Orb for Monitoring Home Energy Use
Harry Ward’s prototype for his Orb energy monitor is an example of a simple and attractive device for monitoring real-time energy home use.
Dan Lockton writes about the Orb on his blog, Architectures of Control: Design with Intent:
Recent design graduate Harry Ward’s Orb energy monitor is especially attractive: a toroidal inductor is clipped around the cable being measured, and transmits data wirelessly to the Orb itself, a hand-held unit which glows different colours depending on the power being drawn. The display on the Orb could show the user the direct electricity cost and CO2 emissions equivalent, as well as the actual power being used and cumulative energy (kWh) used over a period.
In an email, Ward described the key principle in his design: it was to be a “a real-time energy monitor that made the concept of ‘energy monitoring’ simple and understandable.”
There are several levels to the monitoring: “First, ‘at-a-glance,’ whereby the consumer can instantly understand what is happening, by a coloured glow. Next, digital figures are available to justify the glow. Finally, the product has a self-learning feature, that uses historical consumption data to provide comparison for the user.”
I asked Ward why he felt that a product like this is important, and he replied, “I felt, as I do now, that as energy prices rise and the pressure to reduce CO2 emissions increases we will need to be able to look at what we use and when - at the point of consumption (ie not in a bill 3 months later!).”
Developed originally as part of a final-year product design project for his degree, the end product may differ from what we’ve seen thus far. So, consider the product we are seeing here a preview of a perfected design we’ll see later on.
Ward wrote that during the process of design, he “did prototyping whilst developing the product at the workshop that was available at my University. Its a very useful process that I would say is essential to ensure the product design is achievable on a production level. The orb, as it displayed in Dan Lockton’s website, is the creation from my degree after various attempts at different designs. I settled on the tactile shape to encourage the user to use the product around the home. Since then, the product has had many other embodiments.”
The design is being finalized now, and plans are underway to get the Orb into production in the next year. I’ll keep you posted.
Photo courtesy of Harry Ward
Tue 11 Mar 02008
Hey teno! — just found your blog email amongst all the spam in my inbox. A semi-random thought… this orb thing, says: the display on the Orb could show the user the direct electricity cost and CO2 emissions equivalent”. Living in the Pacific Northwest as I do, I’ve heard that the “carbon footprint” type calculations, as well as any simple electricity to CO2 emissions conversion, doesn’t work so well in this region — since the vast majority of the electricity produced around here comes from hydro power rather than coal plants. Not to suggest that hydro power is without downsides, but i wonder if you know about this kind of thing — how would one work out their carbon footprint or their CO2 emissions from electricity use in the Pacific Northwest?
Also, hi! Nice blog so far!
Thu 13 Mar 02008
Hey pfly, that’s a really good question. I’m glad you brought it up, because it’s an issue we’re going to be dealing with for a while as we aim to make these types of tools more useful. There’s not a lot of specificity to them, yet - in terms of carbon emissions, a kWh in Seattle is not the same as a kWh in London.
Most carbon footprint calculators out there use national averages of co2-per-kWh. Fortunately, however, there is one from safeclimate.net (there may be others; I’m not sure) that asks you what state/province and country you are in, and accounts for that in the calculations. That’s better, certainly. (Though I’d argue that there’s still a long way to go before these calculators are where they should be)
If you try it, be sure and click on the correct calculator icon on the first screen, because the default if you hit return (after entering the number of individuals in your household) is to begin the calculator for people outside of the US and Canada.
We need feedback that informs us according to our particulars. So a calculator or a device like the Orb should be able to show us our footprint based on how we’re getting our energy, and account for whether we’re putting energy back into the grid.
I’m really curious to hear if others have uncovered elegant calculators and feedback solutions that take into account more particulars and context.
In case anyone is interested, there is a database put out by the US Department of Energy called the Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID) that contains data on emissions of electric power systems. In the most recent version (2006) Washington state power systems averaged 360 lbs co2 per MWh, to the US average of 1,363 lbs co2 per MWh.
Safeclimate.net calculator
http://www.safeclimate.net/calculator/
Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID)
http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/egrid/index.html