EoC project page
So in my last post I mentioned Elements of Consumption (EoC). EoC is an ambient display (or eco-feedback device) that visualizes consumption as abstract art. I have published a paper about it (check out the publications page). Also, I just finished uploading 2 videos to YouTube that shows what Elements of Consumption (EoC) looks like. I have also added an initial project page. I am in the process of building an ambient display prototype. Once the prototype is finished I will have some more information and pictures on what it looks like.
At the Smart Graphics 2011 (July 18 to 20) conference I attended in Bremen, Germany I got positive feedback at the art exhibition where EoC was on demo. Based on that feedback I would like to create a non-photorealistic rendering canvas that would use an uploaded photo. One of the biggest highlights of the conference was meeting Frieder Nake. I had a chance to talk to Frieder at the art exhibition about EoC and my research–I appreciated his interest in my research and his words of encouragement.
Soon I will be running a user study to determine if EoC is effective at conveying information…
mControl Device Drivers
I just finished having a meeting with Ted and Roger from Embedded Automation on how to write device drivers for mControl. It was great that they took some time out of their busy day to meet with me at the SFU Surrey Campus. Now that I have a handle on this I am looking to create a number of drivers that can:
- talk to RS485/Modbus devices, in this case my power meters;
- receive consumption data from the AcquiLite about water and natural gas usage;
- update my ambient display, Elements of Consumption.
These devices that I will be adding to mControl will allow me to start monitoring my energy consumption more closely. I will using a new service in mControl v3 to capture and store data in a database. That data will be analyzed by machine learning algorithms to find patterns of usage and to identify what appliances were used. If you are interested in learning more about this project feel free to contact me. Soon I will announce a way for anyone that uses mControl v3 to participate…
Rewiring, Phase 1
I spend a good part of the day reorganizing my wiring cabinet (phase 1 of 2). Looks much better now… For the last couple of months it was looking like an apocalyptic mess after I pulled all the wire out; loose wires hung everywhere! Here is the after picture.
Insteon equipment is here
Well, I just received my shipment of Insteon devices. Now I have to plan out where to install them. I only ordered a small sample to install around the house, these include on/off switches, dimmer switches, iMeters, and modem. Next week I plan to set up mControl as my home automation system to communicate/control the Insteon devices. I am still waiting for my Dell Zino to be delivered. Version 3 of mControl will be out soon, but in the mean time I will be using the Beta 2 version. I will have a post on how the mControl install when, so stay tuned…
Installing electricity, water and gas meters
So here is a summary of the meters I have installed at my house.
Around the middle of 2009 I had 2 electrical meters installed at my home. Both where PowerLogic ION6200 meters. These meters are class 0.5 revenue meters so that means they are not cheap. One meter measures consumption of the main buswork coming into the house at 200A. The second meter measured consumption from the heat pump (40A). These meters communicate using the MODBUS protocol using a RS485 serial connection.
At the beginning of this year I installed 2 water meters and 2 natural gas meters. The meter installed on the water main coming into the house is a DLJ Contact Head meter from watermeters.com. I installed a second meter to measure hot water consumption, an Elster S130. One thing to note, both meters measure in US gallons consumed. This is too large of a measurement for my house (~2400 sq ft). I should have bought meters that measure in letres (1 US gallon = 3.785 litres).
For natural gas I have one meter measuring the main gas line coming into the house (Elster AC-250, measured in cubic-decimeters). I have the other meter measuring gas consumed by the forced air furnace (Elster BK-G4, measured in cubic-feet). Having these 2 meters measure in different units presents QA (quality assurance) challenge. I have to convert the units of measure from one of the meters so that both meters have the same units and the conversion function has to be correct, too.
The water and natural gas meters are pulse meters, meaning that an electronic pulse is send down a wire for every gallon that is consumed. This meant that I need to buy a data logger that can count and measure consumption rates. After much searching I decided to go with the Obvius AcquiLite to do this. I also use the AcquiLite to convert the units of measure from imperial to metric. Stay tuned, I will post more details (and pictures) on how I am collecting data from these meters…
I have created page that graphs out this consumption data on my research website called My Smart Home: Consumption Report. Check it out.
A new day and a new website
Hi, I am a Computing Science PhD Student at Simon Fraser University. I plan to blog about my research into smart homes for energy conservation, and sustainability. I will be posting information on how I setup my home (and others) to achieve this. My main area of research in is intelligent systems. So we will see how this goes….
