Energy Budget

Yuichi Abe, Informetis <yuichi.abe@informetis.com>

Shops don’t take your money without asking, so why should your home appliances use scarce electricity resources without consulting you? Current “smart meters” are pretty useless, because house occupants have to guess where the power is going. Local company Informetis has an Internet of Things device that sends a WiFi stream of power consumption from any appliance. Your task is to make an app that will aggregate and visualise this data to help households budget for a future where energy costs 10 times what it does today. When energy is rationed, what will work best? Neighbourhood contests, household policies, online games or financial incentives? Your system design needs to address motivation, not just monitoring.