Erica Pozzey, a graduate student from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, has developed a new, super sleek and stylish way to monitor your home’s energy consumption. The system, called Triad Energy, combines an award-winning design with captivating real-time infographics to keep you engaged and motivated enough to monitor your home’s energy use on an ongoing basis. It even allows you to see the energy usage of other Triad Energy users near you. That way, you can know how efficient you have to be to become the most energy-efficient household in the neighborhood.

The system’s wall mounted display, called Triad Wall, looks like a piece of triangular technology from the future. The three truncated points each represent a separate energy consumption measurement: how much energy you are using, how close your energy use is to the target you set for yourself and how your energy use compares with homes in your area that also have Triad Energy monitors. The display uses a smooth, organic triangle graphic to visually communicate your energy use, with each point indicating one of the three categories. It even comes with pleasing ambient backlighting that changes color, presumably to signify the amount of energy you’re using.

If you’re not a visual person, however, there’s no need to worry. The system comes with a sophisticated web-based interface that gives you plenty of detailed data to look through to better understand your energy habits. The web interface also allows communication to and from Triad Wall, tracks and provides detailed reports of your energy use and can be set up to send alerts to your mobile device to make sure you’re always in the loop.

On the one hand, the system encourages self-monitoring with its futuristic Triad Wall and well-featured web platform. On the other, it works as a kind of social media device, allowing you to share energy information with other users so you know who your neighborhood queen or king of energy efficiency is. With everyone competing for the top spot by using less energy, we all win.

Whether or not you decide to vie for the crown of “most energy efficient” in your neighborhood, (we suspect you’ll be able to shut off the social feature if you prefer) we love the idea of a simple, at-a-glance way to check our energy consumption. If Pozzey is right, it may be just the thing that motivates us to use less energy. And that’s something that’s good for everyone.

Sources

“Futuristic Wall Display Shows Real-Time Energy Usage,” Physorg, Feb. 27, 2012.