My idea is to use a touch interface universal remote that is linked to all smart devices in the house. Through my research I discovered that a lot of energy is lost through standby power. By using a sensor in each room that detects when no one is in the room, the remote can shut off anything still on. This will be accomplished by using Wifi and Bluetooth technology. The remote will be able to identify each individual device and track its energy usage in a nice simple visual way. This information will then be presented back to the user on the remote with colour codes and information. The remote will be able to identify energy problems, give scary facts of what is to come money wise and then suggest tips and behavioural patterns to prevent sufficient energy wastage. My target users will be anyone with a fairly large home containing lots of high powered smart devices.
Monday, 12 September 2011
Development/Reflection
I had the idea of using an iphone as the remote device istead of a different device all together, but i soon relised that the remote device needs to stay in the house in order for the house to save energy, so a portable phone would not be suitable.
The good thing about using a remote is that it is something that is always in plain sight of the users. It is always in the centre location of the house which is the lounge. It is constantly interacted with by the users. This is great as the remote will have reminders and alerts on it of energy saving so the device needs to be seen and heard often.
Remote device will need to have basic universal remote capabilties eg running the tv and dvd player etc in order for it to be a daily used device.
The sensors that i plan to use to work out when someone is in the room or not will need to have a night setting where it still knows to turn everything off when the user is sleeping. Perhaps heat sensors - need to look at costs, power cosumtion and whether or not it would get confused with a computer and a person. Maybe time settings via the remote can be set.
The good thing about using a remote is that it is something that is always in plain sight of the users. It is always in the centre location of the house which is the lounge. It is constantly interacted with by the users. This is great as the remote will have reminders and alerts on it of energy saving so the device needs to be seen and heard often.
Remote device will need to have basic universal remote capabilties eg running the tv and dvd player etc in order for it to be a daily used device.
The sensors that i plan to use to work out when someone is in the room or not will need to have a night setting where it still knows to turn everything off when the user is sleeping. Perhaps heat sensors - need to look at costs, power cosumtion and whether or not it would get confused with a computer and a person. Maybe time settings via the remote can be set.
Research
I have decieded to go with my idea of a touch interface universal remote. I have been doing a lot of research on standby power. I have dicovered that standby is responsable for nearly 10% of our energy usage. If a device is not switched off at the wall then it will most likely be on standby power. New high powered devices that come out say that they have reduced wattage when it comes to standby power but according to
http://standby.lbl.gov/faq.html we will not be seeing stand by power decrease. Another thing i researched was the impact on devices if they were to be turned on and off and the power required to turn them on at intial start up. Most main devices like tv's and microwaves, etc will not have a problem turning on and off. Also Almost all household devices do not require any extra energy to turn on.
References:
Project 2 - Intial Research
Over the holidays I observed myself and my families behaviour with energy usage in our house. During the peak time of around 7:00pm my family of 5 would be at home with a lot of devices on. The kitchen would be all on, the lounge with TV and stereo, my bedroom with TV, xbox, stereo and computer, my brothers bedroom, with tv, stereo and computer, the laundry aswell as most of the lights in the house. A lot of devices would be on at one point that wouldnt need to be. For instance the hallway light was on most of the night and there was never anyone in it. My brother and I would come out to the lounge and leaving all our computers, tvs and gaming consoles on. Lights were sometimes left on over night. Almost all the tv's, the microwave, the stereo's and some other devices were left on standby over night. The current power bill for my family is 300 dollars a month. This can be reduced just by simply turning devices off.
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