A few days ago i picked up a 4 pack of remote control socket adapters for my bedroom. I have a total of 3 lamps in my room along with tonnes of electrical goodies. My room is quite long and narrow so i have to walk around my bed to switch on and off lights every day.
You may not think that’s a big deal, but i estimate i spend about 2 minutes every day switching on and off these lights. That’s over 12 hours of my time per year wasted. It’s also annoying if i get in to bed and forget to turn off a light on the other side of the room or if i leave the remote control for my TV beside my computer.
It means i have to get out of bed and switch lights off and get remote controls. A remote control solution to control my power sockets was the solution i came up with 🙂 Here’s a short clip of what i can do now. Lights on, lights off – i’m sure the novelty will ware off soon 😉
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wW9Qi_NoEw[/youtube]
So i can now get up in the mornings, press one button and my entire room comes alive 🙂 Same when i’m leaving the room – one button and everything switches off. It’s extremely useful and transforms those mundane tasks in to something i can enjoy. Last but not least, it’s energy efficient. It saves me wasting my energy walking around the room 😉 plus it saves electricity too.
In total there are 4 on buttons / 4 off buttons to control each of the 4 adapters. I’m using the adapters to control my 3 lights and then another one to control my TV/PC/Speakers etc…
There’s also an ‘all on’ and ‘all off’ button. This switches everything on, or everything off at once. No house should be without these – in fact, they should be introduced in to building regulations – one central unit / remote device to control all power, alarms and doors.
None of this technology is new… it can be bought in most electrical shops but the average household is still switching things off manually. I heard recently that a few people have come in to PC World asking if they could get a wireless dialup router 
Imagine leaving your house and locking it as you would a car – ‘bleep’ ‘bleep’. Everything shuts off (things could be preset to stay on / off), alarm is activated and the house can then be remotely unlocked and alarm deactivated at the same time – no more fiddling for keys in the dark, entering passwords or waiting outside in the rain.