IF you are fond of technology but not all that savvy about understanding its technical specifications then we have something in common. Do you get confused when deciding what your next mobile device will be? What factors influence your decision at the right time to replace your car, and what factors do you keep in mind when deciding which car to buy next? Do you have a solar generation system at home? If so, did you go for a hybrid system with a battery or a standard grid tied inverter? How did you make your decision on which system is best for you, and how did you settle on the size of the system to get?

We are surrounded by consumer choices involving technology, but I am surprised at how people often make these decisions without even looking at the most important factors. Take, for instance, the individual who must have the latest iPhone in his or her hand yet uses it for little more than doomscrolling WhatsApp groups or basic social media feeds. One of the worst ways to view technology is as a marker of social status.

When faced with a decision to bring technology into your life, always start with the most basic thought. Technology is a tool. It is there to serve your requirements. It is not a badge of honour or a medal or a trophy. And as a tool it needs to fulfil the most basic requirement first: to do the job at the least cost.

This means you must know the job it is going to do, and to cost it out. If you are like me, neither a finance buff nor a technology nerd, there are simple ways to decide things. Consider your car, for example, and do a small exercise. Add up the total cost of purchasing and operating your current automobile. This means the total price you paid for it, along with fuel expenditure so far and any and all maintenance expenditures incurred since you purchased it. Add on insurance costs. Use estimates where you don’t have actual figures. Now take the total and divide it by the number of kilometres you have driven the car, as per the odometer.

Technology needs to fulfil the most basic requirement first: to do the job at the least cost.

This gives you the cost of consuming one kilometre in this particular automobile. When considering your next purchase or replacement, use estimated costs of owning and operating the vehicle you have in mind and divide it by the same number of kilometres you have consumed in your current car. And compare the per kilometre cost between the various replacements you have your eye on and take a decision.

It is somewhat similar when deciding on a mobile device or a laptop or tablet. First determine your requirements. Basic browsing? Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint? If you won’t be using them for serious gaming applications, coding, editing video or any other specialised purpose, then you don’t need anything too top-of-the-line. Few things are sillier than grown men or women carrying state-of-the art tech in the palm of their hands yet using them for the most mundane and elementary tasks.

This is a particularly important lesson to teach children. Does your child have peers in school who compete on the basis of who has the best mobile device or who gets picked and dropped in the fanciest car? If so, this is a good time to teach your child how to stand up to peer pressure.

The costs are relatively easier to tally up when deciding on a solar system for your home. As a simple exercise, try this. Divide the total cost of the system by the number of units the system is projected to generate in two years. If the figure you get is close to Rs20 then your system is likely to pay itself off in two years. If the figure is higher than that, then it will take longer. But be careful with this calculation because it is a very rough idea. It assumes, for example, that all your units generated will be sold into the grid and none will be consumed in your home. It also assumes that your supplier is giving a more or less trustworthy projection of how many units the system will generate over a year.

Suppliers of solar equipment frequently give incorrect estimates of how much generation to expect, or what your payback period will be for the investment. Be wary of relying exclusively on their numbers. Your best bet is to find someone you know who has a system, and find out how many units their system generated last year. I have a 10KVA system for example, and it is on track to generate around 10,000 kilowatt hours of electricity by the end of this year (generation at my house is less because there is shading during a few hours of peak production during the day).

But the rate at which they buy the electricity that I generate is far lower than the rate at which they sell me theirs. In November alone, for example, I drew 539 units of electricity from K-Electric and in return my solar system fed 655 units into their grid. Still, I ended up having to pay more than Rs20,000 in the bill! That’s because all considered, I paid Rs73 for each unit that K-Electric gave me while they paid me Rs33 for each unit they bought.

At this rate, my pay-off period is around three years. Government and solar suppliers will try and tell you your pay-off period will be less than two years. Don’t believe them. Run your own numbers first. Don’t make decisions on which technology to bring into your life on grounds other than utility and cost. There’s nothing sillier than an adult decked out with tech and no clue about what to do with it.

The writer is a business and economy journalist.

khurram.husain@gmail.com

X: @khurramhusain

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2024