Conversations with my washing machine

Abstract

Domestic microgeneration is the onsite generation of lowand zero-carbon heat and electricity by private households to meet their own needs. In this paper we explore how an everyday household routine -that of doing laundry -can be augmented by digital technologies to help households with photovoltaic solar energy generation to make better use of self-generated energy. This paper presents an 8-month inthe-wild study that involved 18 UK households in longitudinal energy data collection, prototype deployment and participatory data analysis. Through a series of technology interventions mixing energy feedback, proactive suggestions and direct control the study uncovered opportunities, potential rewards and barriers for families to shift energy consuming household activities and highlights how digital technology can act as mediator between household laundry routines and energy demand-shifting behaviors. Finally, the study provides insights into how a "smart" energy-aware washing machine shapes organization of domestic life and how people "communicate" with their washing machine.

Learning from the Veg Box

“…This work contributes to the understanding of 'smart' autonomous systems in the home [2,3,4,13,47,48,49] through the study of the veg box as a service that has a digital (the Web and email interface) as well as physical component (the actual delivery of goods), and that supports agency delegation. We also make a contribution to food HCI (e.g.…”

“…gas, wind, solar) could help users to continuously evaluate the system's performance and hence grant or revoke agency. Such an approach has recently been demonstrated by a small variety of research projects [2,3,4,49]. Similarly, for autonomous cars, it may be useful to display information related to the financial cost of each trip (such as in [42]), the fuel efficiency, and how long the trip will take -for all these variables the comparison between autonomous operation and manual mode should be shown.…”

“…As such, the design of interaction mechanisms that enable users to work around this unpredictability is an open challenge in HCI [28,45]. Nascent instantiations of the AIoT focus on the domestic environment and include smart thermostats [47,48,49], domestic appliances [4,13], energy systems [2,3] and cleaning robots [17,43]. With a few exceptions, which have studied off-the-shelf products such as the Nest Thermostat [47,48] and the Roomba [17,43], prior studies around autonomous systems in the home have focused on research prototypes.…”

Interactive demand shifting: in the context of emerging energy technologies

“…Based on energy data we collected, we designed three high level data visualizations [3] connecting solar electricity generation with washing machine loads. We used these visualizations to conduct participatory data analysis [4] to translate everyday routines into the needs and constraints around DemandShifting practices in collaboration with the user. We are now investigating electric vehicles.…”

“…Going further into our investigation, we designed and deployed a 'Demand-Shifting recommendation system' [4]. In contrast to automatic demand management approaches, our system realized an 'interactive Demand-Shifting' approach where users were in control about timing and operation of their appliances at all times.…”