I am a owner of a FutureHome Smarthub 2 (soon to be sold), and my home transitioned to Home Assistant a few days ago. I have been following closely the situation for a few months now, including the reactions of the user community.

What is especially worrying is that the monthly fees are only nominally monthly - they are to be paid in advance for a full year. If they had been truly monthly I might have been tempted to test it for a month or two, but with this much money being asked up front I am not only worried about the actual value of the service (am I going to save that much on electricity?), I am worried that so few people will take up the offer that the company will be instantly wiped out.

Among the further genius decisions of new owners, this transition period was placed in July: the traditional Norwegian summer month, when half the country is in Spain or Greece, especially a lot of people with larger homes, children and available income (the key target customer group). A lot of them probably never noticed the change and will come home next week thinking the hub broke.

Now, while the TFA claims the MSRP of the FH Hub is $275, it is actually far cheaper - it is about $100, which means the annual fee is more expensive than the hub.

You need to understand that electricity in Norway is laughably cheap (no matter what Norwegians tell you). Today's average price I am paying is 7.81 USD per MWh, as an example. Electricity is so cheap that Norwegians use it directly for heating (even heat pumps are a dubious economic case). Some, including the guy who built my house, use direct electric heating to de-ice stairs (so that's what I am stuck with).

This means that the savings you can achieve with FutureHome are very limited. My largest successes in cost reduction were using a more careful planner for the entry stair de-icing resistance, which used to run anytime temperatures were low and now only runs when there are the right conditions of temperature and humidity. Electric cars (very common here) can also be scheduled to charge at nighttime, and the same goes for water boilers, with simple timers that can be bought for $5.

So the question FH users have been asking: what exactly am I getting for well over $100 a year? It is very unlikely that you would save that amount of money with the FH hub in Norway.

Lots of inaccuracies here.

Firstly it takes far longer to fill a hydrogen car than a gas car due to the careful rate control needed to fill the tank. If you have appropriate cooling and heating systems to maximise density while filling while also preventing the handle from freezing in place it still takes you >6min to fill a car.

Filling time for hydrogen cars is 3 minutes per industry standard. Also, the handle would not freeze in place, because hydrogen heats up when expanding (reverse Joule-Thomson effect): if anything it would warm up. And that happens only for specific pressure ranges (mostly from very high to almost empty tank).

On top of that hydrogen refueling stations do not store hydrogen at bulk pressures required for vehicles since having a large 700bar tank is hugely expensive and dangerous, instead bulk hydrogen is stored at a lower pressure and compressed before being put into small temporary storage and loaded into your car.

It's more complicated than that. There are often multiple tanks at different pressure, and they will be used sequentially to maximise efficiency. First the one with lowest pressure, then top-up with the higher-pressure tank. Promptness of refilling the high-pressure top-up tank is only related to compressor capacity, and this is easily upgraded when customer base increases; hydrogen compressors are off-the-shelf technology.

Also: tanks are not especially dangerous, the tricky parts are usually valves and flanges. Tanks are fairly standardised and are safe ex works; flanges are installed on site and that's where there is potential for errors to creep in. That's why a standing recommendation is to use hydrogen pipes that are "as small as you can get away with" for high-pressure lines.

... You do realise that Toyota has already developed this concept?

I am a researcher on hydrogen technologies at an independent institute and I have led EU projects for about 30 million euros, so I can claim I have some inside knowledge of the industry.

Stellantis never had any significant activity in hydrogen, so they are not really giving up anything. Of all the brands of the Stellantis group I have never met one at the meetings of the EU's Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Joint Undertaking; the only one that was ever active was FIAT, not very convincingly and very long ago: they bailed from the H2moves project more than 10 years ago, never heard from them since.

Other companies have much better developed hydrogen programs: BMW, Daimler, Volvo, each with its ups and downs. Volkswagen and their controlled Scania have a schizophrenic relationship to hydrogen since a previous CEO, Diess, was very much against, but a lot of engineers were in favour. Outside the EU it is of course Toyota and Hyundai that lead worldwide.

In any case, it has been clear for years that it is a lot easier to electrify cars for personal use with batteries, and hydrogen FCs have repositioned themselves for the heavy-duty market (trucks, trains, ships). Stellantis does not have any significant activity in this sector, so it makes sense for them to focus what little resources they have on batteries. Of course, if they had any competence in batteries, since they suck at them too.

"According to the video, officials are not required to disclose what exactly the charges are or who has brought them until the initial investigation is complete under Italian law. "

Then why does the title say he's being charged for reviewing games?

Dude, my claim isn't over some unknowable information lost to time; you can look at old game catalogues and gaming magazines and they have the prices right there.

Here's SSI's 1984 catalogue:
https://archive.org/details/Re...

Look at the price list for EA and all its companies from 1987:
https://archive.org/details/Re...

I've been gaming since the early 80's and games are so much cheaper now than they used to be. I remember spending $39.95-59.95 in the late 80's/early 90's, which would be over $100 now adjusted for inflation. And these weren't huge releases, just run-of-the-mill games.

He's starting out great with Krypto the Super-Dog!

"So we're going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality"

Let us know when you start.

"I don't think this extra billion is going to do much if he can't deliver HLS"
Elon not deliver on a technology he promised?! That would be crazy.

"If they have hearings with young men who have been alienated by Democrat policies and actions"

There were no goddamn policies that alienated young men. It's a lie and you're a liar.

Landing on Mars is the easy part, getting back off is the hard one, even with the lower-than-Earth gravity. China has a bit of an advantage in that the Chinese government is willing to risk astronaut lives a lot more than the US.

Fortunately he's incompetent and has already run Tesla into the ground. The company is basically living off schizoid incels buying the stock. SpaceX's success is largely based on the fact that they keep Musk away from actual management, but with Tesla a smoking ruin he's going to push his way into that and mess it up too.

I hire and if you have a college degree I don't care what high school you went to. Hell, I don't care that much which college you went to as long as you have good experience.

You are a really poor writer. I hope English isn't your native language.