Unveiling the Hidden Surprise in this Game Changing Socket

[@efixx]

Learn more about MK Connected Power hub.efixx.co.uk/MK-connected-power

[@tomnicholson2115]

Big brother control in your sockets, now available for the improved control of humanity!

[@chrisharvie-smith486]

They'll have used electrolytics in the electronics so will start dieing after 5 years of being on in standby. Fotunately swappable by a standard one for £1.50 and a plug to keep the snitch socket reporting in.

[@kevindesilva4588]

Nice video as always . These BMS type systems can often be a case of Peter robbing Paul, especially for retro fit. I have recently looked at this for the two facilities I manage . On purely energy saving the cost of upgrade would not pay its self back for 15 and 17 years . How ever training our cleaners to turn off specific machines and appliances if left on has led to a 25% saving after day one , Now to train the rest of the workforce. !!!

[@jxj2684]

Then what percentage of these units will work reliably for 15 years ?

[@Wtfukker]

it depends on the size of your place, above a certain size it becomes unpractical to even attempt to get humans involved, also bms does a whole lot more than lighting...

[@ryanjones7921]

Too much focus on reducing energy demand,,, Increase energy supply,, We have had the technology to do so for decades,, go nuclear ☢️

[@warrmr]

Im a programmer first and automation engineer second specialising in Home and Office automation systems and I have noticed this in the past few years but haven't ever found out why all of the "Cool" stuff gets value engineered out before the work packet lands on the customer desk for approval. Some time around 2019 I was tasked with designing a smart office system with energy management in mind along while integrating into the meeting room technology. So I designed a system with solar sensors (Light Colour Temperature, Light Lux Level and Outside temperature) on each corner of the building to track the daylight. Automated shades that will open and close when in automatic mode to regulate the temperature in the rooms using the natural sunlight for example if the sun is shining and the room needs warning open the blinds. If its too hot and the sun is bright then shut the blinds. Then the office lighting was integrated with occupancy sensors and lux level sensors to determine if the lights in that corner of the room needed turning on, eg was it too dark and is there someone sitting there. This was all tied back to a load monitoring system that will log and produce energy usage reports and email them to the client steak holders on a regular basis as required by the customer. Digital signage was linked into the fire alarm system and switched to a map of the building indicating the escape routes to use. The meeting rooms would report no shows and if the client wanted we could also provide "video miles" which calculated the travel saved by having a video conference instead of driving/flying. All of this got engineered out by the main contractor and we ended up lobbing in a couple of Logitech UC systems, a massive TV in the reception they dont ever use and a luton lighting system that is basically programmed to be totally manual with no automation or energy savings. I was so excited to do the programming but then it gets value engineered out. Having said that I have watched the decline in the custom automation industry over the last 3 years since the pandemic, There is not as much need for offices these days and rich people aren't spending £50million on a house with £750,000 on AV Equipment that needs programming. The likes of Apple, Samsung, Alexa and Google are all popping up and more people are moving towards off the shelf products. Because of this I have decided to get out of automation and programming for the moment. Not sure if there is another niche that I can use my skills in but I dont see a long term future in things like Crestron, AMX and Control 4. Is it worth re training and becoming an electrician?

[@oiuslags]

OMG I wish these were about before I retired, some departments would really take the P!ss with plug in heaters always overriding the heating zone stats, so there rooms were tropical and every other room was cold and always daisy changing extension leads with heater on the end, This would stop all this nonsense

[@ElliottVeares]

At over £300 (inc VAT) per socket, I don't think so!

[@Chequr_Prostate]

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😂 Wait till they start to fail and the client is on the phone saying “ but it’s under warranty “ or “ it won’t connect to the BMS system”.

[@stevecraft00]

Councils will lap it up.

[@AintBigAintClever]

Not at that price we won't. Meter at the dis-board instead.

[@bikerchrisukk]

Wow, really? 😱

[@jonwragg3822]

If you are an energy manager (as I have been, now retired) and want to justify installing something like this you would be asked to identify the savings and the payback. Most companies will want something like a 3 to 4 year ROI, so unless the equipment you are potentially switching off at night is saving more than a good few Wh’s then paying £250 + installation for something like this isn’t going to be justified on limited capital budgets.

[@neil733]

I can see two issues with this for the Student Accommodation use case suggested. 1. Banning high-powered devices isn't feasible. You try telling a few hundred 18-22 year olds they cannot use a 2kW hair-drier in their bedrooms. 2. If there is a switch on the back to turn off the electronics, it won't be long before some enterprising engineering student finds out about it.

[@jxj2684]

1 I presume you can programme this to allow short term use, but then switch off after 15 minutes. Something to stop students running a heater 24-7 with the window open is desirable. Believe me, it happens. 2 Agreed.

[@garethwilliams2118]

Give that engineering student a job

[@paulstimpson830]

If this product is even remotely competent, it will report the smart disable switch having been operated back to the management system or just disappear from the network, which the BMS should notice and report as a failed item requiring maintenance

[@Pugjamin]

1. hair dryers typically are under 2kw, so a 2kw limit would be fine. the idea is you don'd need to 'try and tell them' you write it down somewhere, tell them thats what the deal is, and when they try and use a high power load it just turns off. Also, as other commenters have said, it may be possible to allow higher loads but time limited. 2. the outlets are switched by relay, if the electronics are powered down with the switch on the back then the relays cannot energise and the sockets cannot be used. Again, as mentioned, sockets dropping off the network would raise an alarm in the BMS and could be investigated. Tamper proof screws could also be used to make is more difficult for things like this to occur.

[@markrainford1219]

@@jxj2684 Of course it happens, how else are they supposed to dry their washing? 😂

[@richardparnell4221]

At £253.14 a socket, not sure I’ll be using these anytime soon!

[@aaron74]

Watching the video, I kept thinking: what is the price? Yeah that's nice--what is the price? Oooo brilliant--what is the price?

[@chilled.design]

Surely that decimal point is in the wrong place....

[@AdrianBawn]

Ouch.

[@Pugjamin]

Thats list price, anybody who is going to be installing these is going to be a big enough customer that they're paying nowhere near list price for them.

[@AdrianBawn]

@@Pugjamin They might not be paying £250 a pop, but I would be amazed if the bulk discount put them under £100 which honestly is still too much for all but critical infrastructure unless you have excess budget to fill. Replacing all the sockets in a large, multistory, office could easily end up making the system cost a significant percentage of the value of the property, compared to regular sockets that are just lost in the nosie. Not withstanding the extra work needed to disable them all for testing (its a few seconds per box but it adds up), and the much higher cost to replace after a failure.

[@Monkeh616]

I so look forward to these being used to shut off PCs in the middle of updates. It's bad enough dealing with the fallout of people turning sockets off at the end of the day because "oh it's for fire safety".

[@electroplank587]

One day when you're burning you'll wish someone thought about fire safety

[@Monkeh616]

@@electroplank587 As long as they actually think instead of just going around mindlessly.

[@DacMan777]

@@electroplank587 Ever heard of sprinklers.....

[@electroplank587]

@@DacMan777 what has that got to do with anything... Safety doesn't replace common sense.

[@DacMan777]

@@electroplank587 you clearly missed the point.....

[@CH11LER.]

I hope students see this and know how to remove these buggers. I can't imagine many will be very happy when the heating suddenly goes off because the campus decides they are using too much electricity

[@JamesScholesUK]

£9K in fees, plus £6K in accommodation, and you still can't plug in a heater to stay warm

[@andrewallen9993]

This will have exactly 0 effect on engineering students power usage, unless things have changed since my day, possibly they will do some bit coin mining to generate cash as well as heat :) Getting only 2 Amps would be like paying for phone calls at a coin operated call box for goodness sake

[@KendalSmithy]

Having just reinstalled a WiFi mesh system after PAT testing destroyed the software memory of the entire network I think this kind of system needs a full-time network specialist to manage it successfully. So whilst companies might save on electricity costs with these they will probably spend those savings - and perhaps more - on BMS costs.

[@geebot]

looks like it's bluetooth rather than wifi judging by the BLE mac address label on the socket

[@mikeselectricstuff]

@@geebot According to the datasheet, BLE is only used for setup

[@cheeseburgerbeefcake]

@@geebot I'd assume it is HoneyWell's "OneWireless" network system, which as far as I can find is a closed ecosystem - HoneyWell/MK only sockets, which is fine to a point.

[@deang5622]

​@@cheeseburgerbeefcakeWhy is it only fine to a point?

[@cobalt49]

@@deang5622 To the point that you have to integrate it with anything else

[@adriandaw3451]

A left field energy use tale: We used to short circuit current rails on the underground overnight to prevent ice build up through rail heating. About 5kA per section. It was enough to require an extra generator on load at Lots Road overnight. Eventually it was found to be cheaper to run a train spraying de-icer. This was also the time that mercury arc rectifiers were converted to silicon. I missed the blue glow of the bulbs.

[@tom-sn4gd]

Why don't the underground has heated third rail then ?

[@seymourpro6097]

In my student accommodation individual room power was a single 2A socket connected via a 15a breaker per floor (OK that is history!). It's impossible to control power usage when there is an Elec Engineering course taught on site.

[@Hiccup77]

Made a lol. Any elec student would simply disconnect the socket and fit a £1.99 outlet from wilko, job done. Then rob the £250 "smart" socket and sell it to buy weed.

[@girlmaya6818]

@@Hiccup77 and so they should

[@ralph17p]

The hidden surprise is the price. I thought I'd just look them up - £250 for a double socket. For the addition of some WiFi circuitry and a couple of relays. If they were £50-70 I'd see the benefit, but how likely are you to save £250 in power usage over the lifetime of the socket? My guess is fairly close to zero, averaged out across an entire building. You might get a handful of high power devices that the building decides can safely be switched off after hours, but once you factor in the costs of investigating and dealing with associated issues - cost savings will go out the window. Safety might be an argument - as monitoring for high powered devices running out of hours might drop the fire risk a little... but still, it has to be a bit of a niche use case.

[@SolisNotSolis]

was just coming to say the same. Especially when other brands of smart sockets can be had for

[@geoff4383]

like most new tech it doesn't pay to be an early adopter for cost and reliability reasons. I laughed when i saw the cost of the socket.

[@channel_alan]

At £250 each socket and £400 for the hub... It'd have to be a big problem to solve or benefit to be had by installing them. That's wild.

[@robertburrows6612]

No one in there right mind would want to unscrew 2500 double sockets to flick a small switch, no one in there right mind would want to pay a sparky to unscrew and re-screw on 2500 double sockets as part of a EICR. So MK needs to urgently rethink access to that switch so it can be accessed without unscrewing those sockets. Doing industrial or commercial work often comes down to price point per accessory. Big companies often say that what we pay tough put a bill in for more than there willing to pay they won't pay it , and they certainly won't pay for you to unscrew a socket to flick a switch and turn it back on again and refix the socket , so do a test of unscrewing a socket flicking a switch , and do the reverse and tell us how many extra hours we are going to work for nothing on a large office block . A great idea but it needs a rethink by MK , Im not a charity I don't work for nothing.

[@christastic100]

Bit steep priced at £210.95 at CEF . You would need to save a lot of power to cover the cost. Also how much does the socket actually consume in a year?

[@efixx]

This is headline price for one ☝️ projects on a case by case basis.

[@lawrencemanning]

Idle power usage is a very good question. I suspect and hope it’s firmly sub one watt, but even that would mount up to a reasonable amount if you had a house full of them.

[@dougle03]

@@efixx Unless the price comes down to less than 70% of that RRP then still too expensive. Only large poorly run facilities would even consider these at the price. The ROI simply does not add up at all....

[@Dog-whisperer7494]

The switch to disable the built electronics is a great idea. But why can’t they include it on sockets that have built in USB ports? So we can disable the USB ports when IR testing? As three different electricians on you tube have already proved a 500v IR test will not damage such equipment, but it will skew the test readings. That’s why they don’t put such a switch in such accessory’s Great video as always Gordon 👍

[@Chris-hy6jy]

God only knows! I've been asking for this for years. To date I've not installed a single USB socket because of this flawed design.

[@okaro6595]

They could simply use either of the normal switches to switch the USB on/off.

[@Chris-hy6jy]

@@okaro6595 correct. No idea why they don't.

[@JasperJanssen]

@@okaro6595but then the USB would turn off as soon as you switched off that socket, which isn’t a problem for electricians but is one in daily use. It should really be a separate switch, on the front. Just have three instead of two.

[@peterfitzpatrick7032]

A pinhole switch on the front of the socket instead of having to remove it would be better too...

[@Graham_Langley]

They seem to have thought of everything. Only issue I can come up with is the possibility of a heater being switched back on remotely when it's covered by something, but with thermal cutouts fitted these days that's not the problem it used to be when used with timers despite the warnings. I do think they missed a trick with the switch needing the socket be removed from the back box - something like a special plug with a longer earth pin would avoid this.

[@BrianSu]

an easier way would be some kind of key combination or sequence on the button like maybe holding it down for 10 seconds.

[@Pugjamin]

@@BrianSu something like that wouldnt work as it needs to entirely disconnect the electronics from the power supply.

[@Graham_Langley]

@@BrianSu It needs a 'hard' switch - one with real contacts - to disconnect the smart bits when testing.

[@lukejay]

An emergency lighting test key would have been perfect

[@andrewallen9993]

They most certainly thought of building in planned obsolescence, there are electrolytic capacitors in the unit!

[@HugoDenbyMann]

Would be great tidy solution for home automation installs - Loxone etc. But the price....that's insane. The Shelly modules do this for £13!

[@bikerchrisukk]

Yeah shelly do good gear

[@sethkazzim731]

Is there a video showing Shelley’s with uk sockets?

[@AdrianBawn]

@@sethkazzim731 You can get plug-in UK spec modules now. If you were to connect the shelly inside the box, you would have to control both sockets at the same time because most (all?) uk double sockets are joined together as one from the back. You cant feed each socket with power seperately. Also controlling both sockets as one could lead to an overload situation as shellys are only rated to max 16a. 2 x 13a sockets would exceed this by a lot.

[@ElliottVeares]

If you want a hard wired smart socket, you'd be better off with something like the Lightwave LP42WHMK2 Smart Socket for home automation, a fraction of the price but has all the same features, except the power limiting feature.

[@sethkazzim731]

@@AdrianBawn I’m thinking of going with a Mk grid, two unswitched sockets with two separate switches in a three grid. I do have the Shelly plug and it’s great but would like this option in my back pocket. One Shelly +1PM per socket maybe?

[@Eledore]

Centrally controlled PLC switchable power sockets, seen those deployed in 2008 and 2012 seen the introduction of individual breaker power usage trackers. I do love that individual sockets can measure wattage and can be set limits. I however do not like that they are wireless mesh when a PLC (Power-Line communication) network could be used. Then again, we mostly did government buildings and i have no doubt that anything we installed 15~10 years will get a update on the coming 20~30 years.

[@dougle03]

Because PLC controllers are expensive. These if priced right, should be about £20 max, anything more and someone is taking the piss. Plus they don't need additional data cabling thus can be retrofitted easily in just about any building.

[@Sarge92]

@@dougle03 there 250 a socket yes you heard me two hundred and fifty pounds sterling

[@tlangdon12]

Another use case would be where homes or businesses have certain critical loads that need to be powered during a power outage on installations with a ESS or UPS. If all the non-critical loads can be dropped, the critical loads can be maintained for longer.

[@efixx]

Great application 👍

[@clivevpotter]

When I was a student I liked to have a kettle in my room. Limiting power to 500W might have led me to use a camping stove instead with possible increased fire risk.

[@burgersnchips]

Yea if they had something like this cutting my power in the student digs at uni I would absolutely have found some way to bypass that... At £80 a week for rent for one room (nearly 15 years ago, very expensive at the time), if I wanted 3kw continuous out of every socket I had access to I would have taken it. I didn't, but that's by the by, I'm resistive to unnecessary restriction.

[@efixx]

I lived in a student hall which had a 2Amp circuit breaker for every room.

[@burgersnchips]

@@efixx wow. That would get some superglue in the breaker switch, no doubt 😂

[@chriscollins1704]

Saving energy is all about spending more than you save to do so. This is a perfect example

[@krashd]

One-off upfront cost for a lifetime of savings.

[@chriscollins1704]

@@krashd yeah, the lifetime of the product

[@mityaboy4639]

Also, can you imagine, when an audit (periodic inspection) comes and the socket shows some false readings (because of the circuits behind) then the auditors must remove ALL sockets from floorboxes, walls just to flick the red switch over, do the audit again ... and then flip it back... and reinstall the sockets... rather than just doing the audit by plugging in their units and move on to the next one :)

[@oiuslags]

It’s just going to be L&N to earth IR test and if it’s crap. Just LIM the test on the form due to these sockets

[@JohnSmith-ws7fq]

Thanks!

[@efixx]

Welcome!

[@efixx]

Thanks John - Sorry it took an age to respond. We'll use this for a beer to think about our next video. - Gordon

[@BDFProtector]

MK think a lot of Businesses will fork out £230 for a double socket. Some companies are just pure greed. It will cost less than £10 to make this socket on the components it has, yet there is like a 2000% markup, Good work MK good work

[@Pugjamin]

nobody pays list price! 🤣

[@BDFProtector]

@@Pugjamin you would be surprised!

[@Pugjamin]

@@BDFProtector well that’s their fault then lol

[@dougle03]

@@Pugjamin Would need to be at least 80% off list to be competitive...

[@iamdmc]

very cool! sent this to my brother in law who's a facilities manager

[@efixx]

Great 👍

[@ericthekingthekingtheking4842]

I work in student accomodation and energy consumption is very high on the agenda, but not at the prices of this equipment,the building i look after has over 1000 Rooms so to get any return on investment would take years if not decades

[@efixx]

If you’ve got a 1000 rooms it sounds like a good opportunity for negotiation 👍

[@redf7209]

The intelligent socket for me is one where the wires actually connect to a panel inside the socket box and the socket front just plugs onto that. This would mean that while you place the socket front onto the box there is no spare cable that can twist and unfasten or pull the cable from the connection point making a loose connection that might heat up.

[@sergiofernandez3725]

Interesting product. Lots of great features that will fit many scenarios. Just need the cost to come down.

[@redf7209]

just more to go wrong

[@dcocz3908]

IOT hacked h/w will be a future thing. remember while some service may turn it off to save power, another program can also turn it on. just think of all the costs involved if these things are compromised and DoS is employed to prevent service turn off. I am sure bods out there have thought of everything until they haven't

[@dougle03]

Given that MK is not a software company, they will have paid an external developer for these. That's an ongoing expensive engagement for MK, one that will gel more untenable as the months pass and these fail to take off.. Equally, the contract for the software will have gone to one of the cheaper developers thus security won't be a high priority....

[@dcocz3908]

@@dougle03 This is interesting, questions now are how do users f/w update to make sure they are most recent with bug and security fixes. i'm sure there is a utility, i hope its available to home owner. Many companies charge for stuff today and you may find you have to sign up to a annual charge

[@Mike_5]

The basic problem here is that you need a fully charged AED device when you tell the Client how much this Socket Outlets cost ...

[@Pugjamin]

not if you've prepared a cost / benefit analysis for them and can give them a timescale as to when they will become a saving.

[@JohnSmith-ws7fq]

If you put a current limit on the socket, how long before some bright spark has the idea of selling a device to combine multiple sockets into one? You then have a situation where our nice, safely designed electrical systems now have some crazy, unsafe contraption attached to them.

[@efixx]

Someone tried that for granny cable style EV chargers -trading standards quickly clamped down on the issue.

[@jonathanbuzzard1376]

​@@efixxsure but I can wire two plugs into a trailing outlet with short lengths of cable very easily.

[@quantisedspace7047]

​@@jonathanbuzzard1376Yes, but this would potentially mean that one of the plugs would be live when unplugged. Surely the Smartsocket can detect when it's being backpowrered ?

[@dougle03]

@@quantisedspace7047 Nope. Current measurement is via a shunt. It will only see power going one way (It would never go the other way unless the voltage was higher than itself).

[@BillsCountrysideAdventures]

£250 per socket, holy hell

[@richardturton6900]

To turn off an appliance on standby that draws less than 1 watt, they will save their own cost in just under a hundred years. And then the socket must be drawing power itself.

[@BrianDorey]

add another £400 for the hub!

[@mobileapperture]

I immediately checked the same thing! 😂 £250 🤣

[@ElliottVeares]

+ VAT.

[@EdthePlumber]

If your buying 400 of these there be a good deal. Maybe £120 each 😱

[@clivewilliams3661]

I can see the advantage in the MK socket outlet but two concerns are raised: 1) Controlling the output of sockets can be beneficial but there are times when the socket is powered down just when it needs to run important machinery. e.g. computers which are performing a function after the normal working hours that are critical for the business. Also, what about the worker staying in late to complete some task? Its hardly going to be convenient to contact the maintenance department to ensure that a particular socket is energised, especially when they have all gone home! 2) The trouble with electronics is that they fail at a faster rate than any manual switching. As a building owner I would be concerned as to how many times I would have to replace a socket that then has to be programmed. Manual sockets are highly reliable, possibly never needing to be replaced for the life of the building. For example, LEDs are supposed to save money both on the energy consumption over say, a compact fluorescent and last much longer, but in my experience to get the durability out of them is a lottery and they many fail after only a relatively few hours and then you have to replace the whole fitting. The frequency and cost of a fitting replacement far exceeds any cost savings in energy. The same would apply here with this MK socket. Also, some business are not large enough to have a maintenance electrician on site, relying on external contractors so that replacement/reprogramming becomes more of a bind.

[@Broadcast1Channel]

A huge problem for administration will be plugs get easily moved around. So you will never truly know if the item of equipment you are trying to power off is still plugged into the same socket. Also what happens when staff are working out side of normal office hours. New devices standby modes are getting more efficient, so recovering the cost of instalation and administration through energy savings will be greatly reduced or possibly never recovered.

[@robertburrows6612]

I've done a lot of industry and commercial work you very rarely move sockets about if you do it no more than one or two.

[@tommytar222]

Its about time . The electric we use daily is years behind Cars or others electric cars and phones.

[@paulwilliams5296]

I was a first year apprentice on lovell Park. Leeds permanent head office as it was. Haden Young.

[@stephenmatura1086]

I wonder if the management software will still be compatible with the sockets in 20-30 years from now.

[@davewebster4246]

you seem to have added extra 0 on those figures, should be 2-3 years.. once MATTER become the defacto standard.

[@ElliottVeares]

There are already double smart sockets that have the basic functionality that this offers for a fraction of the price, and with some customised/modified firmware, they could be a clone of this for a fraction of the price! I would like to know what if any patents MK has on this socket that are to do with the smart nature of it.

[@dougle03]

None, since it's all freely available tech. ESP based microprocessor based WiFi/zigbee comms. Should be easy to flash something less cloud needy... lol Something like the BG unit it's easy to flash although I don't think it has the built in shunt for current measurement..

[@efixx]

This is the first one in the commercial space which integrates with the Bacnet building control architecture.

[@lawrencejob]

Really cool and about time. Game changers for offices. My only negative is I think we already treat students in accommodation like cattle and this is super oppressive

[@AnthonyHigham6414001080]

It's going to have to make some serious savings at £271.80 Including VAT per socket and that's before you've brought the control unit.

[@yaulkwong3775]

this socket will spot out who bring the heater in office or bring the induction cooker in office for hot pots or cooking. I think this will send email to the desktop saying detecting high unusual electricity used as well, of course it will CC to premises service and HR.

[@daveselbow9128]

I love your take - that this tech is an opportunity for people to earn. brilliant

[@dougle03]

even if these are mostly garbage that'll be abandoned by MK in a few years (Either not profitable enough, or hacked and insecure leading law suits) leaving the software handing in the breeze and you with a bunch of non functioning sockets to replace... No thanks...

[@boblordylordyhowie]

Ex electrician here, whenever I hear Smart home my mind always returns to a good episode of the X-Files, Rm9sbG93ZXJz all about Smart technology and its implications. Commercially they are probably a good idea, for a geek a must have because who doesn't want to be hundreds of miles from home and switch something on, just for fun, plus that awkward customer who drove you nuts. There are probably some good plus's but there are also a lot of negatives with any smart technology. I can see the good thing with them is no more label printing of circuits as you can do all that electronically until the electronics fail and lose their memory, ok, I'm a Ludite. As far as testing goes, I had a socket with two USB's in it and when the electrician was looking for a fault replaced the socket with a plain one but never returned my socket, I think he wanted one but didn't want to buy one.

[@krashd]

Manipulating things when away from home is more Internet-of-Things rather than Smart, Smart generally just means power-saving while IoT is where your fridge talks to your PC or sends a reminder to your phone that there's no milk left.

[@olly7673]

I would be intertested to know why they resorted to screw terminals over their latest lever type terminals..... has MK lost faith in that route?

[@deang5622]

You assume they considered their use and ruled them out. They might not have. Or they might have considered them but ruled them out for cost.

[@cobalt49]

@@deang5622 These are £250+VAT per socket. Cost was not the limiting factor

[@hayleyxyz]

A smart outlet that I'd trust to not burn my house down. That's rare.

[@deang5622]

I wouldn't trust it for that purpose.

[@dougle03]

Don't trust this one either. Those electronics can and will fail, right in the cavity too...

[@smithy8493]

Adding these would surely consume additional power through constantly running the extra functionality, make the outlets less robust and long lasting (as delicate PCBs are onboard), and even render units obsolete faster as, for example, wireless protocols improve increasingly often. Above all - apart from the super high price point - there are pretty fundamental flaws in almost every use scenario identified in the video (covered well within various prior comments).

[@dougle03]

Would be more bothered about MK deciding their cloud service wa loss making and dropped it rendering all these plates worthless. The electronics in these will use

[@krashd]

Turning off just a single desk fan that would otherwise have been left on overnight would save enough electricity to run a whole building worth of these PCBs for a week.

[@dougle03]

@@krashd Perhaps, but it does not get over the excessive cost of the units. Most companies are more concerned about their bottom line than they are about the environment. The vast majority of companies green wash...

[@Arachnoid_of_the_underverse]

I can think of one thing thats not been mentioned "software licenses" with yearly license fees and secondly, if the vendor goes out of business you have a building full of unsupported devices.

[@crazyboy2006cashier]

curious - When are they going to make a USB socket where you can actually switch the USB part off.... if not paying to transform voltage down to 5v even when you dont use it :(

[@jonathanbuzzard1376]

The vampire power draw on a USB charger when not charging something is very small. You might be talking 20p a year for a good one at today's prices. Personally there are too many issues with sockets with built in USB chargers that I don't use them. Look good till there is a problem then they are a nightmare.

[@crazyboy2006cashier]

@@jonathanbuzzard1376 it’s more a fire risk if it goes wrong. Leaving it on all the time. Typical house 3/4 sockets a room. 80p a room, 5 rooms with usb power £4.00 a year minimal but multiply that by every house. Lots of wasted energy

[@quantisedspace7047]

The current drain of a USB adapter when off load is minimal, but the switchmide converter makes a hell of a noise. I rewired it so that switching the socket off turned the USB part. Worked but I uninstalled it because it was too jury-rigged.

[@dave0smeg]

I'm an IT Tech. I avoid anything with the word "smart" in the title.

[@mickeythompson9537]

+1,000,000

[@TeamSimpsonRacing]

The isolator switch is a good feature but for gods sake, put it on the outside! This still requires all these sockets to be removed for testing 😒. I'm sure a tiny switch like that could be made to look nice in a corner

[@Chequr_Prostate]

Could be a nice touch button or a little slot on the side you push a terminal in.

[@cheeseburgerbeefcake]

Swich on the outside would mean users can turn it off, and likely means management features turn off.

[@gavjlewis]

They could put a magnetic switch behind the face plate to disconnect it. They then could sell you a service magnet. £100 seems a good price considering the £250 a socket! 😂

[@Monkeh616]

@@cheeseburgerbeefcake And if it's turned off they're not getting any power out of it. It's not as if it'd be hard to alarm on a socket not being powered.

[@TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

How much energy do you need to save to recover the £226.50 per socket?

[@greebobrat]

This is actually what I've wanted for home use for ages, dont see the point of 'smart' plugs that turn things off and on remotely, I want to know power draw per socket. Guessing though the BMS it needs to connect to would be too expensive for consumer usage.

[@lrdiscovictim]

No conformal coating on the PCB is simply asking for unplanned escapes of magic smoke - from MK that's a cynical move - it must be deliberate.

[@wotireckon]

When are Span or similar going to get their smart consumer units* to the uk market? *These can reduce power to, or switch off, low priority circuits in order to avoid for example blowing the main supply fuse and will be vital in the future as we all go over to 100% electric.

[@AdrianBawn]

I would have thought, given the price of these sockets, that the best solution for most office situations would be to get modern energy efficient hardware at the next hardware refresh cycle. I did some analasys of our office equipment a few years ago to appease the bean-counters who regularly walked around a 50+ person office turning off all the "idle" monitors, printers, etc. Using inline power monitors averaged over the course of several weeks, i calculated that turning them "off" by pressing the button on the front saved litterally pennies across the whole company. And in fact cost the company man hours for the person who was wandering around turning them off. This is because the difference in standby power usage when teh LED is on or off is tiny on modern well engineered hardware. Obviouslyt the biggest difference was fully unplugging from the wall (or physically flipping the wall switch where that is an option), however the cost... across the whole company... for about 50 screens, some desktop pcs, 5 printers, and a few ancillary bits of hardware sitting in standby mode, was about £25-30 a year. Considering our annual power bill was close to 5 digits, it barely shows up as noise. Admittedly this cost will be larger now power prices have shot up, but i imagine percentage wise its going to be pretty much the same amount relative to the total bill. Possibly less because we have newer, more efficiant, hardware now. This is obviously only relevant for devices that are in "standby" mode. If the device is actively left "on" and drawing actual current, then thats a different situation, but i imagine using an inline smart socket would be an order of magnitude cheaper than installing these to solve that problem. Not quite as "neat" though i guess.

[@Travatain]

The biggest waste of electricity I came across when I was working was in a school domestic science room. I wired in 30 2kw under sink water heaters, each one, of course, had its own isolating switch on the worktop. I used to do a lot of other work during the school holidays when I found that all the water heaters had been left switched on all the time! The MK system would have saved a lot of money in that situation.

[@krashd]

At a high school I went to in the 90's the computer department would leave all the computers on overnight, the lights would get turned off and the screens would go into standby so from outside the room would be completely dark, but in the room you would hear the hum and feel the heat of 15 RM Nimbus computers whirring away, with 15 Macs in another room doing the same.

[@ItsJustPhillip]

I want to put smart sockets in my house - what are the best type? The ones in your video look great but obviously I don’t have a BMS system. Thank you

[@G1ZQCArtwork]

Odd question.: If the Orange switch disables the smart circuitry, does the outlet still operate.? (Supply power). For it to properly be part of the test. Students (or workers) will very quickly disable the smart technology using this switch. It still may be flagged up on the panel as a missing socket on the system though.? Thoughts.?

[@efixx]

The electronics needs to be powered up.

[@G1ZQCArtwork]

@@efixx For the relays of course. I suspect students may still find a way around the restriction by pairing up the Two outlets into one trailing socket.

[@deang5622]

​​@@G1ZQCArtworkYou are confusing yourself. The internal switch is present for purposes of electrical testing, nothing more. So it is switched off by the electrician for the purposes of the PAT/insulation test only, and then switched back on. You don't want power coming out of the socket under this test; this is not normal operation. There is no appliance connected to the socket outlet. So yes, turning the switch off isolates the smart socket's electronics from its supply and means that the socket cannot operate. It means that the relays switching mains power to the sockets are in a normally open state and require energising to close the relay contacts and energise the output sockets. So if you wanted to permanently disable the socket and prevent it being used, opening the socket up, sliding this switch would achieve that. But that would be a pointless thing to do, as you've installed a £250 socket and now it can't be used. Now, your second question/issue was whether you can bypass the current restriction limitation when active. That's not connected with the electronics isolation switch. If the user has configured the system to limit the socket to 6 amps each, then yes that restriction can be bypassed by making up a cable adapter arrangement comprising two 13 plugs with 13 amp cables and a junction box. That would provide up to 12 amps of current. A highly dangerous cable because you would be able to remove one of the two plugs from the sockets and a live pin at full mains voltage would be exposed. But yes, the current restriction could be by passed. Any seller selling such a cable is certainly going to have Trading Standards soon knocking on their door and possibly a prosecution will follow. But of course, there is nothing to stop an individual making up their own such adapter cable.

[@G1ZQCArtwork]

@@deang5622 No, not confused thanks.

[@deang5622]

@@G1ZQCArtwork Not now I hope after having answered it.

[@YUDNSAY]

Build into the terms, and conditions of employment that the use of extraneous devices will lead to dismissal, and this system can be very draconian....

[@Milkybar3320011]

How much power does BMS controls in the socket use?

[@anticarrrot]

"Just turn off computer equipment at night!" I can see that becoming a potential headache for the IT department. Especially if plugs ever get moved around, or random kit start having trouble remembering things when unexpectedly rebooted. I can imagine this is going to be super popular if these smart sockets start to do things like killing power to a standby projector mid meeting (also potentially killing the expensive lightbulb it contains) if the sockets aren't labelled correctly, and/or aren't kept up to date.

[@dave-d]

Very interesting. The thermal management is a brilliant idea. That might give fire crews an insight as to the location of a fire in a building if the socket circuit is still energised. The app could show which area is hot. Possible risk of re-energising rotary or heating equipment and creating a hazard. Love the isolation switch. IR tests are such a pain with the usb charging type outlets. Nice.

[@abdulseaforth6930]

I twist (to minimum) at the tip , in order to ensure all the strands enter the ferrule.

[@abdulseaforth6930]

Sorry, this comment was for a previous video of yours that I viewed

[@michaeloconnor7849]

Whats to stop someone just swapping it for a bog standard socket and using as much power as they like , you will find people daft enough to work on a live circuit everywhere.

[@curranhouse]

Can it support spurs? Most commercial machines are hardwired to stop people plugging in. but this system would still be very useful?!

[@zahidshabir4038]

I have a question can these be controlled over wifi from home because I plan to use something similar in a rental home and these would be great to restrict electricity from home because my family has seen their fare share of tenants who just leave a fan or a heater running 24/7 even when not home (not seen always but we get tenants snitching on each other)

[@KarlTykke]

Another symbolic gesture. The sales pitch ignores the reality that energy management will require another switch that determines whether this facility will get ANY energy when there is an any storage

[@DJ-SPARKY-REACH-ON-AIR]

can i ask when will they be available in uk as this is what we need for our studios and hope they do kits

[@efixx]

Yes it’s available in the UK - check link in description

[@andrewallen9993]

As an electrical engineer I immediately noticed the electrolytic capacitors that will fail and stop the socket working far far far quicker than a normal socket.

[@efixx]

It's not a "hot" environment compared to something like an electronic lighting ballast which also use electrolytic capacitors usually positioned next to heat generating LEDs etc.

[@andrewallen9993]

@@efixx I suggest you look up ohms law then measure the voltage drop across that plug circuit and THEN ask yourself where the buyer at MK got the cheapest capacitors and the best soccer tickets from :) I know the answer to this already as those capacitors have liquid electrolyte in them and they are probably 85 degree rated as well :)

[@Hiccup77]

CEF selling a white 2 gang socket for £254. I could leave that 2kw heater on 24/7 for a year before I even paid back for 1 unit. It's much easier and cheaper to hire 1 worker jonnie to go round and switch everything off at the end of the day.

[@freepoet6737]

How good are the relays in one of these sockets? It could be an expensive exercise getting an electrician in to replace one, and program it to operate with the rest of the installation. Every time an organisation has a re-organisation/office move, or equipment is moved from A to B, or extender leads are fitted, the system will need reprogramming. I can see that certain use cases like gyms could benefit from a system like this.

[@dougle03]

No reason for an electrician to manage the software side. The buildings existing IT support could easily take that part of it on without issue. In fact, most IT departments would no doubt insist on it..

[@rogerthomas7040]

@@dougle03 The building management team is never going to let the IT team anywhere near the resulting network, while the IT team will be making it very clear that power will not be just disconnected from devices such as printers as and when the building management team thinks it is for the best.

[@Neil_down_south]

What's a decent MK socket range for home? I bought a multi pack and the connectors and switches feel rather flimsy.

[@wisteela]

Absolutely fantastic.

[@bigjd2k]

How much power do those sockets take themselves?

[@mostlymessingabout]

FM: Do we need power to floor 3? Smart socket: No FM: Turn it off !!! ICU: everyone dies

[@AdrianBawn]

If this was to be used in a domestic installation does it support MQTT, Home Assistant, or Home hub integration? Or does it require MKs proprietary BMS software ?

[@Pugjamin]

They're not designed for domestic installation.

[@AdrianBawn]

@@Pugjamin That wasnt the question i asked.

[@brianredmond4919]

Now big brother is watching your electricity consumption - nothing to worry about and all for our own good i’m sure. Should fit in well with mobile phone location monitoring and internet use. Great to know the government cares.

[@krashd]

Your paranoia has no beneficial use.

[@zoltrix7779]

Saves heaps of energy, if you don't take into account the increased manufacturing costs, service calls, installation labour and diesel used by said installers.

[@BloodyEpicG4m3rZ]

So if I was a student with this in my dorm, all I got to do to bypass the limitations set in the BMS is remove 2 screws and flip that switch? I guess the BMS would probably alert to say that the sockets went missing though

[@efixx]

The BMS would flag a fault and the socket won’t work if the internal electronics aren’t connected - better pop down the students union instead and make a nuisance there instead.

[@ianhailey]

How much power does the socket use when the outlets are off and on (no load attached)?

[@dougle03]

If it's based on the ESP chip then

[@jonathanburnside9461]

Switch could of been outside the enclosure

[@970357ers]

No matter how much we all chase reductions in energy use, the shareholders’ thirst for dividend will always maintain a margin in the ppkwh!

[@ciaranflynn6291]

wonder would this added rf interfere with wifi etc

[@ianburton9223]

Why is this device avaiable only for industrial or commercial applications? Is this limitation just a financial limit in the form of capital costs of the system needing a large number of outlets, where savings can be made, so that ongoing savings eventually compensate for initial capital costs? Device pricing would have been a useful parameter to have included in your video.

[@dougle03]

£250 each.... Similar units can be had from Amazon for about £30

[@ianburton9223]

@@dougle03 That seems very odd. Why would anyone pay £250 when "similar" devices are available for £30 from Amazon? Just what is covered by that danngerous word "similar"?

[@dougle03]

@@ianburton9223 All the key functions of the MK one. Wireless comms, remote control of each socket, remote temperature sensor. As far as I can tell the only USP of these units is the ability to disable the electronics, but only by taking the faceplate off to do it, so not really very practical...

[@ianburton9223]

@@dougle03 Added cost of £220 for the red button does not apear to be a reasonable commercial propostion. Thanks for your contribution to this "bang for the buck" issue. Cheers Ian M. Phil., C. Eng., M.I.E.E. before the institution of electrical engineers became the instutution of engineering technology - MIET would have been my new label, but this translates to "crumb" in french - not good for my business in France.

[@billdoodson4232]

Missing lever connections. A backward step?

[@peterfitzpatrick7032]

If theres a brown/blackout, do all these sockets lose sync with the hub ? Are they protected from surges and transient spikes ?

[@dougle03]

Yes, and no. Best avoided

[@waqasahmed939]

This looks like those lightwave RF sockets that have energy monitoring I'd love to have some of these in my house even if these are meant for "commercial" use instead, assuming they are competitive against Lightwave RF.

[@hugheffo]

This is a typical, “live just spent £30k on new smart sockets”, “how much has it saved in electricity ?”, “about £30 quid a year”

[@krashd]

Nah, you'd save about 30 grand a year, a single office room can have enough devices like fans and heaters left on to cost 30 quid a night, multiply that across 15 floors with 10 offices on each floor.

[@robertferguson4607]

Big bruv welcomes you to the future.

[@occamraiser]

How much power do they consume?

[@asvarien]

These sound great. But how much power does each smart socket itself consume?

[@graemesmith8509]

Great tech vid Ive used similar to coltrol elec heater to schedule them on and ensure all are off after office close at the end of the day

[@jmileshc]

The originating company was at the distributed energy show, I think? The sockets weren't that pricey but you had a cloud subscription, interestingly a large user, portacabins had apparently, a faulty heater which was detected by the clouds AI / ML software which they they then altered the user too so they could isolate it. Open source software & hardware anyone?

[@BusinessButlers]

Can I ask if you know if MK are developing the same system for domestic installation (and produce the brushed steel face plates - looking at the design the pace plate could be an add on anyhow) since it would solve at a stroke the need for loads of Alexa/Homekit/GoogleHome plug in plugs as well as being able to manage energy usage by room. Will they be also doing versions for the higher power items like cookers, aircos etc that need hard wiring? As a home automation afficionado, I can see so so many benefits provided the hub is not overly complx/expensive and Matter compatible ??

[@efixx]

Mk have no immediate plans for a domestic version it’s purely for commercial BMS integrations. I’m sure as Matter compatibility opens up something will appear.

[@rogerthomas7040]

The issue is going to be the price they wish to sell these sockets for. Currently, they list at around £226 (ex VAT). A consumer-focussed device will basically be the same hardware, but different firmware but at a much-reduced price. With a major difference in price, they would end up with a marketing headache.

[@Vim-Wolf]

Wow, what a great idea for seeing what’s using power at home and try to cut my power useage. I’ll just see how much they co… HOLY CARP.

[@MyProjectBoxChannel]

What about all the standby current from the internal power supply. If you have many of them it will start to add up.

[@efixx]

It’s about 0.5W

[@chloewilliams1112]

It's SHedule if in the UK, SKedule only in the US!

[@efixx]

Tomato 🍅

[@ail9483]

Can someone please explain how by turning the switch off on one socket, you wouldn't get issues with other sockets further down the line if there switches are still on?

[@jamesderrick8201]

Great - yet another RF automation standard so Trend can compete with ZigBee, Thread, Z-Wave, Matter, Wi-Fi, KNX, ModBus, ad nauseum. Don't tell me, can I guess 2.4GHz ISM bands with a closed proprietary protocol mesh and DIY encryption? BMS is not home automation, but centralised switching in the DB is cheaper to retrofit (essential kit is already on segregated feeds, right?)

[@efixx]

They use a Mira mesh protocol from Lumen Radio.

[@dougle03]

@@efixx Ohh dear... Mira you say... so 2.4mhz in competition with WiFi/BT/Zigbee and all the other ISM noisy traffic. For £250 a pop I'd have at least expected private band comms..... wow!!!! I remember Mira from theatre, it was rubbish then, nice to see they have found a new market to fleace...