Internet of Things

The Internet of Things

My first journey into the world of data-based technologies surrounded the design of smart connected systems and the 'internet of things', and provided a key throughline during my Bachelor's at TU/e. These are some of the related projects.

Bachelor Graduation Project: Design

Distributed Heating in a Shared Smart System

Space heating is the biggest energy consumer in the home. Existing smart zoned heating heats spaces separately, usually according to schedules or app-based settings. Despite being energy-oriented, it allow for little insight and flexibility.

Kota is a smart interface that turns smart zoned heating into a flexible, accessible and expressive energy object. It asks the user to set an amount of heating or cooling rather than a goal temperature, and relates this to energy consumption. It also establishes a 'comfort range' based on other rooms. The most energy-efficient setting with in this range is set whenever a room is entered, but the system still allows the user to make adjustments later.

The system provides historical data about consumption in the room, and has the ability to share data with other smart products to create insights about the energy used, advising and nudging the user to make energy-conscious heating choices.

2nd year Bachelor Elective Course: Technologies for Connectivity

Coming home in a connected system

In this brief design exercise a new entry experience was designed to represent the different data present in a smart system. A sensor-integrated coatrack and shoe shelf sense which users are present in the home or leaving. When a user returns home, a soundscape plays that recaps the events in the home while the user was away; the turning on of the stove, the opening of windows, or the entering and leaving of other members of the home is played during a one-minute soundscape. It serves to illustrate the data present in a smart home and to bring awareness of what data is being measured and how it functions as a record of our activities.