Loading Profile...
Major changes to imeasure
We have made a major change to the way data is organised on imeasure to allow for future expansion and new features. We have improved the way you enter and edit your data and solved the problem of what happens when a meter goes round the clock.
You can also add multiple gas and electricity meters.
We have improved the graphs and added graphing to the carbon clubs.
Most of the changes should either be self explanatory or require no action on your part but please let us know if you have any problems.
You can also add multiple gas and electricity meters.
We have improved the graphs and added graphing to the carbon clubs.
Most of the changes should either be self explanatory or require no action on your part but please let us know if you have any problems.
1
person likes this idea
I like this idea!
Tell me when this idea gets some attention.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The best point from everyone
-
Oh dear - where has everything gone??? There's no drop-down to indicate if you took the reading a day or more later than usual - which will distort the results.
And all the tables of information on the results page have disappeared - where's the amount of electricity used this week/month/quarter or the same for gas? Where is the running total of energy used (I'm nearly coming up to 1 year of use and was hoping to have the statistics).
Everything apart from the graph and the energy rating has disappeared! Is this intentional or an accident???
I’m frustrated
4 people think
this is one of the best points
Create a customer community for your own organization
Plans starting at $19/month
-
Inappropriate?I can't find information on how much money (estimated of course) a user's gas and electric has cost over the week. I found this very useful and it would be a shame if it had been lost in the re-vamp.
Thanks.
I’m confused
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
We intend to re-instate this feature shortly with the improvement that you will be able to enter your own tariff to enable a more accurate estimation. -
Inappropriate?I'm also confused. I read my meters on a Sunday, and have been manually adding 614200 to the last weeks entry. The sunday date then showed, with my meter readings. I did this again today, but now it doesn't show, although the database is apparently amended.
Also, the results graph shows that in the 1st and 3rd week of December, I emitted 125 tons of CO2 each week, but nothing for the 2nd week and since for my gas meter and nothing for my electric meter (even though my meters don't produce CO2, but my boiler does)
I’m confused
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
You mean you have been manually changing the timestamps? This won't work now because we have changed the way data is stored. Please email me ( bl[at]ckdog.co.uk ) and I will try to sort it out.
-
Inappropriate?The graph definitely benefits from the addition of points to the trend line - thanks. I miss the comparisons with other members of my cohort (semi-detached gas and electric) though. Are you planning to reinstate these?
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
-
Inappropriate?Yes. We will shortly start work on a more graphical representation of these comparisons. -
Inappropriate?After entering readings last week I had a carbon badge of B. When I log on after the revamp my badge had changed to C prior to entering this weeks readings. Others I know went from a C to and E. Why has the revamp done this?
2 people think
this is one of the best points
-
Inappropriate?Oh dear - where has everything gone??? There's no drop-down to indicate if you took the reading a day or more later than usual - which will distort the results.
And all the tables of information on the results page have disappeared - where's the amount of electricity used this week/month/quarter or the same for gas? Where is the running total of energy used (I'm nearly coming up to 1 year of use and was hoping to have the statistics).
Everything apart from the graph and the energy rating has disappeared! Is this intentional or an accident???
I’m frustrated
4 people think
this is one of the best points
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
A number of users felt that the drop down was confusing. (I'm glad you understood it, but a lot didn't). We looked seriously at the suggestion that imeasure should take the date of entry as the date the reading was taken but came to the conclusion that this was an assumption too far. So we decided that the easiest option was to try to encourage people to take their readings at the same time each week. Then it doesn't matter at what time during the week you enter your results into imeasure. If you are really late in taking your reading, or forget, then simply enter a reading the following week and imeasure will add an average value for the missing week.
All the data is still in the database but has had to be re-arranged to allow for expansion. That means that the code to display stats has to be rewritten but we wanted to get the new version up and running to eliminate the increasing problem of meter rollovers and exchanges. We will be adding more graphs an statistics over the next few months and welcome your suggestions about what you'd like to see. -
Inappropriate?Unfortunately my results graph now looks totally meaningless, with a straight line for electricity and a single peak for gas. Clearly something is not working in the new system!
Merlin Willcox
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
The interpolation isn't working properly where you have zero usage. I'm working on it!
-
Inappropriate?just entered my readings and found that all the things I liked - ie costs for this week, comparisons with other 2 person households & ability to change what I compared with - were gone. Please bring them back, they are what make this interesting. Also the likelihood of me remembering to take my readings on the same day every week is minimal - I liked the facility to say how many days late it was.
I’m sad
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
Thanks for the feedback. It looks like we may have to re-instate the late reading feature.
-
Inappropriate?I like the graph it is much clearer. But my real favourite bit was seeing the money I was spending coming down. Hope it is back soon.
I’m undecided
-
Inappropriate?I've been telling everybody I know that they ought to use this site to track their energy usage but now the energy use figures have disappeared there's not much point to it.
I have found it really useful when doing a carbon footprint online to be able to login to imeasure and get the latest data but now it has all gone.
Also, I need to contact my electricity supplier to tell them to reduce my monthly direct debit to match my actual usage (they're currently charging far more than they should) - but that data has disappeared too.
Our gas meter is outside - so when it's dark and raining it is handy to be able to leave taking a reading until the next day. Putting in a reading say three days late will really distort the figures by making the graph jump by 50% - destroying the whole point of the energy tracking. If my energy use jumped by 50% on a normal week I'd make pretty sure I found out what was going wrong (something left on or malfunctioning?) but without this ability there's no way of telling.
I’m sad
2 people think
this is one of the best points
-
Inappropriate?Three suggestions for further enhancements:-
1. I think my single main improvement would be to have a version of the main graph where the Y axis represents weekly spend rather than kgs of CO2. To be able to say to the rest of the family for example "This week our approximate spend on gas/electricity has gone down [or up] by £x compared to last week" would be more meaningful and motivational than a similar sentiment expressed in terms of kgs of CO2. They all really understand money and what varying amounts of it can buy, whereas CO2 is something they can't see and which they've never had to weigh or dispense, buy or sell or do anything else with.
2. It would be a nice enhancement to be able (at a mouse click) to superimpose and unsuperimpose on one's personal graph the trend lines for the average kgs of CO2 (or expenditure) for all imeasurers in one's particular cohort.
3. I don't know what your graphical display does once the number of measurements starts to cover more than a calendar year. Personally I think that, at that point, in order not to start to lose too much detail it would useful if the default graph covered just a rolling 12 months worth of CO2 emissions with maybe the option to click and see the overall trend right back from when one started inputting measurements.
I expect this is probably a greater level of sophistication than your resources will allow, but I thought I'd voice the suggestions anyhow.
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
Some good suggestions.
1. The nature of the site is more about carbon emission than money but money will play a big part in the additions we are making. You will be able to add your own tariffs to more closely model your bills.
2. The new graphing system is good at this sort of thing and we hope to add it once we are confident the new database structure is working properly.
3. In testing I had just such a display but at the moment all results are shown. A final decision is yet to be made. -
-
Inappropriate?The comparison with others in the same cohort was one of the most important features to me, and surely the way to encourage us climate change carers to do even better. I thought it was the main purpose of sharing one's meter readings on such a database as this. I have also suddenly dropped down a category since last week which surprises me. I'm disappointed with the new version so far but accept it's early days.
I’m disappointed
-
Inappropriate?Hi imeasurers,
I hope you received my email about the changes to the site. We are bring back a lot of the same feedback as before, but needed to upload the new versions (with the corrections for how data is stored) so that we can test to make sure feedback is working properly. We will bring back one phase of the feedback for next week & then more the following week. I am sorry the results page is looking a little bare at the moment, but promise it will be back very soon.
All comments very much welcomed!
Best, Catherine
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
-
Inappropriate?disappointed to see that how much we spend each week on gas and electric has disappeared
would be great if we had this back please .
I’m disappointed
-
Inappropriate?I understand that the comparison features will be restored (hopefully sooner rather than later, and in more graphical form) but the loss of the facility to be earlier/later with your reading is a real disappointment.
I have found that Sunday afternoon is a good time to take readings - it's daylight and I'm usually around - but just occasionally we have a weekend away. In fact we're away the next two weekends. This means under the new system I'll have to go three weeks without entering a reading, or knowingly distort the results.
Surely it wouldn't be too much to have say five radio buttons, labelled with the normal reading date and two either side (similar to below), and ask the inputter to select the actual reading date? We're all pretty savvy Internet users to be doing this, aren't we?
2 people think
this is one of the best points
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
I'm sure all imeasurers are pretty savvy but in software development one has to try to cater for all eventualities. Our previous system was causing some confusion which is why it was removed. I felt that ideally, the results stored by imeasure should be those taken by the user. In other words, if you kept your readings in a notebook, they would match the figures on the database. If we make computed adjustments this will no longer be the case.
However, so many people have commented on this that we will be bringing it back. The direct system you propose will not work - we don't, at present, store the day readings are taken so the system has no idea that you normally take your readings on a Sunday (it doesn't matter to imeasure what day you take your readings as long as it is the same day of the week). Previously we had a drop down box asking you to state if a reading was taken late, early or on time. Catherine doesn't think there will be many people taking readings early and so we may not include this option. And we will remove the word 'late' because some people felt this had negative connotations. And with that I'd better stop writing and start coding! -
Inappropriate?Added my readings this morning (30.03.2009) Now not just all data missing but graph not showing anything either.
Has been over two weeks now since site has not operated correctly!
I’m frustrated
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
Please email support@imeasure.org.uk giving your username.
-
Inappropriate?Hiya,
Well since the change over my graph makes no sense whatsoever and a lot of the comparisons have dissapeared!
So it seems the functionality there was has dissapeared and the graphs do not now work. I'm sorry, what part of this was an improvement???
Please help.
Steve
I’m frustrated
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
5 Comments Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
One of the reasons for making the change was an inconsistency in some of the data. If you look at your data carefully you will see that for the last two weeks your meter appears to have been been running backwards. imeasure interprets this a a meter that has gone round the clock and you get strange results. A similar thing happens with your 12th October readings.
If you edit your readings so that they make sense everything will be fine, or if you prefer, I can do it for you. -
Hello Black-dog. The reason that my meter reading has indeed been running backwards is because we have been generating more electricity then we have been using. Our PV cells have been working well, a sunny few weeks and we are very careful about usage.
Surely this must happen to other people in the same situation.
Please help!
Cheers
Steve -
That's really interesting, we hadn't considered that that might happen. I'll have to think about how best to handle that. In the meantime, don't enter negative readings or just delete them if you already have) - your overall carbon output will adjust itself once the meter becomes positive again and imeasure will interpolate an average value.
-
I may have found a solution to this Steve, don't change anything yet.
-
Previously we had assumed that a meter showing a negative output was one that had rolled over to zero. However, following Steves comments I have realised that some meters may indeed go backwards. I have had to make some assumptions. 1. that the amount will not be great and 2. that no meter will have less than 4 digits. Given those assumptions I have allowed readings down to -1000 units (should be more than enough). A meter that has rolled over will have a negative reading much lower than that and will be handled accordingly. Can any users see a problem with that?
-
Inappropriate?Because of the way readings are corrected to a standard day, it's still not possible to correct a reading which is not taken on your weekly reading day. Could there be an option to delete the last reading and start again? If entering a reading say 2 or 3 weeks down the line things are even more confused.
Having said that, I fully support the reinstatement of the 1/2/3 days before / after menu.
Am very much looking forward to the comparison with other users being restated, the simple A-F rating doesn't cut the mustard. With energy usage varying with temperature, comparison with others is the only way one can really assess our efforts in energy usage reduction.
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
Readings are not corrected to a standard day. You can take your readings on whatever day of the week suits you best - all we ask is that it's always the same day. I used to take mine on a Thursday. The offset allows you to take readings a few days either side of your day. Say you took your readings two days early. The system works out your daily usage, based on 5 days rather than 7 and then multiplies by seven to give a corrected reading. It also inserts a comment letting you know what readings you originally entered. Next week, just take readings on your usual day. If you miss a week completely imeasure uses a similar process to calculate an interim reading. You can edit this if you want to, as you might be able to guess what it might have been (for instance if you were away, it would be quite low)
All readings can now be edited independently. To delete a reading simply highlight it and press the delete key.
We are re-instating features as fast as we can but all the codebase has had to be rewritten -
Inappropriate?Just a few trivial niggles with the smart new graphs:
- the key shouldn't be on the graph; it can (and does in my case) obliterate part of it
- the names of the months should be under the gaps between lines, not on the lines
- could there be a monthly option on the cost graph (a lot of us have a monthly statement I guess) ?1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
The key has to be in the plot but can be positioned in any of the four corners. I'll look at making it movable and also increase the transparency. Can't do anything about the months because that's controlled by the graphing software. Hadn't thought about a monthly option but we can look at doing it if enough people want it.
