Home is where the smart is with heat system that adapts to your needs

Smartphones are old hat by now; smart homes are where it’s at. Whether it’s controlling your heating, lighting or alarm, all can now be done with the touch of a button – no matter where you are in the world – from your phone. For Mitsubishi Electric’s heat systems, this technology is just the beginning.

All about MELCloud

Mitsubishi Electric has developed the MELCloud system, launched four years ago for its EcoDan products, which integrates with wifi system in the house, says David McConnell, national sales manager, heating division, Mitsubishi Electric Ireland.

“The first thing is it gives full control of the system remotely on the homeowner’s phone or smart device,” says McConnell. “There are a lot of systems that do that but MELCloud takes it a step further. It gives energy reports about how the system is behaving and the energy it’s consuming and delivering into the home. Once we know how much it’s delivering and consuming, it’s very easy to calculate efficiency.”

The system can differentiate between how much is consumed for space heating (eg radiators) or domestic hot water heating (for showers and appliances). The system also gives remote connectivity to Mitsubishi Electric, which means, with the homeowners’ consent, “we can dial on to your system and have a look at how it’s behaving and how it’s set up. We can make changes to the parameters of the system to make it more efficient and we diagnose problems if the homeowner is having any, and can go in and see what’s happening remotely and, if necessary, dispatch an engineer.”

Bushmills Irish Whiskey explores new territory with “unmistakably different” 14-year-old Malaga cask single malt

---

Sustainability: A whole new set of reporting with potential to be transformative

---

Tools and applications, in common use elsewhere in life, are still not standard in healthcare settings

---

Futureproofing the health system requires a new prescription

---

McConnell says in that about 12 months, MELCloud will come with a SIM card and 4G network so you won’t even need wifi in the house. In the UK, where this has been launched, Mitsubishi Electric has found that call-outs have been reduced by about 60 per cent because issues can be diagnosed remotely.

Learning your home’s needs

“Auto-adaption” means the system learns how quickly heat is lost from a particular house, at a particular outdoor temperature, so it’s always responding in advance of the heating system, to keep the home at the desired temperature.

The reason that’s important with a heat pump system is that “for every one degree flow temperature we can reduce, it increases the overall system efficiency by about 2.5 per cent, which is a huge saving overall in energy and running costs,” says McConnell.