New Consumption Report
So I have finally had a chance to update the My Smart Home: Consumption Report to reflect readings from the new DENT PowerScout 18 meters and a new database design. Checkout:
http://makonin.com/report_consumption.html.
Related articles
- Branch Circuit Power Metering (eco-sustain.org)
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Home Occupancy Agent: Occupancy and Sleep Detection
Earlier this month I learnt that I (and co-author Fred Popowich) will have my first journal paper published in the GSTF Journal on Computing in the April/2012 edition (vol 2, no 1). Here is the paper abstract:
Smart homes of the future will have a number of different types of sensors. What types of sensors and how they will be used depends on the behaviour needed from the smart home. Using the sensors to automatically determine if a home is occupied can lead to a wide range of benefits. For example, it could trigger a change in the thermostat setting to save money, or even a change in security monitoring systems. Our prototype Home Occupancy Agent (HOA), which we present in this paper, uses a rule based system that monitors power consumption from meters and ambient light sensor readings in order to determine occupancy. The agent is also able to determine when the occupants are asleep, and thus provide the potential for further energy saving opportunities.
Keywords: Smart Home, Intelligent Agent, Occupancy Detection, Power Consumption, Ambient Light Sensors, Sleep Detection, Energy Conservation, Sustainability.
Keep your eyes peeled as there are a number of other submissions that I am either waiting on review or in the midst of writing. Write on…
Related articles
- The Affect of Lifestyle Factors on Eco-Visualization Design (eco-sustain.org)
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The Affect of Lifestyle Factors on Eco-Visualization Design
On Monday I learnt that my full co-authored (with Maryam H Kashani and Lyn Bartram) paper “The Affect of Lifestyle Factors on Eco-Visualization Design” was accepted at Computer Graphics International (CGI 2012). So I will be travelling to Bournemouth University in the UK. Here is the paper abstract:
As people become more concerned with the need to conserve their power consumption we need to find ways to inform them of how electricity is being consumed within the home. There are a number of devices that have been designed using different forms, sizes, and technologies. We are interested in large ambient displays that can be read at a glance and from a distance as informative art. However, from these objectives come a number of questions that need to be explored and answered. To what degree might lifestyle factors influence the design of eco-visualizations? To answer this we need to ask how people with varying lifestyle factors perceive the utility of such devices and their placement within a home. We explore these questions by creating four ambient display prototypes. We take our prototypes and subject them to a user study to gain insight as to the questions posed above. This paper discusses our prototypes in detail and the results and findings of our user study.
Keywords: eco-visualization, informative art, ambient display, power consumption, energy conservation, sustainability.
CGI 2012 received 178 papers, 111 were rejected, 35 were selected for the CGI 2012 Special Issue of The Visual Computer, 32 were selected for the Electronic Proceedings.
I will be updating the Elements of Consumption (EoC) project page soon. I plan to be releasing the project source code as an open source project along with details on how to create your own custom ambient display.
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Branch Circuit Power Metering
Over the weekend I was busy replacing my 2 INO6200 meters with 2 DENT PowerScout 18 branch circuit power meters (BCPM). Instead on only monitoring 2 circuits (the main house and the heat pump), I can now monitor 24 different circuits!
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- PS18 Install – Open Panels
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- PS18 Install – Power Junction Box
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- PS18 Install – Finished Install
I will post a link to a real-time consumption report soon. I am having issue with my ModbusTCP server and a lack of time to program the report.
Related articles
- Energy and Water Meters Installed (gcgreen.wordpress.com)
- Why a Smart Meter Can be a Smart Investment (txu.com)
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Arduino RTC Shield Schematic
Arduino RTC Shield
I have now posted information on the Arduino Power Meter Reader (APMR) project page on how I created the Arduino RTC (Real Time Clock) Shield I used.
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- Arduino RFID shield on the Cloud (electronics-lab.com)
- Chrono-tomic shield helps your Arduino keep perfect time (hackaday.com)
- Review: Environmental Monitoring With Arduino (wired.com)
- Adafruit data logger, in the freezer (adafruit.com)
- Tracking satellites with an Arduino (hackaday.com)
- Building an Arduino LCD Clock with Adafruit gear (adafruit.com)
Arduino RS485 Shield Schematic
Arduino RS485 Shield
Well I have been too busy with course work 
…but I found some time to post up the schematic for the Arduino RS485 Shield I used for my Arduino Power Meter Reader (APMR) project.
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- Arduino (For beginners) (circuitstoday.com)
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- My first arduino shield project: “Wave Shield” (adafruit.com)
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- Arduino (dmohankumar.wordpress.com)
- Shrinkify your Arduino project (electronics-lab.com)
Wiring and Arduino Update
Wire Cabinet Finished
Well I have been very busy with course work. I though I would post a quick update.
I have finally finished reorganizing my wiring cabinet and I now have it jam-packed with all sort of equipment. As seen on the right.
I also stated the Arduino Power Meter Reader (APMR) project page which I will slowly add information to in the coming weeks. I will also be posting the source code on GitHub in the next couple of days. This will be released as an open source project.
Related articles
- Security system working with mControl via NPort (eco-sustain.org)
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…
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.
