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.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Exibition Description
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Building Development
This is the made up wooden stand and rod to support the mood rings. Unfortunately due to the mood ring idea being my plan B, I left getting the mood rings till quite late. For some reason there is a serious lack of mood rings in the Wellington region, so i was only able to get my hands on 5 mood rings. Also these are all different sized mood rings so i had to taper the rod in order to allow this. My overall design encourages the user to use their right hand so in the rod design i made the right side slight thinner to make it easier and more comfortable for the user. For the rod colour i had to decide on a neutral colour. After playing around with the mood rings, i found the colours they gave off were not that bright and in some cases very dark. So i chose white as my colour for the rod. That way any dark colours given off by the mood rings wont be lost by the white background.
Building Development
This is the development of the boxes i made up for the cold blocks and the head pad. I used pine wood and wood screws to make the box. I then painted each box with it's respected colour. I then got my print outs of the hand prints and laminated those. I then placed them on the top of the box, sticking them down with double sided sticky tap. I wanted these boxes to be the same size to keep the overall object tidy and symmetrical. I have kept the under side of the boxes open so that i can place the heat pad and cold blocks in them. I will then put some tea towels underneath to raise the heat pad and the cold blocks to lightly rest on the laminated print out to allow maximum temperature transfer.
Building Development
Building Development
I have decided to use cold blocks instead of a block of steel as my cold pad. These will be much colder and therefore get a better reaction from touching the mood rings.
Building Development
This is another type of heat pad that i got hold of. This pad has the ability to reach a surface temperature of 54 degrees by having a small metal disc flex inside the pad causing a molecular reaction where the sodium acetate solution inside is caused to crystallize and give off heat. This would work very well as by desired heat pad but i will have to build a rather large box to fit it.
Building Development
These are some random heat pads that my dad found in his closet. Once you open the sealed packet, the pad automatically starts to heat up in 30mins. It then lasts for 12 hours. As you can see I experimented with one first and found that it didn't get hot enough for my liking.
Bad news
Unfortunately the touch sensitive glass has not arrived yet so I am forced to go with my original idea of using the mood rings. This is disappointing as I believed my project would have worked much better and be way more visually appealing.
Sunday, 31 July 2011
More Research
http://www.inventables.com/technologies/temperature-sensitive-glass
This would be perfect for my project. It's made of glass so the visual appeal and the want to touch is already very strong. It uses liquid crystals so it will respond rapidily and efficiently to subtle temperature change on the hand. Also just by the image posted you can see how visually appealing this project could potentically be.
I have emailed for a quote on shipping and time of delivary. Fingers crossed I can get 4 of these delivered in time for project submission.
This would be perfect for my project. It's made of glass so the visual appeal and the want to touch is already very strong. It uses liquid crystals so it will respond rapidily and efficiently to subtle temperature change on the hand. Also just by the image posted you can see how visually appealing this project could potentically be.
I have emailed for a quote on shipping and time of delivary. Fingers crossed I can get 4 of these delivered in time for project submission.
Research
I have been doing some research on other ways I can get my visual experience that I want by not using mood rings. I feel that the mood rings are too small and it would be more benifical to have a larger surface area to touch. After a lot of googling I found some more information on Thermochromism. The definition of thermochromism is something that changes colour due to temperature change. Liquid crystals are used in mood rings, but another way to achieve thermochromism is leuco dyes. Liquid crystals are hard to get hold of and require careful handling. Leuco dyes is simply like a paint that can be applied. The actual substance of it is contained in microcapsules. The down side to Leuco dyes is that they are not as responsive and effcient as liquid crystals and I believe for my project to be successful, I need my material to change colour rapidily and easily.
More Development
I have decied to change the platform that holds everything. To reduce any confusition the user may experience, I will colour one side of the board blue and the other side red. This is to contrast with the heat pad and the cold pad. This will tell the user that the board is only there to hold everything and not have anything to do with the intereaction.
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