In many cases local processing of the measured information is much more rational than just pushing everything straight up to the back-end systems. Real-time measurements of a number of sub-metering equipment for instance are good for displaying to users locally, in a variety of scales and formats that provide the best information to the users of HAN systems. Trying to provide this real-time information in the cloud turns out to demand a lot of communications bandwidth – and causes latencies that ruin the real-time experience.

Some logics are best handled at the spot where the different pieces of information are instantly available as well as the needed actions and controls. Sending alerts or messages on exceeding pre-set threshold values of temperature, water or energy usage are some simple examples. Controlling the heating of the house or some other systems and equipment based on user’s commands on a mobile phone are other instances of local processing. Adjusting the electricity usage intelligently according to dynamic prices is yet another one, allowing the HEMS application to adapt to presence or absence of people as well as indoor and outdoor temperatures. The local intelligent application can even learn the characteristics of the house or apartment enabling it to tune itself for getting out the absolute maximum of energy savings – without compromising the comfort of the inhabitants!

Also combining the different systems in a home to work together is very important in rationalizing the energy usage. For instance the heating and ventilation of homes are often handled by totally independent systems and controls resulting in less-than-optimal performance in some occasions. One heating the house and the other one cooling at the same time!

ThereGate offers the processing power and other resources like memory, storage, communications and security elements for any kind of local applications or functions.