With the iPhone platform there is definitely a lot of potential for bringing these types of tools into the social sphere – each of these could be turned into interfaces for web-based hypermiling competitions with friends, for example.

AccuFuel

As with all of these apps, AccuFuel focuses on changes in your odometer and the amount of fuel you get at the pump. I have played with this one a bit. It has a nice widget feel to it – simple interactions and easy data entry. You can set it up to track mileage for more than one car and flip through them just as you can flip through multiple cities in the iPhone weather app. This is more graphical than most – trends over multiple time frames are shown graphically. By Appigo.  ($.99 in iTunes)

Car Care

From the look of it, this app gives you a little more power, if you want it. It does a little more than mileage tracking – you can use it to set car maintenance reminders, which may be handy if you base such things on distance driven. It looks like there’s a little more granularity for those that want it – you can track city vs. highway miles, regular vs. super/premium fuels, and price. There is an import feature if you’ve been keeping data on your computer. This one also has a little visual design and a graphical trending screen. By KB Productions. ($4.99 in iTunes)

CarStat

CarStat uses more of a tabular layout and straight-up data entry approach.  I appreciated that CarStat starts up with some “dummy” data to show me how it works right off the bat.   I think that some of the interactions, such as the way the user calculates averages and totals, could be rethought to create a more fluid experience.  Calculation is naturally at the core of these types of applications, but I think moving these concepts beyond numbers — and into the experiential — is important. By Cogstorm. ($1.99 in iTunes)

FuelGauge

FuelGauge has a pretty attractive home screen (below) showing how my energy use is trending.  There are a few things about FuelGauge that remind that sometimes precision and power don’t always improve the experience — for example, telling FuelGauge I pumped 5 gallons takes 7 taps – some of them zeroes in “5.000″, since FuelGauge always wants its values to the third decimal place.  I expect for an app like this, I will usually want my interaction to be as quick as possible.  But it seems the developer of FuelGauge is putting a lot of attention into future iterations of the app so it may be one to watch.   By iphonecodemonkey. ($.99 in iTunes)

GasHog

Like CarStat, GasHog uses more of a tabular layout and straight-up data entry approach. I have not tried it out, though from the screenshots, it looks executed smartly, if a little dryly.   Again, I think moving these concepts into the experiential is important for engaging a lot of people.  Only geeks like you and me will really put up with a ledger book approach.  By Adair Systems. ($.99 in iTunes)

Miley

I haven’t tried this one out, but it looks like it has a little character and playfulness to it.  As we’ve seen here on Green Interfaces, fuel economy calculators don’t tend to have much of a human touch, so I like the effort.  Reviewers in iTunes also comment that Miley has great tips for helping improve economy, giving it an educational function that some of these lack.  By BunsenTech. ($1.99 in iTunes)

Mileage Tracker

Mileage Tracker seems to have gone a similar route as CarStat and GasHog – tabular data entry interface.  By Lemdisyn.  ($.99 in iTunes)

Tankbuch

Tankbuch comes from developers in Germany, and is available in English, French, and German.  It has the added advantage of being free – but users in the United States will probably not find it usable as only km/l units are available.  By osXwerk.  (Free in iTunes)

No related posts.

Visual readout of the navigation radio displays whatever power mode you are currently in: engine idle, engine power, hybrid power, regenerative braking, or battery power.

It sounds a little bit like the Energy Monitor screen on the Prius.  It shares the screen with sound system controls (AM/FM/XM Radio, CD, Aux), each accessible in different tabs.  

It’s notable that the screen is nowhere touted (that I can find) on the Chevy Hybrid website, but it’s the one feature visually called out (besides the vehicle itself, looking serene among the Redwoods) in the ad.   

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall as the marketers made their decisions about this ad.   I wonder why Earth Day brings this interface to the fore in its campaign, while it’s not really a part of the “standard” sell.     

How does the “visual readout” appeal to someone looking for Earth-friendly solutions this week, rather than any other week?  How does this type of interface function as a selling point for some audiences, and not for others?

Things are a little slow around here as I’m vacationing before beginning a new position at a design agency here in Austin.  Posting will be pretty low-key until I get settled back in to a work routine.  

No related posts.

First, a Prius enthusiast named John put together a breakdown of the different states of the “Energy Monitor” screen, with side-by-side comparison of the latest design with an earlier one. The Energy Monitor displays how the energy systems in the Prius are using and generating energy. This screen toggles with the “Consumption” screen I showed earlier.

Next, a picture-in-picture video showing a three-minute ride in a Prius. It shows the driver’s feet using the pedals alongside the dashboard display in real-time. It shows both the Consumption screen and the Energy Monitor. It’s especially cool to see this kind of coupling of the display with the user’s behavior. You can see pretty clearly how MPG responds to braking and accelerating.

Last, a video that shows how people are using the Prius dashboard to achieve efficiencies far exceeding the estimates for a Prius, with a technique called “hypermiling.” Feedback from the Energy Monitor is used to achieve a coasting glide that uses very little energy. I love this video because it’s a good example of how an interface can make saving energy fun and even competitive.

No related posts.

But it’s not invisible. For one thing, we get that bill every month.

We see how much energy we used when we get that bill, and how much it cost, but it’s not enough. We need to know how we’re using energy moment by moment. We need to know how much it’s costing, right now. We need immediate and simple feedback, like we get from a speedometer: we need to know how fast we’re going, and we need to know when to slow down. A monthly electric bill can’t do that.

On the dashboard of most hybrid cars there’s an example of the kind of feedback we need – real-time display of miles-per-gallon (or KM/L). Up until recently, most gauges on the dash were there because “driving blind” would put us needlessly in danger of breakdowns or traffic tickets. But because the dangers of overconsumption are no less real, we’re beginning to see a new kind of design that’s going to change the way we use our energy, by making our energy use visible.

An interesting thing about the MPG display is that it’s not coming from new data; it was there all along. We could always calculate our fuel efficiency, except that it was a little like those monthly electric and heating bills. We can get a very broad idea of our energy use, but we can’t connect it to what we’re doing very well. When we receive instant feedback, we’ll start connecting our experiences with the energy we’re using.

Prius energy consumption dashboard (Creative Commons photo by geognerd on Flickr)

One thing that strikes me about the Honda Prius energy dashboard, though, is that it’s not very clear, at least at first. There’s a lot on the screen, and since I don’t drive one, I don’t know how it responds in real-time, while driving. My best guess is that the dashboard pictured is showing one trip that’s lasted 25 minutes. After about 15 minutes the driving conditions changed, and fuel efficiency dropped. Even if that’s right, I don’t see why the minutes are plotted from right to left. Convention usually has an x-axis moving from left to right.

If a Prius owner comes along, I’d love to hear an explanation of what this stuff means, and what they think of it.

No related posts.