scholarly journals IoT-Based Smart Plug for Residential Energy Conservation: An Empirical Study Based on 15 Months’ Monitoring

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 4035
Author(s):  
Jooseok Oh

The study examines the implications of educating prosumers regarding Internet of Things (IoT) use and monitoring to reduce power consumption in the home and encourage energy conservation, sustainable living, and behavior change. Over 15 months, 125 households and household owners received training regarding IoT plug equipment, usage monitoring, and energy reduction. A face to face survey was then conducted regarding power consumption reductions, frequency of monitoring, and user satisfaction compared to the previous year. The study found that participating households used around 5% less energy compared to average households. The reduction rate was found to have increased when more appliances were connected to smart plugs and their power usage was monitored more frequently. Power usage also fell in a greater level when participants were more satisfied with being given smart plugs and related education. Moreover, energy reduction rates increase when smart plugs were used for cooling and heating appliances as well as video, audio, and related devices. The results suggest that this program can be used to reduce energy use, which can be beneficial for smart homes and smart cities. The study demonstrates the importance of education from the perspective of energy conservation and related policies.

The advancements in technology and the increased use of internet, digital business models and Internet of things (IoT) have paved a way for sustainable and inclusive cities that provide their citizens a clean and sustainable environment. Smart solutions of the smart cities focus on making the life of its citizens comfortable but they fail to make their everyday activities motivated in becoming sustainable. This paper proposes a gamification framework that aims to facilitate energy conservation and customer engagement in smart cities. By using game in a non-game context such as in this gamification framework, helps in keeping the fun element of the game intact while achieving the specified learning objective of energy efficiency. The proposed application aims at identifying energy wastages and motivates behavioral changes of the player combining team play, virtual rewards and life simulation. The paper explains various concepts of gamification and differentiates it from game-based learning. It proposes the gamification strategy, game mechanics drivers and motivators, game engine, game architecture, financial rewards and a detailed set of rules for the proposed gamification application. The application targets at promoting awareness and involvement of the players in managing their own resources, choices and behavior for a sustainable development. The paper aims at motivating the citizens and changing their behavior in a desired way.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Salomon ◽  
Jesse Preston ◽  
Melanie B. Tannenbaum

Although most people understand the threat of climate change, they do little to modify their own energy conservation behavior. One reason for this gap between belief and behavior may be that individual actions seem un-impactful and therefore are not morally relevant. This research investigates how climate change helplessness—belief that one’s actions cannot affect climate change—can undermine the moralization of climate change and personal energy conservation. In Study 1, climate change efficacy predicted both moralization of energy use and energy conservation intentions beyond individual belief in climate change. In Studies 2 and 3, participants read information about climate change that varied in efficacy message, that is, whether individual actions (e.g., using less water, turning down heat) make a difference in the environment. Participants who read that their behavior made no meaningful impact reported weaker moralization and intentions (Study 2), and reported more energy consumption one week later (Study 3). Moreover, effects on intentions and actions were mediated by changes in moralization. We discuss ways to improve climate change messages to foster environmental efficacy and moralization of personal energy use.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 9972
Author(s):  
Lingling Wang ◽  
Tsunemi Watanabe

Humans conduct themselves in relation to energy use; energy use has degraded air quality, as reflected by haze occurrence in countries such as China. Improving the population’s involvement in environmental and energy conservation necessitates understanding their motivation to behave under haze. Considering the social problems caused by haze conditions in China, this study used people’s risk perception as a basis to determine their motivations to perform pro-environmental and energy-saving behaviors. We analyzed motivation from privately and publicly oriented perspectives as well as adaptive and mitigative behavioral viewpoints. Motivation-related data were collected through face-to-face discussion and a survey of 506 respondents in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, which is one of the most heavily polluted regions in China. We conducted multiple regression analysis to determine the extent to which socio-demographic characteristics and risk perception concerning haze predict motivation and actual behavior. Results showed that these factors explain 36.8% and 30.5% of privately and publicly oriented motivations, respectively, but more strongly explain more adaptive (i.e., privately oriented; 55.0%) than mitigating (i.e., publicly oriented; 8.8%) behaviors. Although the residents are motivated to behave equally for private and public purposes in initial conservation efforts, they tend to exhibit adaptive behavior more frequently than mitigating behaviors. These results serve as a reference in encouraging China’s residents to act pro-environmentally and use energy conservatively, thereby contributing to environmental and energy saving education for the society.


Author(s):  
Samuel Domínguez-Amarillo ◽  
Jesica Fernandez-Aguera ◽  
Patricia Fernandez-Aguera

Today’s buildings are evolving from structures comprising unchanging, static elements scantly able to interact with their surroundings, towards complex systemic compounds with an impact on the environs that entails more than mere anthropic alteration. In pursuit of energy efficiency and true sustainability, buildings must acquire the ability to interact as well as to generate synergies. The most prominent features of this approach are energy management and information flows which, intelligently designed, not only enhance buildings’ capabilities, but also introduce a significant change in their relationship with the surrounds (‘smart cities’) and its inhabitants. This new paradigm calls for revisiting undergraduate architectural instruction, adopting a more complex overview of energy use and management in the design process, regarding buildings as dynamic rather than static entities. The methodology focuses on creating learning environments that favour students’ participation in problem solving and assessment, encouraging teamwork based on case studies and stressing the connection between this new architecture, ICTs included, and social networks as participatory design tools. These ideas were implemented in a pilot learning experience conducted at the University of Seville for undergraduate students. The use of ICTs and the collaboration of non-academic experts were observed to further student promotion and projection beyond the academic environment and introduce them to the professional community.


2021 ◽  
Vol 140 ◽  
pp. 110755
Author(s):  
Hakpyeong Kim ◽  
Heeju Choi ◽  
Hyuna Kang ◽  
Jongbaek An ◽  
Seungkeun Yeom ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110148
Author(s):  
Vojtěch Mýlek ◽  
Lenka Dedkova ◽  
David Smahel

Adolescents commonly make new social connections online that sometimes result in face-to-face meetings. Despite potential benefits, risk-focused discourse dominates public debates and shapes information shared by sources important for adolescents—news media, preventive programs, peers, parents, and teachers. Our study examines how information about face-to-face meetings from these sources relates to adolescents’ risk perception and engagement in such meetings. Using a sample of 707 Czech adolescents (aged 11–16 years, 46% male), we analyzed these effects for male and female adolescents to reflect the gendered nature of the risk-focused discourse. Male adolescents’ risk perception was not affected by information from any source. Female adolescents’ risk perception was negatively affected by information peers with prior experience with face-to-face meetings but not by other information sources. Female adolescents also perceived face-to-face meetings as riskier in general. We discuss gender differences and the limited impact of information sources on risk perception and provide practical recommendations.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 397
Author(s):  
Qimeng Zhang ◽  
Ji-Su Ban ◽  
Mingyu Kim ◽  
Hae Won Byun ◽  
Chang-Hun Kim

We propose a low-asymmetry interface to improve the presence of non-head-mounted-display (non-HMD) users in shared virtual reality (VR) experiences with HMD users. The low-asymmetry interface ensures that the HMD and non-HMD users’ perception of the VR environment is almost similar. That is, the point-of-view asymmetry and behavior asymmetry between HMD and non-HMD users are reduced. Our system comprises a portable mobile device as a visual display to provide a changing PoV for the non-HMD user and a walking simulator as an in-place walking detection sensor to enable the same level of realistic and unrestricted physical-walking-based locomotion for all users. Because this allows non-HMD users to experience the same level of visualization and free movement as HMD users, both of them can engage as the main actors in movement scenarios. Our user study revealed that the low-asymmetry interface enables non-HMD users to feel a presence similar to that of the HMD users when performing equivalent locomotion tasks in a virtual environment. Furthermore, our system can enable one HMD user and multiple non-HMD users to participate together in a virtual world; moreover, our experiments show that the non-HMD user satisfaction increases with the number of non-HMD participants owing to increased presence and enjoyment.


Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocksan Choi ◽  
SeungGwan Lee ◽  
Sungwon Lee

In our modern world, many Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are being researched and developed. IoT devices are currently being used in many fields. IoT devices use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, however, communication distance is short and battery consumption is high. In areas such as smart cities and smart farms, IoT technology is needed to support a wide coverage with low power consumption. Low Power Wide Area (LPWA), which is a transmission used in IoT supporting a wide area with low power consumption, has evolved. LPWA includes Long Range (LoRa), Narrowband (NB-IoT), and Sigfox. LoRa offers many benefits as it communicates the longest distances, is cheap and consumes less battery. LoRa is used in many countries and covers a range of hundreds of square kilometers (km2) with a single gateway. However, if there are many obstacles to smart cities and smart farms, it causes communication problems. This paper proposes two (2) solutions to this problem: the relay method which is a multi-hop method and the Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) system that detects packet loss in real-time and requests retransmission for LoRa. In this study, the actual performance of LoRa in the problematic environment was measured and the proposed method was applied. It was confirmed that the transmission rate of LoRa dropped when there were many obstacles such as trees. To use LoRa in a smart farm with a lot of space, multi-hop was observed to be better. An ARQ system is needed to compensate for the unexpected drop in the forward rate due to the increase in IoT devices. This research focused on reliability, however, additional network methods and automatic repeat request (ARQ) systems considering battery time should be researched in symmetry. This study covers the interdisciplinary field of computer science and wireless low power communication engineering. We have analyzed the LoRa/LoRaWAN technology in an experimental approach, which has been somewhat less studied than cellular network or WiFi technology. In addition, we presented and improved the performance evaluation results in consideration of various local and climatic environments.


Author(s):  
Wendy W. Fok ◽  

Minerva Tantoco was named New York City’s first chief technology officer last year, charged with developing a coordinated citywide strategy on technology and innovation. We’re likely to see more of that as cities around the country, and around the world, consider how best to use innovation and technology to operate as “smart cities.”The work has major implications for energy use and sustainability, as cities take advantage of available, real-time data – from ‘smart’ phones, computers, traffic monitoring, and even weather patterns — to shift the way in which heating and cooling systems, landscaping, flow of people through cities, and other pieces of urban life are controlled. But harnessing Open Innovation and the Internet of Things can promote sustainability on a much broader and deeper scale. The question is, how do you use all the available data to create a more environmentally sound future? The term “Internet of Things” was coined in 1999 by Kevin Ashton, who at the time was a brand manager trying to find a better way to track inventory. His idea? Put a microchip on the packaging to let stores know what was on the shelves.


MIS Quarterly ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 719-754
Author(s):  
Liwei Chen ◽  
J. J. Po-An Hsieh ◽  
Arun Rai ◽  
Sean Xin Xu

To attain customer satisfaction, service firms invest significant resources to implement customer relationship management (CRM) systems to support internal customer service (CS) employees who provide service to external customers in both face-to-face and virtual channels. How CS employees apply sophisticated CRM systems to interact with customers and how the mechanisms through which their CRM usage affects customer satisfaction vary across service channels and bear important implications. We approach these issues by investigating the concept of infusion use, defined as CS employees’ assessment of the extent to which they use a CRM system to its fullest potential to best support their work in the CRM-enabled service interaction context. Drawing on the IS success framework and expectation confirmation theory, we first formulate a baseline model that explains the direct and indirect mechanisms through which CS employees’ infusion use of CRM systems leads to customers’ expectation confirmation, which in turn affects customers’ satisfaction. We then draw on the lenses of media richness and communication adaptation to theorize why these two mechanisms exert differential influence in face-to-face and virtual channels. We test the hypotheses by collecting multiwave data from CS employees, customers, and firm archives of a Fortune 500 telecom service firm. We find that (1) CS employee infusion use can directly contribute to customer expectation confirmation and indirectly do so through CS employees’ satisfaction with the system (i.e., user satisfaction), and (2) the direct mechanism plays a more critical role in the face-to-face channel, whereas the indirect mechanism is more important in the virtual channel. Our findings inform managers of the avenues through which employees’ infusion use promotes CRM-enabled service success across face-to-face and virtual service channels.


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