One functionality that we pretty much from the beginning wanted to include in the gadget was a lab- or test function. By this functionality you can investigate and learn about the power usage of a certain product in your home. This individual knowledge is important for making rational choices about which changes in behavior are going to give the highest effect in terms of saving energy, but it´s also a function that makes the user interact and play with the gadet. Energy investigation should be fun and easy!

Here are some examples of how the test function can be used:

The consumption is set to zero when the gadget is turned to test position. (See display functions in Form for Direction). When you then turn one or more products ON or OFF the gadget shows the difference in watts.

- How much energy can I save when turning OFF my computer?

- I wonder how much energy my Tv uses? Turn ON the Tv.

- If I turn ON the Tv and also the surround sound, then what is the energy usage?

The point of the gadget is to act as a reminder, and make us aware of our power usage. To get this function in a home, the gadget needs to be placed in an everyday area. So the gadget must have a form that people like to interact with; learn from, communicate with, look on, touch and test.

The picture below shows some new ideas about the form and display function.

From prior suggestions we kept LED-displays and preference change by movement. The new form looks like an arrow when lying down, and a house when standing up. This symbolizes different aspects of what is shown at the displays and what’s actually measured, hence the power consumption in homes. The “house windows” can also create a feeling for the social aspect in this projects ecosystem of involvement (Meter-Web-Gadget).

One aspect that is relevant most of the time we think is the real-time indication and direct feedback of your power usage.  Therefore this is shown at a LED-bar on one side of the gadget.

The gadget is still under progress… nice to hear what you think!

The goal of this project is to help people reduce their energy consumption. Since we want people to reduce their energy usage, this also includes us and the gadget we want to produce.

As argued before the gadget should act as a reminder and make us aware about our actions. To do that the gadget needs to communicate with the web and the user. This communication is done with different hardware components that all demand some kind of energy source. Tricky! To reduce energy you need a gadget that makes a contribution to the consumption.

After discussing different forms of notifications, light seems like the best alternative. Light can be programmed in all different sorts of forms like text, symbols and rhythm. Light can also be a really low energy component by using LED (Light Emitting Diodes). LED is predicted to be the future of lights in our home (DN article, in Swedish). The traditional (incandescent) light bulb will soon be prohibited in the EU, and today’s low energy lamps has components (like mercury) that are dangerous for the environment. A LED can hold for 45 000 hours (compared to a traditional light bulbs 1000 h and a low energy lamps 8000 h). Don’t miss to read about the further development of LED, the OLED (Organic Light Mitting Diodes).  Put simply – plastic that emits light. Imagine what that can make! Anyway, we want to use this interesting progress for the gadget.

At this moment we are investigating how to program different LED matrices and we’re discussing what information that is preferred to display on the gadget and how. A big idea is to have three matrices in a cube formation. Through sensors the user can change the information on the matrices by flipping, rotating or shaking the cube. Below are some quick sketches of what it could look like. It would be nice to hear what you think!