Novel Interface for Home Thermostats

1. Smartergy
INLS 818 Seminar in HCI:
Energy Group:
Luke M, Lina H, Chiyoung O,
Jessica L, Jessica W
http://smartergy.wordpress.com/

2. Statement of Purpose
• Increase energy awareness in the home.
• Augment behavior by incentives such as
monetary gain, ease of use, gaming, and
"social impact," comparing consumption
rates from person to person/ house to
house.

3. Environmental Scan
• 1 Home Networking
1.1 In-Home
1.2 Off-Site Monitoring
• 2 Energy Consumption Awareness
2.1 Devices
2.2 Community Informatics
2.3 Utility Bills
2.4 Ambient design
• 3 Behavior Altering Incentives through Technology
3.1 Social Impact
3.2 Gaming
3.3 Monetary Compensation
3.4 Usability
• 4 Interface Design
4.1 Household
4.2 Ambient Quality
4.3 Widgets
4.4 Mobile
4.5 Real Time Data Visualization

4. Feature Description Reasoning Source
Features by Category
Real time data Monitors: status, Immediacy of data, Chetty, 2008;
usage, social, ability to respond Fischer, 2008
billing and make choices
Ambient alerts Warnings of "Quiet" feedback, Seligman, 1977;
excessive energy unobtrusive, McClelland, 1979-80
use constant message
or overview of status
Billing history, Highlights usage Context for usage Darby, 2006
payment patterns, shows how
to save money

5. Target User Walkthrough
Smartergy translates to varied levels of
technology literacy by providing a simple, intuitive
interface. It is ideally suited for the family
household. Average users might be parents who
find educational benefits in teaching their children
about the environmental impact of energy
consumption behaviors. They want something
unobtrusive in their daily routine that can help
them save money and improve global and
community resources.

6. The Smartergy Device
• Based in a high traffic area (hallway, kitchen)
• Always-on, fed with real-time and historical
data from the Smart Grid
• Smartergy cycles information during inactivity.
• Ease of use: optimal combination of menus,
status of the home over time, social and
gaming features, detailed analysis of payment
history.
• Most on-screen items have detailed
information presented upon touch.
• Over-usage alerts/All-OK status indicated by
ambient lights viewable from afar.
• Low interactive cost: natural language, light
gaming features
• Multiple representation of same data: your
energy consumption in different contexts

7. Current level compared
Game/Social Visualization
against neighborhood
average (white line)
Appliance arranged by room
Home Screen
Ambient lights
indicate status.
(red above
average; green
below)
Selectable time
frames

8. Design Defense
• Lots of info designed/organized from an
overview so interaction is simple and not
complex
• Social comparisons against averages
relative to neighborhood/city/state/etc
consumption levels.
• Smartergy reads energy usage across
rooms and appliances based on detection
of unique energy signals with location
specific data.
• Mini Social/Game view: SmarTrees
compared to user defined goals.

9. Gaming incentive to
reach new level of
savings
Competition level
by geography
Game/Social Screen
Touch sensitive,
scrollable
gallery of SmartTress

10. Design Defense
• Animated SmartTrees visualize real time
data rendering gaming interaction control a
matter of energy consumption behavior
• Scalability: competition level option allows
users to select how many other users they
will be providing information to. Allows
users to advance in gamin ambitions
• Ease of use: automatically selects two
adjacent entities to compete with user’s
information, bringing focus back to the user
• Passive gaming: information that details
how long energy consumption has been
consistent.

11. Detailed statistics
Natural language Usage & Bill Pay Screen
recommendations and
facts
Bill Pay and bill
history

12. Design Defense
• Awareness provides incentive
• Contextualization: Smartergy reports historical data
compared to current usage broken down by time.
• Also using neighborhood consumption levels, an average
is visualized against current data.
• Familiarity of info: expected costs are calculated using
current usage patterns referring to bills.
• Immediate bill payment is available via Internet connection
• Ease of use: Automatically generated feedback on
consumption levels related to bills are presented in natural
language statements.
o You've saved $10 in electricity bills this month.
o Your community saved $270 in electricity bills this
month.
o Your consumption is 1000 kWh.
o Save $3 a week by turning off the lights 20 minutes
early.

13. Specific profile setting to have the Smartergy
device guide users to optimal energy
List of devices consumption for these occasions or seasons.
detected in the house
-organized by their
room / location
-to be selected /
Settings Screen
confirmed by
the user
Targetting average level
setting according to
user’s preference.

14. Design Defense
• Settings screen allows user to control
preferences, consumption, and target averages
for data view on home screen
• Thoughtful Design: User can select language to
broaden potential users
• Ease of augmenting behaviors: User can select
preset energy consumption limits in order to meet
target goals for the household from a single
interaction
• Complete control: Hierarchical data views under
"Rooms & Devices" display remotely received
energy consumption data in each room of the
house via the Smart Grid

15. Reflections
• Granularity: the big picture becomes increasingly complex as you drill down and
consider the individual elements of an interface
• Usability: efficiency, elegance (simplicity without compromising information)
• Need to give the user context for data, can't simply tell him how many watts are
being used if that information is not related to concepts or history
• Multiple iterations
• Whiddling down scope (what is and is not essential)
 Web component to aggregate information, do bill pay, and control the
home remotely (Mint.com model)
 Mobile devices
 Remote Access and Control
• Importance of collaboration and group work in a design process ... Multiple
perspectives make for better decision ... Critiques and challenges improve the
final product