Smart Home Blog

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Octopus Energy have notified me of their prices increases, coming into effect on the 1^st of April. The peak rate goes up but this doesn't really affect me as I don't use any peak rate electricity. The standing charge is coming down and the off-peak rate is remaining at 7p/kWh. Overall I should be a bit better off 😎

Having sold our Mazda CX-30, this petrolhead is in the unusual position of not owning a car powered by fossil fuels, for the first time since I learnt to drive aged 17 years old. I have no intention of buying another one either.

Our CUPRA Born 3-year lease ends later this summer, so I was looking to replace it with another one as it has been such a great car. This Cupra Born V3 eBoost popped up on my radar. It's a 2024 car with just 2,900 miles on the clock and was £11,000 under the new price. So I have bought it 😎

A new generation high for 2025 with 44.1kWh.

An amazing start to April with 296.8kWh in the first seven days! That's 42.4kWh per day.

We are going to hit 17,000 kWh or 17 MWh of solar generation today in the 903 days since our smart home solar installation project was started.

The water level sensor was quite expensive at £35 but, it is going to be connected to my Home Control System using an Arduino to report the water level in my rainwater harvesting tank.

Whist the first floor of the smart home extension was going up, I got the builders to embed 2 marine grade, stainless-steel, extra long eye-bolts into the brickwork to attach washing lines to. These are firmly anchored using large washers and result in a tidy finish with no drilling into bricks.

We have reached first floor height with our smart home extension build 😎

Picked up our "new" CUPRA Born 😎 It is everything we had hoped for and more. This is clearly an ex-demo car, which is why the mileage is so low. It still has that new car smell and the unopened Cupra welcome pack in the boot.