The E-Board

The reduction of consumption of each of us is one giant leap for the sustainable development. Our entertaining interface called E-board (Energy Board) works either on a pocket pc or on a tablet pc, and can also be integrated into a frame containing an LCD screen.

On the one hand, this interface will give several pieces of information (figures) on the energy (water, gas, electricity) consumption of the user. This interface will help the user to know how much energy he consumes. All the figures will be compared to figures of the average consumption of every connected E-board.

On the other hand, this program will help the user how to consume less. The program will localize for you bins of glass in your city or advice you to shut down the boiler between specific times, etc. So it has an educational aim as well.

This interface will be innovative because it will completely change according to the user consumption. If the user consumes a lot, the interface will become darker or if he is an example for the energy consumption, the interface will be lighter and greener with vegetation like trees, flowers, etc. This concept of metamorphosis of the interface can play a role each day. Indeed, you can hang a LCD screen on the wall and show the interface as a picture. The picture won’t reflect your personality like all the pictures on the wall but your way of consumption. This interface can evolve everywhere in your home.

Jivane Rajabaly and I, Adrien Ossorguine, will describe our project called e-Cube in three paragraphs. We will focus on the three main purposes of our creation: the decoration, the education, and the challenge.
 

First of all, the e-Cube has decorative purposes. This interface is supposed to be integrated into an LCD screen which is hanged on a wall anywhere in your home. Indeed, it represents a beautiful natural landscape which will transform little by little (we will explain how later). So, the e-Cube becomes a new window in an apartment and adds an attractive view, especially if there is no nice view from the other (and real) windows. And here is the point: the owner of the e-Cube will have an impact on the landscape seen on it, because it will change depending on his ecological – or not – behavior in everyday life. Thus, the e-Cube has educational purposes and helps the owner to become aware of his impact on the environment. The landscape of the e-Cube will become more beautiful if the user respects the environment and, on the contrary, will be damaged if he does not respect it.

And here comes the educational aspect of the e-Cube. To gain in interactivity we put on the screen several buttons which will let the user make the following things: an auto-hiding menu bar allows him to enter his monthly consumptions of water, electricity and gas, a 3D cube allows him to access to a dashboard containing consumption charts and a database of tips and advices. Therefore, the user can try to decrease his consumptions by following the advices and see the impact on the landscape. Moreover, the charts let him compare his results with national averages and, if connected to the internet, the results of his area / region / neighborhood.

That’s the last purpose of the e-Cube: the challenge. First of all, it pushes its owner to consume less in order to get a more beautiful landscape on his LCD screen. But then, it can incite him to begin a more ecological living and try to contribute to it on other scales: sensitize his neighborhood, his family, etc. And the impacts will be seen on both landscapes and charts, on every e-Cube in every home! Finally, we can imagine real competitions between areas in cities or, why not, between two regions or countries where each participant would follow its results by comparing them to the others on the charts of e-Cube! These challenges will push people, through competition, to become more ecological on very large scales.