Saving energy by visualising electricity.
Counterflo is an IP and R&D company developing technologies to save energy by visualising power consumption.
World wide patents for flowing visible power in cables.
Counterflo has number patents for flowing visible power in cables technology in the USA and 16 other countries.
The technology is licensed to a number of producers including Counterflo’s own product company Poweraware.
Counterflo is defending its patents in cooperation with a number legal representative financed through, among others, Nivalion.
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 the objective to develop technologies that 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 prototype of the Power Aware Cord
Products with flowing visible power.
The first product based on the innovation was the The PAC, The Power Aware Cord, a power strip. The technology proved to work excellently and soon TIME Magazine named The PAC one of the world's 50 best innovations.
The most commercially successful application of the technology was USB-charging cables that gave the user an intuitive interface to the charging process.
USB cable with flowing visible power.
The application of the flowing visual power in USB cables created an augmented charging cable, a totally new and innovative interface that communicated the status of the charging process to the user.
When the cable is connected to a phone, or something else that needs to be charged, it immediately shows if electricity is flowing in the cable. The user gets instant feedback if it’s charging or not. When the battery is getting close to be fully charged the flowing visual power slows down, as the electricity starts to move slower. Finally it stops altogether when the battery is fully charged.
USB cables with flowing visual power are sold by Counterflo’s licensees and by PowerAware under the brand The PAC.
PowerAware Power Strip
The PAC, the The Power Aware Cord, was the world’s first power strip where you could see the electricity flow in real time - visualised by a blue light flowing along the cable. With more and more power consuming products the light flows faster, but also when products are in stand-by mode the user is made aware of much electricity appliances are consuming.
This is the greatness of The PAC. A running water faucet is always turned off, but what about electricity?
The PAC makes the user aware that power is being consumed and is triggered to turn it off when leaving the room. This insight of how much electricity products really are consuming changes consumer behaviour and leads the consumer to also start turning off other products in the home.
Studies show that up to 15% of the electricity bill consists of power consumtion from products in stand-by mode. A change in behaviour could be saving both real money and the environment.