Last Thursday Frank Gollas wrote me an email about the idea using CO2 information for house automation. Somehow he was in contact with some people of the project of CO2 Signal discussing use cases. Since I am now working as a Product Owner for Deutsche Telekom Connected Home he thought it might be interesting for me as well. That said, I spread the news last Friday to my developer colleague Markus Bösling and we had a closer look at CO2 Signal and their API and I really love their claim:

“A smart device should use electricity when its carbon footprint is lowest.”
CO2 Signal

Absolutely surprising, some hours later Markus flashed me with this:

Think about it for a moment!

You are able to automate your devices with smart home by optimize using electricity, when its carbon footprint is the lowest.

How great would this be, everybody who would use this would be able to add his individual power to decrease carbon footprint.

What’s my benefit?

Some discussions later last weekend, I was surprised about the question from a friend of mine:

Friend: “But how do I benefit from this use case? Do I save costs by using electricity at lowest carbon footprint? ”

Me: Er – no!

[Pause]

Me: C’mon, really?

Is it utopia or do people really only care about ecology when it is compensated for them? Another dilemma which might be solved by the power of each country. Another grounding for me, but still fascinated about the opportunity to use the CO2 information to make a difference without getting paid back.

The final prototype

Today, Markus showed me his final implementation – I am overwhelmed with his passion to make this happen.

What is your opinion about smart devices, home automation and ecology? Would you use it? Is compensation needed? What is needed or missing?

All the best,

Patrick