How can I make my heating controls more accessible?
A number of heating control manufacturers provide tactile or braille add-ons to their products, so you can feel where the controls are and how far the dial is turned. You should contact the manufacturer of your current system directly to see if they can provide this.
If you have some useful vision, you might find a control which displays the temperature on a large LCD screen easier to use.
If you use a smartphone, you could also consider installing a smart thermostat and heating control system, for example Nest or Hive. These products avoid using manual controls by allowing you to control your heating through an app on your smartphone. You could also consider using NaviLens tags to mark certain buttons and switches, for more information on NaviLens please see What is NaviLens?
Smart meters
Smart meters can send your meter readings straight to your energy supplier, meaning that no one will need to come and read your meter in future. Most of the smart meters that are being installed today use mobile phone-type signals to send meter readings to your supplier.
They can also tell you how much energy you are using through a display in your home.
Accessible In-Home Display (AIHD) smart meters are currently being developed.
