AWARE@home: A Case Study in Technological Design to Promote Environmental Conservation in the American Home

This paper describes an inexpensive technology called AWARE@home that was designed for households to receive information regarding their utility consumption patterns through at-home wireless networks. Utility information devices have been proposed or developed in the past but to the authors' knowledge this is the first to be: 1) designed specifically for homeowners to facilitate choices regarding consumption 2) built on existing home wireless “WiFi” networks and 3) developed with retrofit sensors that do not require meter replacement. Given that AWARE@home is designed to empower consumers to save money and conserve resources, the technology was selected as a winner of the inaugural EPA P3 competition in 2005. The system is designed for minimal effort by consumers: first, a service professional installs the AWARE@home retrofit device onto the existing meters in a process that takes approximately 30 minutes. Then the consumer receives a startup kit that includes a CD and, if needed, a USB wireless antenna for the computer. After loading software from the CD onto the computer, the homeowner is asked basic questions about utility rates, billing cycles and how much he or she wants to spend on utilities each month. At any point in the month that the desired expenditure on utilities set by the consumer is likely to be exceeded, AWARE@home will send an e-mail message or pop-up window message providing a warning about this predicted over-spending on utilities. This paper describes the prototype AWARE@home system that was produced for the EPA P3 competition and later installed in the home of an author for further testing. The AWARE@home prototype meets a number of design specifications related to simplicity, reliability, and cost. It includes both hardware and software components for “Wi-Fi” monitoring and alerting of home water, gas, and electricity consumption. The prototype for electricity monitoring has been operating continuously for over eight months at a home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it has consistently and securely relayed usage rates to the local utility, and it has reliably predicted, notified, and helped the consumers to avoid excess expenditures on electricity. Preliminary research conducted during this project has shown that a majority of homeowners responding to a marketing survey would be interested in owning AWARE@home to reduce monthly expenditures and/or environmental emissions.