Rebate for IoT thermostat requires that you give permission to your utility to read "all data"

[Papasan]

San Diego after the El Nino year has gone back to its regular weather pattern of early morning marine layer, then it clears mid day with spotty sunshine. The onshore breeze is 4-7 miles per hour right now. Very pleasant if you ask me.

[Enkita]

@bobtato

But the problem with a commercial anonymization service is that the best way to make money from data is to connect as many different datasets as possible, and that’s exactly what makes anonymization fail.

Hence my observation that to work, anonymisation services need to be (a) discrete and (b) paid for by the user.

[wrecksdart]

@LongHallOwl

But, this will ultimately improve the efficiency of the grid. If your power company can better forecast load, it could lead to perhaps an investment in transmission, as opposed to new generation (think power plant).

I have opted-in to my local power company’s setup such that they can ‘power cycle’ my A/C system to 50%, 25% or even all the way off when the potential for brownouts exceeds some power-company threshold. I don’t have a problem with the power company knowing the fine details of when I’m home or not, but I do have a problem when that same power company monetizes that information and resells it to [XYZ Corp.] for whatever nefarious things they’d like to do with it.

[bcsizemo]

I’ve never really understood the concept of allowing the power company to limit my use of A/C, but then again I live in NC where it’ll be 95 by the end of the week with humidity over 60%. Most properly sized A/C systems are designed to run the majority of the time, this is efficient since you aren’t using an overly large system during peak load. The fault here lies as much with an over zealous home owner trying to turn his house into a meat locker (which if the system is sized correctly wouldn’t be possible anyway) and the power company’s greed of not spending more on infrastructure and generation.

[lolipop_jones]

@bcsizemo

I’ve never really understood the concept of allowing the power company to limit my use of A/C

Makes about as much sense as allowing my ISP to limit my use of the net.

Actually, it makes less sense, since I am not paying a flat monthly rate for electricity.

[pjcamp]

One guesses that is where your $100 is coming from. They don’t care about you in your bedroom. They’re just looking for data to plan future capacity. But if it creeps you out, don’t take the rebate.

[pjcamp]

It isn’t so much power company greed (though there is certainly a gracious plenty of that). A new generating facility is potentially a multi billion dollar investment that may take years (gas) to decades (nuclear) to come on line. So if they guess wrong about how much power you will want 20 years from now, you’ll be on the hook for the bailout.

[lolipop_jones]

@pjcamp

So if they guess wrong about how much power you will want 20 years from no

My power company should be able to figure this out just fine, using that gray metal box with the four rotating needles under a glass dome, which they have placed on the wall of my house.

[pjcamp]

You might think that but no.

Not all capacity planning involves building more power plants. A large part of it these days involves managing demand as well. That involves promoting more efficient lighting, HVAC, appliances, light bulbs, etc. This is why you are getting a rebate from the power company, not the thermostat vendor. To most effectively target rebates and the like, data about how much power is being used for each purpose is useful. There aren’t a whole lot of ways to get that.

But if that element of your privacy is worth more than $100 to you, decline the rebate. Problem solved.

[d_r]

Cross the language you don’t like out before signing and leave the MAC address blank. Odds are they’ll still give you the rebate.

[Melted_Crayons]

b/c you are the product.