Sure, but they make big leaps every time they launch. It's not incremental like SpaceX, so it's hard to say how they compare.

They are putting fibre on the poles now. Not just BT, around here we have Cityfibre using the poles for their connections.

To be fair there are advantages to above ground lines. Japan got onto fibre very early because they opened up their above ground infrastructure so that other companies could use the poles for their own cables. It looks messy but they are a couple of decades ahead of the UK for internet access.

They are above ground around here. Had to get them to come and fix the neighbour's cable that was attached to a bracket on my house. The guy took a look at it and said it was too much hassle to get the cherry picker, but if I just cut it myself they would eventually send someone. So I did. And they did. With the cherry picker.

Dyson ran out of good ideas some time ago. Their vacuum cleaners are still good, but overpriced. Even there, they copied the dust detector laser thing from Japanese manufacturers. The stopped making washing machines because they weren't profitable enough, and abandoned their car. Their snot canon, the weird headphones that filter air and blow it in your face, sending respiratory diseases in all directions, never gained much traction in the market.

I doubt these things work very well. Water flossers are in general pretty useless. They dislodge large bits of food, but do little with plaque. You need actual floss to scrub it off.

As much as it pains me to say it, I don't think Blue Origin is that far behind. They just have a different methodology to SpaceX. Instead of failing fast and often while they iterate, Blue Origin does a lot of testing and then a successful launch. So it's very hard to say exactly where they are in comparison to SpaceX, but we will find out in the next few years when they are supposed to deliver the first crewed lunar lander to NASA.

You can get 15 minute pricing in the UK. With your own solar and battery you can do quite well out of it.

Those are total rip off prices. The components for a 1200W kit are under £300 if you buy them separately, although of course they are not certified. There is no enforcement and many people have been running them for years already. In Germany the kits are under £300.

Maybe when one of the German supermarkets (Lidl or Aldi) comes out with a kit we will get some reasonable prices.

It really depends. You can have overall negative bills with a decent solar array, battery, and feed-in tariff.

The problem in the UK is that the price of electricity is set by the most expensive source that is required at the time, which is almost always gas. On top of that we have to pay over the odds for nuclear power, if it is needed or not.

500W panels will be around $125-150 each, so let's say 4.5k for those. 15kWh battery should be around $2000. The inverter itself doesn't cost much, a few hundred, but you will have some additional labour costs if you want it to do off-grid, i.e. whole house UPS. Some cable and mounting hardware. The rest will be labour.

Yeah, shingles, roof tiles, whatever you want to call them. Rather than those you can have panels that are the surface of the roof: https://www.wienerberger.co.uk...

So you don't need to buy shingles or tiles for those areas, or have them fitted. No need for bird fences to keep them out either, as they can't get underneath.

That's a crazy price. 3x what you would pay in the UK at the current exchange rate. One thing I would say though is that if you get the roof replaced, get in-roof solar that replaces the tiles with panels, and consider that solar over it may extend its life considerably.

That's an absolutely insane quote. Maybe half that if it's a particularly tricky roof, and if it is then a quad channel inverter isn't much more and would be of benefit.

I'll be interested to see how people use them in the UK, because most people don't have a balcony and most people don't have outdoor sockets they can plug them in to.

That's a shame. You can get in-roof solar that replaces the tiles, so maybe that will be cheaper. Really though, $60k for solar on top? Here the gear is very, very cheap, and most of the cost is the labour and scaffolding. If you are getting the roof replaced anyway it's only going to add a small amount to cover it in solar as well.

Why not get a full roof system though?

Germany has had these plug in kits for years, and the UK is just getting them (at the usual rip off prices, 2-3x what they should be). They are good for people who don't own a roof, such as renters, if priced fairly. Payback in a few years. But if you can get a full system for your roof, that's usually a better option, especially if you also have a battery and/or EV.