Honest Smart Home Reviews, Made for the UK
Somewhere in a glovebox, garage, or car boot right now, there’s a tangled charging cable that nobody quite trusts. Maybe it’s too short. Maybe the connector wobbles. Maybe it’s the flimsy one that came free with the car and feels like it was designed by someone who has never actually stood in the rain at … Read more
Somewhere around 11:30pm, while most of the country is asleep, a small army of EV chargers up and down the UK quietly wake up and start pulling electricity at a fraction of the daytime rate. That’s Octopus Intelligent Go doing its job — and if you’ve landed here, you’ve probably already worked out that the … Read more
A tethered vs untethered EV charger decision sounds like the kind of thing you can settle in thirty seconds — until you’re standing on your driveway in the rain, phone in hand, trying to work out whether “the cable’s attached” actually matters as much as everyone online says it does. Here’s the short version: a … Read more
Here’s a confession every EV owner makes eventually: the charger matters more than the car. You can love your new electric motor to bits, but if the box on your wall is clunky, slow, or about as “smart” as a brick, your daily routine becomes a small chore instead of a quiet convenience. A best … Read more
Here’s a scene that plays out in solar households up and down the country: the panels go up, the inverter blinks into life, and for about a fortnight everyone in the house is obsessed with checking the little screen in the cupboard under the stairs. Then life happens, the novelty wears off, and the system … Read more
Here’s a scene most solar owners know too well: the sun’s been blazing all afternoon, your panels have clearly been working overtime, and yet your evening bill still stings. Without visibility into what your system is actually doing, you’re flying blind — and a solar battery monitoring add-on is the instrument panel you’ve been missing. … Read more
Here’s a confession most energy suppliers won’t put in their welcome pack: a time of use tariff only saves you money if you actually know when the cheap hours are and whether you’re using them. Sign up to Economy 7, forget to shift the washing machine, and you’ve just paid for a fancier meter that … Read more
Right, let’s address the elephant in the meter cupboard: Octopus Agile is brilliant right up until you forget to check the app and end up running your tumble dryer at 5:30pm, at which point you’re paying more than double what a night-owl neighbour pays for the exact same load of towels. An energy monitor for … Read more
There’s a particular kind of dread that comes with opening an energy bill and having absolutely no idea why it’s so much higher than last month’s. Was it the tumble dryer? The immersion heater somebody left on overnight? A whole home energy monitor clamp exists to end that guesswork, in plain terms: it’s a current … Read more
Somewhere on your kitchen worktop, or wedged behind the toaster, there’s probably a little screen nobody looks at anymore. That’s the fate of most supplier-issued in-home displays — a promising idea that quietly gathered dust. The Hildebrand Glow vs Loop energy monitor question is really about resurrecting that promise: turning raw smart meter data into … Read more