Meeting 2/22

  • User 1
    • 24-year-old college graduate
    • Most of his experience is with desktop computers rather than mobile devices
    • Shares apartment with roommate and splits bills; want to know how much he consumes vs. roommate
    • Idea: break energy consumption into time periods, or even hours; this would satisfy his needs
    • Not much domain knowledge of smart grid; never used a similar application
    • Uses electricity for heating, computer, washing machine; has a gas stove
    • Works as a software engineer; lots of technology experience
    • Tasks:
      • How much each appliance consumes
      • Breakdown of energy usage by time
      • Profile per person
      • Price information; time range to help make decisions (shed)
      • Sell back, using the same kind of information (time periods)
      • Control appliances from outside of home
    • Probably use application weekly, at most, although he brings his phone with him
    • If he could control appliances from phone, he would use the application daily
    • What can go wrong?
      • Security and privacy: who would be able to access information about which appliances are on? Could they extrapolate information, e.g. whether someone is at home?
      • Would we be able to give an accurate bill? Probably not: could give a rough estimate of savings, but the trend information would be useful
      • Could let users enter the actual data from their own bill or e-bill; track it in the application
  • Research/background reading
  • List of tasks for the app
    • Monitor consumption
    • Buy and sell power
    • Notifications from power company; give option to turn off appliances
    • In future, real-time marketing information about prices; could give notifications to the user about how much reserve is available and the current pricing
    • At peak hours, may send information about price--configure notifications to be sent when over a certain number of kWh, to help decide when to schedule energy hogs
    • Should also be able to choose what time they receive the information
  • To do: download SDK and look at tutorials. Limit scope of project at first, to allow time to learn to use SDK. Use Android 2.3.4
  • May want to look at existing apps from utility companies (National Grid?) that allow users to view their usage
  • Working project title: Smart Grid
  • No labels