Saving energy by visualising electricity.

It all began with a research project to increase energy awareness through ambient information display

The technology of flowing visible power in cables has its origin in a research project at Interactive Institute (now RISE, Research Institutes of Sweden), a project with objective to develop technologies that to support increased awareness in the area of consumer energy consumption. The research team, with Anton Gustavsson et al, developed a new innovative way to visualising electricity in a cable that later became the foundation of Counterflo. The first product based on the

To cCounterf lo was Based on the resulting invention

, on a large scale in society as well as on the mundane level of the home, it is crucial that people learn about different amounts of energy used by the electric products in their everyday life. If this awareness is increased, people might gain control over their own local relationship to this invisible global resource. Ultimately this will lead them to question their energy behaviours.

In order to support increased energy awareness we have designed the ‘P ower- A ware Cord’ , an augmented , re- designed electrical power strip, in which the cord visualizes the invisible electricity used. Thus, the user interface of the Power-Aware Cord is the same as for any ordinary electrical power strip, with the addition of a dynamic visualization along the cord where the current use of electricity is represented through glowing pulses, flow, and intensity of light. In this way the entire cord acts as an ambient display to inform users of electrical current passing through en route to electrical appliances plugged into the extension sockets.

Applications

This page presents some examples of products that can use the PowerAware technology.