Today’s Solutions: November 22, 2024

Snuggled up in bed, Yasser Khattak wanted to turn off the light without getting up. It was his lightbulb moment. That teenage frustration gave him the idea for a household plug socket and light switch where the on-off button is flicked remotely via a smartphone, so appliances such as TVs and lights can all be switched off at once, saving on power. “I was in bed one day reading my book, tucked away and I didn’t want to get up to turn off the light switch. My Dad, every day, would send me or my sister or my brothers around the house to turn off all the lights and appliances. Big house, it takes some time. It took us a few minutes. It was just inefficient,” he says. “[I thought] there should be a button … when the house is being built to hardwire everything into it so that before you go to bed it turns everything off. Before you go to work in the morning, it just turns everything off…

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