THE PORCH LIGHT
Hey hey, welcome to the all-new Signalling!
Did you enjoy SA making waves for that epic Bokke flyover this week? It’s precision, peeps, not hotheadedness. And you can prove it with us by playing this cool game a local dev made — can you dodge every stadium (and the hadedas)?
Anyhoo, this week, we kick off with a look at what water heating really costs in SA. And, if you don’t have solar yet, you’ll feel the pain here as Eskom announced billions in profit by selling way less (i.e. they’re just charging us more). If you’ve got solar, the tips can help you up your heating efficiency, too.
We also look at:
Google’s Gemini Speaker & a toothbrush camera
Help you decide on a new budget robo-vacuum
Fix cameras booting when the power drops
Some lekker SA tech deals and discounts
And way, way more…
Let us know what you think about our new format by hitting reply to this email and laying your opinions on us. Enjoy!
Justin, Kobus and Rowen
THE BIG ONE · POWER
What it costs to run a geyser on Eskom in SA right now
Got solar? It's a good move because heating water is 30-50% of a typical South African household's electricity bill – more than the stove, the fridge and the TV put together.
Your average 150-litre geyser serving a family of four uses roughly R600 to R850 of electricity per month at about R3.20 per unit. Step up to a 200-litre tank for five, and it runs R770 to R1,150.
Any way you calculate it, you end up with a similar number: 100 to 160 units a month. So around R450 for a small household and R900 to R1,100 for a busy one.
Winter is worse, because the water coming into your tank is 3 to 5 degrees colder. And electricity just went up 8.76% for Eskom direct customers and 9.01% for most municipals, with another 8.83% already approved for next year.
So, sans solar, every Rand you cut off water heating now helps you in the long run.
The three fixes, cheapest first
1. Turn the thermostat down (free)
Most geysers leave the factory set at 65–70 degrees. Drop it down to 55/60, and it's still hot enough to be safe and barely noticeable in the shower, but it saves you 8–15% in electricity consumption.
The dial to adjust this sits under the bottom cover panel of your geyser. And, if you are not comfortable opening the panel, any electrician can do it in five minutes.
2. Blanket the tank and lag the pipe (R600–R900 once-off)
Your geyser is not losing money when you use hot water; it's losing heat at 2 am, when nobody's awake, as the tank cools and the element switches back on to reheat it. That is standby loss, and insulation is the only thing that stops it.
A blanket wrapping the tank with the first two metres of hot pipe coming out of the top, lagged (about R50 to R100 a metre), gives you another 10–20% saving that pays for itself in a matter of months.
While you are up there, check for a dripping hot tap anywhere in the house. A slow drip wastes 30–50 litres of hot water a day, and you are paying to heat every litre of it.
3. Fit a timer (~R1,150, plus installation)
A geyser without a timer tries to hold 150 litres at 60+ degrees around the clock, including the eight hours you are asleep. A timer can heat the water before the morning showers and before the evening dishes, and lets it coast the rest of the day. That's 15–25% off, and we show you exactly how to set the schedule a little lower down.
The Geyserwise TSE at R1,146.95 keeps its settings through an outage, while a plain Rhomberg weekly timer for R387.95 works for a tight budget. But if you want to go really smart, check out Sensor Energy’s Geyser Connect, which is full IoT for really smart functions or Plentify’s clever HotBot at only R849 once-off and R149 per month for the software.
One thing to get right, because it costs people dearly. A geyser circuit is fixed electrical work under SANS 10142, so a timer must be installed by a registered electrician who issues an electrical Certificate of Compliance. A plumber's CoC does not cover it, and DIY voids the warranty and can sink a water damage claim, so budget for the electrician on this one.
The signal
Do them in order and stop when you run out of appetite. The thermostat costs nothing, and you can do it tonight. The blanket and pipe lagging cost less than one month of what the geyser is burning. The timer costs the most and saves the most, and it is the only one that needs a professional. But it’s a good move: insurers will often install switches when working on geysers these days. All three together take 30–50% off the single largest line on your electricity bill, before you spend a cent on solar.
QUICK QUESTION
Would you buy a smart geyser controller for R4000 to save R500/month and prevent geyser burst damage?
FIVE SIGNALS
Smart insights, short and sweet
CONNECTIVITY Starlink hasn't even applied yet. Parliament was told SpaceX has filed nothing with ICASA, and one communications lawyer reckons litigation could drag it to 2030. Eish.
Signal: If you're limping along on bad LTE waiting for Starlink, stop waiting. Fix what you can actually get today.
AUTOMATION Google's Gemini speaker is out, and we still don't have an SA price. $99.99, shipping since 25 June, and the good stuff (Gemini Live, camera history search) sits behind a Home Premium subscription. We’ll let you know when SA pricing drops.
Signal: The subscription, not the speaker, is the real cost.
SAFE AND SOUND New rules for what your estate can take at the gate. The draft POPIA code limits ID and licence scanning, biometrics and CCTV, and puts the liability on your HOA, not the guard at the boom.
Signal: You can ask your estate what happens to the photo of your number plate. They now have to have an answer.
WORK AND PLAY SA's cheapest all-electric bakkie is R53,400 under a new Hilux. The Geely Riddara starts at R611,900, with a realistic 314km range and 90kW DC charging. Hmm, worth a look?
Signal: A bakkie in the driveway is now also a very large battery, which changes the home backup maths.
COMFORT Dyson has put a camera in a toothbrush. The CameraJet films the inside of your mouth while you brush. Suppose so you can see better, right?
Signal: Before you laugh, ask the same question you'd ask of any camera in your house: where does the footage go?
WORTH IT?
Xiaomi Robot Vacuum S40C
R2,999, down from R3,999 at Incredible Connection
BUY for a flat. WAIT for a house.
5,000Pa suction, vacuums and mops in one pass, 2,600mAh battery, and the price of entry into robot vacuums has effectively halved. For a flat or a townhouse, it's genuinely good value, and there's little reason to spend more.
The catch is the dock — or rather the absence of one. There's no auto-empty, so you're emptying the bin yourself every couple of runs, which is the exact chore most people bought a robot vacuum to escape. In a bigger house with pets, you'll be doing that constantly, and you'll resent it. If that's you, save up for something with a dock instead.
THE FIX
Your camera goes offline every time the power flickers
It's rarely the camera. It's boot order. Normally your network comes up in sequence: the modem syncs with your ISP, the router gets an IP, then your devices connect. After a power flicker, everything switches on at once. The camera boots in 20 seconds, looks for Wi-Fi that isn't there yet, and gives up. The router comes up 90 seconds later to find nothing waiting for it.
01 Put a small UPS on the modem and router. If those two never lose power, nothing downstream ever has to re-scramble.
02 Plug the camera into a wall socket, not a multiplug or extension. Tiny voltage dips through a cheap strip will reboot it on their own.
03 If you do have to restart, do it in order and wait between each: modem, then router, then camera. Repeatedly rebooting everything at once is what keeps you stuck.
ONE AUTOMATION
Heat your water before showers, not all night
WHEN 05:00
THEN element on for 3 hours
AND off until 16:30, then on for 2 hours
That's roughly 18 units a day instead of the 30 to 35 a geyser burns holding temperature around the clock. Water is still sitting at 45–50°C at 5 am if your tank is properly insulated, which is why the insulation blanket comes first and the timer second.
Adjust the windows according to your household’s needs. Late risers push the morning block back an hour. Nobody home during the day means you can stretch the gap wider. Weekends usually need a longer morning block.
Set it on the timer's own display, or from your phone if you went for the Wi-Fi version. Either way, it's a five-minute job once the electrician has wired it in.
THE LIST
5 Deals to consider this week
Item | Where | Price |
|---|---|---|
Incredible Connection | R2,999 | |
Sustainable | R1,146.95 | |
Cellularfin | R560 | |
Sustainable | R854.95 |
