO2 emissions a device is burning through.

That's it. For a beta product, there's a decent amount of functionality. There's nothing extraneous like Alexa integration. Ideally this is the sort of thing you configure once, and then leave behind a cupboard for years.

Is it worth it?

I think this is an extremely useful device with a few caveats.

Firstly, how much green energy are you going to use? Modern phones have pretty small batteries. Using this to charge your phone overnight is a false economy. Charging an eBike or similar is probably worthwhile. Anything with a decent-sized battery is a good candidate.

Secondly, will your devices work with it? Most things like air-conditioners or kettles don't turn on from the plug alone. Something like a space-heater is perfect for this sort of use - as soon as the switch is flicked, they start working.

Thirdly, what's the risk of only supplying power for a few hours overnight? I wouldn't recommend putting a chest-freezer on this (unless you like melted and then refrozen ice-cream). But for a device with a battery, it is probably fine.

Fourthly, it needs a stable WiFi connection. If its connection to the mothership stops, it loses Windfall mode. It can still be manually controlled - but it will need adequate signal on a reliable connection to be useful.

Finally, as with any Internet connected device, you introduce a small security risk. This doesn't need local network access, so it can sit quite happily on a guest network without spying on your other devices. But you do give up control to a 3rd party. If they got hacked, someone could turn off your plugs or rapidly power-cycle them. That may not be a significant issue, but one to bear in mind.

If you're happy with that (and I am) then I think this is simple way to take advantage of cheaper, greener electricity overnight. Devices like these use barely any electricity while in standby - so if you're on a dynamic pricing tariff, it won't cost you much to run.

Interested?

You can join the waitlist for more information.

Terence Eden’s Blog · Gadget Review: Windfall Energy Saving Plug (Beta)
More from Terence Eden

🆕 blog! “Why do all my home appliances sound like R2-D2?”

I have an ancient Roomba. A non-sentient robot vacuum cleaner which only speaks in monophonic beeps.

At least, that's what I thought. A few days ago my little cybernetic helper suddenly started speaking!

👀 Read more: shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/03/why-d

#internetofthings #IoT #StarWars #ui #ux

Terence Eden’s Blog · Why do all my home appliances sound like R2-D2?
More from Terence Eden

The Camera Panopticon

How did we end up in technofascism? Watch this talk I gave over a decade ago warning of the dangers of Silicon Valley and Big Tech and urging us to embrace alternatives.

small-tech.org/videos/the-came

(Transcript available in English, Español, and Nederlands, thanks to the community.)

Small Technology FoundationThe Camera PanopticonAral at The Big Brother Awards in Amsterdam, Netherlands. November 2014.

Here’s the tech that could turn millions of Zigbee light bulbs into motion sensors with a single update

A new ambient sensing technology called Sensify could make this easier by turning your light bulbs into motion sensors. And it might be landing on a Philips Hue bridge near you very soon.

#smarthome #InternetOfThings #IoT #zigbee #Sensigy #PhilipsHue #technology #tech

theverge.com/2025/1/22/2434868

The Verge · Here’s the tech that could turn millions of Zigbee light bulbs into motion sensors with a single updateBy Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

I got tired of going outside and looking at the thermometer, so I got a digital weather station off Temu.

But then I got too lazy to walk to the refrigerator to read the base station’s display, so I hacked together a way to connect it to the Internet. Okay, so that’s not the main reason. I did it because I wanted a fancy APRS-enabled weather station without the price tag, so in the spirit of ham radio and hacking, I set out to build my own.

Then I hooked it up to Mastodon as @weather because… okay, I don’t have a good reason for that.

colincogle.name/blog/byo-weath

Colin Cogle · Putting a Dumb Weather Station on the InternetAfter all, why not? Why shouldn't I put a dumb Temu weather station on the Internet?

Latest comic. A British consumer rights group examined unnecessary data harvesting by “smart” devices, including air fryers connected to phone apps. While these devices may not pose the greatest privacy risk in our everyday lives, they are part of a growing Internet of Things capable of collecting data when and where we least expect it.