Colour plays a vitally important role in the world in which we live. Colour is a silent language that has a profound effect on us and how we react to varying stimuli in our daily lives. It can sway thinking, change actions, and cause reactions. It can irritate or soothe your eyes, raise your blood pressure or suppress your appetite. It can reflect your mood, and affect your very soul.
But who could have foreseen that colour could also play a role in energy consumption?
Colour perception stems from the spectrum of light interacting with the eye. Our eyes are the input channels, if you will, for this light.
The human eye is a significant human sense organ. At least 80% of the data that reaches the brain is collected by the eye. The eye allows human beings vision which includes distance or depth, and has a 200° viewing angle. The human eye can see 2.7 million colours.
This ability to distinguish colours is based upon the varying sensitivity of different cells in the retina to light of different wavelengths.
Visible light is made of seven wavelength groups. These are the colours you see in a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
When light hits objects, some of the wavelengths are absorbed and some are reflected, depending on the materials in the object. The reflected wavelengths are what we perceive as the object's colour.
But light, no matter how complex its composition of wavelengths, is reduced to three colour components by the eye. The reddish colours are the long wavelengths. The greenish colours are the mid-size wavelengths. The bluish colours are the short wavelengths.
The science of colour is sometimes called chromatics. It includes the understanding of colour by the human brain, the origin of colour in materials, and colour theory in art.
And, when used in the right ways, colour can save on energy consumption.
With regards to the traffic light, we all know from our everyday experience that a red light means “STOP“, a yellow ( or amber) light means “ SLOW DOWN” or approach with caution and prepare to stop, while a green light means “GO” when it is safe to do so.
The colours used by automobile traffic light systems were originally adopted from the colour code system used by railroad engineers as a traffic signal devised to control the trains on the railroad, and the world’s first four-way three-colour traffic light was installed in Detroit in 1920.
Red has more personal associations than any other colour. Recognized as a stimulant, red is inherently exciting and the amount of red is directly related to the level of energy perceived. Red draws attention and a keen use of red as an accent can immediately focus attention on a particular element. The colour red can heighten our perception of danger just by seeing it, and it is known to increase enthusiasm while encouraging action and confidence.
Yellow shines with optimism, enlightenment, and happiness. Shades of golden yellow carry the promise of a positive future. Yellow is mentally stimulating and can activate memory. It can instill optimism, spark creative thoughts, and encourage communication.
Green is second only to blue as a favorite colour. Green is the pervasive colour in the natural world, and is considered to be tranquil and refreshing. A soothing colour, it can help alleviate nervousness and anxiety, while offering a sense of self-control.
Thus, these three colours are used in Aztech’s In-Home Display.
Time-of-use periods are identified by three colours that sweep across Aztech’s exclusive patent-pending arched light bar. Red is used for the most expensive ($$$) Critical Peak rate period; Yellow is used for the mid-rate ($$) On-Peak period; and Green is used for the least expensive ($) Off-Peak period. And, as energy use within a specific period increases, so too does the speed of the flashing light. This provides concerned homeowners with at-a-glance warnings.
By providing them with such instant feedback about how they are using energy and how much it costs, consumers can teach themselves about energy consumption and conservation. Taking control of their energy needs can realize savings of 7-20%. Thus, encouraging people to change their behavior helps them to reduce their energy usage, their energy bills, and their carbon footprint, all at the same time.
The Aztech In-Home Display even plays a role in reducing the length and severity of blackouts.
Whether due to equipment failure or heavy strain, blackouts often occur due to our aging and outdated electric grid. As the world’s interest shifts toward building a more efficient electric system capable of handling growing demand and smoother incorporation of renewable energy sources, it will be possible to minimize the risk factors associated with blackouts. By continuously monitoring the state of the network to improve reliability and to balance stress, the Smart Grid’s automatic counter-measures will help to reduce the frequency of blackouts. This will also help to curb the devastating effects such calamities can have on the economy, and protect the health and safety of those affected. The massive blackout that rippled through the Northeast in 2003 resulted in a $1 billion loss for New York City alone, and contributed to the deaths of at least 11 people.
It is no coincidence, then, that the colour black is associated with darkness. But to many cultures it is symbolic of mystery, fear, aggression, evil, mourning, and death. It frequently has a negative connotation, and has been used to define calamitous historic events, including Black Tuesday (the 1929 Wall Street Crash) and the Black Death (a 14th century plague).
Thus, the information sent by the Aztech In-Home Display to electricity companies helps them to better track delivery and usage. As a result, utilities can manage energy demands more effectively when delivering this fundamental resource. This helps states and provinces to achieve conservation goals that much sooner.
Now, for homeowners who see the comforting glow of Aztech’s In-Home Display flashing red, yellow and green throughout the blackness of the night, “going green” will have a whole new meaning.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
How Enlightening -- Subliminal Learning Teaches Energy Conservation
The Age of Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority.
In Buddhism, enlightenment is when a Buddhist discovers the truth about life, generally achieved through meditation and the forced “clearing” of one’s mind. Enlightenment is attained when you look at everything positive because all the negative has gone away. Buddha is said to have reached this goal at the young age of 35 after meditating for forty days under a tree.
But for most of us, learning progresses over a much longer period of time. This is marked by acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information. It may occur as a result of habituation, classical conditioning, or play. It may occur as part of education or personal development. It may be goal-oriented or aided by motivation. And learning may occur consciously or without conscious awareness.
In early In-Home Display design trials, Aztech engineers noticed that an In-Home Display could fade into the background of a room when residents got used to its presence. Lack of awareness of the In-Home Display resulted in energy conservation becoming less of a conscious priority. The savings that were achieved when the In-Home Display was first introduced into the residence would start to slip backward toward older usage patterns.
This is what has come to be known as the “Hawthorne Effect”.
Between 1924 and 1932, a series of experiments were carried out at a factory called the Hawthorne Works near Chicago. This led to an important milestone in organizational behavior. Although the study was far-reaching and attempted to examine the physical and environmental influences of the workplace, it was discovered that productivity amongst employees increased in response to lighting changes when they thought they were the subject of an efficiency study. These levels diminished when the same workers thought they were no longer part of the study.
All of us have had the experience of suddenly seeing something we didn’t consciously look for. Examples are noticing a car that looks like the one you drive in a stream of traffic. Or a certain designer shoe on a person in a crowded mall. These are examples of pattern recognition. The phenomenon focuses your attention without conscious thought when a familiar pattern presents itself. It bypasses the conscious mind.
Aztech addressed this phenomenon by experimenting with ways to catch the residents’ attention and hit on the idea of a flashing light bar. The In-Home Display could still fade into the background, but an unexpected change in movement or color on the light bar would alert the customer and bring their attention back. They suddenly found themselves asking, “Why?” Aztech had rediscovered the power of subliminal learning as a powerful way to overcome the Hawthorne Effect.
A subliminal message is a signal or message embedded in another medium, designed to pass below the normal limits of the human mind’s perception. These messages are unrecognizable by the conscious mind, but in certain situations can affect the subconscious mind and can negatively or positively influence subsequent later thoughts, behaviors, actions, attitudes, beliefs and value systems.
It has been said that the advertising industry engages in deceptive subliminal advertising of which most us are unaware. By bypassing our conscious mind using subliminal techniques, advertisers tap into the vulnerabilities surrounding our unconscious mind, manipulating and controlling us in many ways. In today’s Information Age, there is considerable debate as to whether or not people are still in control of themselves. Nevertheless, it would seem the ones in control are the ones with the power.
But subliminal perception is not a newly discovered physiological phenomenon used only by the advertising industry. Historical scholars such as Plato, Aristotle, and even texts such as the Bible have alluded to a subconscious phenomenon. Early artists, such as those in the Renaissance, used subliminal techniques in their artwork.
Before one can understand the subliminal techniques advertisers use to influence the audience, one must understand the vulnerabilities in humans they tap into. The human being is a complex creature. The same complexity that gives us the ability to manipulate objects also makes us vulnerable to manipulation.
As defined, perception is the brain's reception of incoming stimuli. Some of this perception is conscious, while most of it is unconscious. But our primary sensory input is visual perception. It is believed that the eyes do not edit perception, and the retina transmits everything to the brain's visual cortex for processing. Not everyone perceives an image the same, however. Different perceptions would ultimately affect each person's level of subliminal receptivity.
In the 1960’s, scientists discovered that messages flashed on a screen too fast for the human eye to see could still pass suggestions to a person unconsciously. Advertisers began to flash messages just below the threshold of recognition to see if this would increase a consumer’s impulse to buy one brand over another. The fad passed, but the point was made: some things can become recognized subliminally and this can change behavior.
Marshall McLuhan from the University of Toronto looked at the phenomenon and popularized his thoughts about it in his famous 1964 book The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (the pun on “message” was intentional). He went on to discover an association between “thoughts and feelings" and the subliminal, imperceptible environments of media effects in the 1970s. In other words, subliminal learning is associated with emotional responses in addition to simple recognition of a person or object.
In 2001, Takeo Watanabe and his colleagues at Boston University re-examined the phenomenon once again and discovered that people who watched a particular direction of subliminal dot movement during a letter-naming trial were significantly better at picking it out later.
Phil Merikle, from the University of Waterloo, commented on the results of Watanabe’s study: "I think it's one of the nicest sets of data I've seen for learning outside of perceptual awareness…This perceptual learning is influencing how they see the world. Subconscious learning may affect our conscious decisions -- without our knowing it. It's what advertisers have known all along: if we just keep the exposure rate up, people will be influenced.”
Thus, the information communicated through the screen of an IHD alone may not be enough to encourage people to change their behavior when it comes to energy conservation. But the more interactive and more engaging an IHD can be, the greater effect it will have. The light bar atop Aztech’s In-Home Display serves as a constant influence to make people more aware of changes in their energy use without their consciously thinking about it.
Educator Henry van Dyke once said, “No amount of energy will take the place of thought.” We disagree.
In Buddhism, enlightenment is when a Buddhist discovers the truth about life, generally achieved through meditation and the forced “clearing” of one’s mind. Enlightenment is attained when you look at everything positive because all the negative has gone away. Buddha is said to have reached this goal at the young age of 35 after meditating for forty days under a tree.
But for most of us, learning progresses over a much longer period of time. This is marked by acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information. It may occur as a result of habituation, classical conditioning, or play. It may occur as part of education or personal development. It may be goal-oriented or aided by motivation. And learning may occur consciously or without conscious awareness.
In early In-Home Display design trials, Aztech engineers noticed that an In-Home Display could fade into the background of a room when residents got used to its presence. Lack of awareness of the In-Home Display resulted in energy conservation becoming less of a conscious priority. The savings that were achieved when the In-Home Display was first introduced into the residence would start to slip backward toward older usage patterns.
This is what has come to be known as the “Hawthorne Effect”.
Between 1924 and 1932, a series of experiments were carried out at a factory called the Hawthorne Works near Chicago. This led to an important milestone in organizational behavior. Although the study was far-reaching and attempted to examine the physical and environmental influences of the workplace, it was discovered that productivity amongst employees increased in response to lighting changes when they thought they were the subject of an efficiency study. These levels diminished when the same workers thought they were no longer part of the study.
All of us have had the experience of suddenly seeing something we didn’t consciously look for. Examples are noticing a car that looks like the one you drive in a stream of traffic. Or a certain designer shoe on a person in a crowded mall. These are examples of pattern recognition. The phenomenon focuses your attention without conscious thought when a familiar pattern presents itself. It bypasses the conscious mind.
Aztech addressed this phenomenon by experimenting with ways to catch the residents’ attention and hit on the idea of a flashing light bar. The In-Home Display could still fade into the background, but an unexpected change in movement or color on the light bar would alert the customer and bring their attention back. They suddenly found themselves asking, “Why?” Aztech had rediscovered the power of subliminal learning as a powerful way to overcome the Hawthorne Effect.
A subliminal message is a signal or message embedded in another medium, designed to pass below the normal limits of the human mind’s perception. These messages are unrecognizable by the conscious mind, but in certain situations can affect the subconscious mind and can negatively or positively influence subsequent later thoughts, behaviors, actions, attitudes, beliefs and value systems.
It has been said that the advertising industry engages in deceptive subliminal advertising of which most us are unaware. By bypassing our conscious mind using subliminal techniques, advertisers tap into the vulnerabilities surrounding our unconscious mind, manipulating and controlling us in many ways. In today’s Information Age, there is considerable debate as to whether or not people are still in control of themselves. Nevertheless, it would seem the ones in control are the ones with the power.
But subliminal perception is not a newly discovered physiological phenomenon used only by the advertising industry. Historical scholars such as Plato, Aristotle, and even texts such as the Bible have alluded to a subconscious phenomenon. Early artists, such as those in the Renaissance, used subliminal techniques in their artwork.
Before one can understand the subliminal techniques advertisers use to influence the audience, one must understand the vulnerabilities in humans they tap into. The human being is a complex creature. The same complexity that gives us the ability to manipulate objects also makes us vulnerable to manipulation.
As defined, perception is the brain's reception of incoming stimuli. Some of this perception is conscious, while most of it is unconscious. But our primary sensory input is visual perception. It is believed that the eyes do not edit perception, and the retina transmits everything to the brain's visual cortex for processing. Not everyone perceives an image the same, however. Different perceptions would ultimately affect each person's level of subliminal receptivity.
In the 1960’s, scientists discovered that messages flashed on a screen too fast for the human eye to see could still pass suggestions to a person unconsciously. Advertisers began to flash messages just below the threshold of recognition to see if this would increase a consumer’s impulse to buy one brand over another. The fad passed, but the point was made: some things can become recognized subliminally and this can change behavior.
Marshall McLuhan from the University of Toronto looked at the phenomenon and popularized his thoughts about it in his famous 1964 book The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (the pun on “message” was intentional). He went on to discover an association between “thoughts and feelings" and the subliminal, imperceptible environments of media effects in the 1970s. In other words, subliminal learning is associated with emotional responses in addition to simple recognition of a person or object.
In 2001, Takeo Watanabe and his colleagues at Boston University re-examined the phenomenon once again and discovered that people who watched a particular direction of subliminal dot movement during a letter-naming trial were significantly better at picking it out later.
Phil Merikle, from the University of Waterloo, commented on the results of Watanabe’s study: "I think it's one of the nicest sets of data I've seen for learning outside of perceptual awareness…This perceptual learning is influencing how they see the world. Subconscious learning may affect our conscious decisions -- without our knowing it. It's what advertisers have known all along: if we just keep the exposure rate up, people will be influenced.”
Thus, the information communicated through the screen of an IHD alone may not be enough to encourage people to change their behavior when it comes to energy conservation. But the more interactive and more engaging an IHD can be, the greater effect it will have. The light bar atop Aztech’s In-Home Display serves as a constant influence to make people more aware of changes in their energy use without their consciously thinking about it.
Educator Henry van Dyke once said, “No amount of energy will take the place of thought.” We disagree.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
The In-Home Display: I.H.D. 101
Introduction
Aztech’s portable In-Home Display wirelessly communicates with the smart electricity meter mounted on a home to help both consumers and their utility providers with conservation and demand management.
Homeowners can conveniently monitor their real-time energy consumption patterns and estimated costs in the comfort of their own home. This direct and immediate feedback is imperative to raising energy awareness, because it assists residential customers with their household decision making. They can choose when to run electricity-hungry appliances, or see the results of switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs and unplugging an old fridge. Pilot studies have consistently shown actual energy savings of about 7-20% compared with homeowners who do not have an In-Home Display. This is a significant conservation effect. Thus, encouraging people to change their behavior helps them to save money and protect the environment at the same time.
Electricity companies, meanwhile, can better monitor delivery and usage and, therefore, manage energy demands more effectively. This, in turn, enables them to reduce costs and position themselves as world-class public service providers with a higher degree of customer satisfaction.
Smart Grid
A modernized electric Smart Grid is crucial to the welfare of our country, and will have a substantial and immediate impact on the distribution of electricity. Efficient power systems with increased reliability will ensure electricity flows as it should. A Smart Grid would not only be self-aware, with the ability to adjust supply and demand, but self-healing, with the ability to correct problems as they arise.
Utilities gain flexibility in meeting their energy needs, and are able to reduce the frequency and duration of outages. Ultimately, they can shift power to areas where and when demand peaks and thus generate less power. This results in immense environmental benefits by reducing harmful energy-related CO2 emissions -- conservation commitments and targets are achieved that much sooner.
And, by using digital technologies and two-way communications, we can reap the benefits of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Smart Meters
Smart (digital) meters are rapidly replacing the familiar analog meters with mechanical gauges in most areas of North America. It is estimated that by 2012, half of the continent’s 200 million meters in use today will be replaced with a new smart electricity meter.
Utility companies benefit from smart meters by meter reader manpower savings, improved billing accuracy, and the ability to relate their cost of energy to the amount they charge through time-of-day rates.
Smart (digital) meters broadcast their information to the IHD via low power short range radio signals. The IHD can be placed anywhere in a home, and shows exactly what the outside meter is displaying, eliminating the inconvenience of going outside the house to read the utility company meter.
Time-of-Use Periods
Generating costs have always varied by the time energy is used and were traditionally averaged together into fixed rates. Cost varied because generating stations are only fired up as needed, and each generator has a different cost profile. But the costs between relatively low cost coal fired generating stations and higher cost natural gas or oil fired generators is now exaggerated by the increasing differences in fuel costs.
In addition, Ontario’s generating capacity has not kept up with its growth in population. So when the province must buy power from neighboring provinces it must do so in competition with U.S. states that are willing to pay high rates. The bottom line for Ontario consumers is that prices for electricity are likely to become ever more volatile in the future, and controlling the cost of the utility bill for budget-minded consumers will require managing family energy use much more carefully.
Thus, the problem becomes, “How can the consumer tell what the price is right now” when the price of electricity fluctuates throughout the day?
History of IHDs
In-Home Displays are a recent development. As a result of governmental decisions to introduce variable energy pricing as a means of encouraging conservation, all electricity consumers will eventually need one.
The earliest In-Home Displays provided day-after information on usage and, since they were not integrated with the utility company, could not provide dynamic pricing signals or personalized messaging. But with the introduction of Critical Peak Pricing, the In-Home Display must now be in constant contact with the utility, providing reliable transmissions with no interference and offering advanced two-way features that are capable of sending data back to the utility.
Many of today’s IHDs come with both a sensor and a transmitter that you must install yourself – this entails a complex process of connecting various wires to your electrical panel. Furthermore, you are also required to personally program the device with the rates set by your electricity supplier.
But Aztech’s portable In-Home Display communicates wirelessly with your home’s smart meter (without the need for sensors and transmitters), and is preprogrammed to track, analyze and calculate the data and time-of-use rates for display on the customer’s system. All you have to do is plug it in!
With the IHD market on the verge of exploding, Aztech believes it will be the product of choice by consumers and utility companies alike. As a major supplier of the In-Home Display to the growing Smart Meter market, Aztech has been piloting an expandable product line to include communication with gas and water meters.
The Home Area Network (HAN)
All of this will lead to in-home energy management systems.
For example, the In-Home Display may be asked to communicate with smart appliances and thermostats to trigger cost saving settings. The Aztech In-Home display can interact with existing or new appliances and thermostats from many manufactures using a new radio control protocol called ZigBee, which is rapidly becoming a part of the new Home Area Network or “HAN.” Thus, the Aztech IHD can act as a portal by which consumers can control other devices in their home. This introduces a level of sophistication and ease of use that is unmatched.
Aztech’s Light Bar
Time-of-use periods are identified by three colors that sweep across Aztech’s exclusive patent-pending arched light bar. As energy use within a specific period increases, so too does the speed of flashing light. This provides concerned homeowners with at-a-glance warnings.
Aztech’s Display Screen
These warnings are backed up by accurate and detailed information displayed in both text and graphic form in the IHD’s backlit LCD window.
And, with Aztech’s intuitive technology, utilities can also provide their users with text messaging. The Aztech In-Home Display has the ability to receive updates over-the-air directly from the utility, so warnings of such things as critical peaks or maintenance-related outages can be delivered. The Aztech In-Home Display is battery backed-up, and can even display the “last gasp” message when power delivery has been interrupted.
In some cases, the In-Home Display may ask a consumer to acknowledge they have read a message, or it may give the consumer the option to “opt out” of a program to offload an air conditioner, etc. In-Home Displays must now be able to do all this and more in the future.
CONCLUSION
Among industrialized and developing countries, Canada consumes per capita the most energy in the world, with the U.S. ranking second. Canadians want to learn how to reduce their carbon footprint as much as possible by using energy wisely. Aztech's practical and attractive In-Home Display is targeted at those who want a basic, easy-to-use tool to accomplish this. Thus, the Aztech In-Home Display is the everyday workhorse that empowers customers to control costs and lower their bills.
Together, Aztech and North Americans can all look forward to a greener future with reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved waste reduction, more sustainable land use, and better air and water quality.
Aztech’s portable In-Home Display wirelessly communicates with the smart electricity meter mounted on a home to help both consumers and their utility providers with conservation and demand management.
Homeowners can conveniently monitor their real-time energy consumption patterns and estimated costs in the comfort of their own home. This direct and immediate feedback is imperative to raising energy awareness, because it assists residential customers with their household decision making. They can choose when to run electricity-hungry appliances, or see the results of switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs and unplugging an old fridge. Pilot studies have consistently shown actual energy savings of about 7-20% compared with homeowners who do not have an In-Home Display. This is a significant conservation effect. Thus, encouraging people to change their behavior helps them to save money and protect the environment at the same time.
Electricity companies, meanwhile, can better monitor delivery and usage and, therefore, manage energy demands more effectively. This, in turn, enables them to reduce costs and position themselves as world-class public service providers with a higher degree of customer satisfaction.
Smart Grid
A modernized electric Smart Grid is crucial to the welfare of our country, and will have a substantial and immediate impact on the distribution of electricity. Efficient power systems with increased reliability will ensure electricity flows as it should. A Smart Grid would not only be self-aware, with the ability to adjust supply and demand, but self-healing, with the ability to correct problems as they arise.
Utilities gain flexibility in meeting their energy needs, and are able to reduce the frequency and duration of outages. Ultimately, they can shift power to areas where and when demand peaks and thus generate less power. This results in immense environmental benefits by reducing harmful energy-related CO2 emissions -- conservation commitments and targets are achieved that much sooner.
And, by using digital technologies and two-way communications, we can reap the benefits of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Smart Meters
Smart (digital) meters are rapidly replacing the familiar analog meters with mechanical gauges in most areas of North America. It is estimated that by 2012, half of the continent’s 200 million meters in use today will be replaced with a new smart electricity meter.
Utility companies benefit from smart meters by meter reader manpower savings, improved billing accuracy, and the ability to relate their cost of energy to the amount they charge through time-of-day rates.
Smart (digital) meters broadcast their information to the IHD via low power short range radio signals. The IHD can be placed anywhere in a home, and shows exactly what the outside meter is displaying, eliminating the inconvenience of going outside the house to read the utility company meter.
Time-of-Use Periods
Generating costs have always varied by the time energy is used and were traditionally averaged together into fixed rates. Cost varied because generating stations are only fired up as needed, and each generator has a different cost profile. But the costs between relatively low cost coal fired generating stations and higher cost natural gas or oil fired generators is now exaggerated by the increasing differences in fuel costs.
In addition, Ontario’s generating capacity has not kept up with its growth in population. So when the province must buy power from neighboring provinces it must do so in competition with U.S. states that are willing to pay high rates. The bottom line for Ontario consumers is that prices for electricity are likely to become ever more volatile in the future, and controlling the cost of the utility bill for budget-minded consumers will require managing family energy use much more carefully.
Thus, the problem becomes, “How can the consumer tell what the price is right now” when the price of electricity fluctuates throughout the day?
History of IHDs
In-Home Displays are a recent development. As a result of governmental decisions to introduce variable energy pricing as a means of encouraging conservation, all electricity consumers will eventually need one.
The earliest In-Home Displays provided day-after information on usage and, since they were not integrated with the utility company, could not provide dynamic pricing signals or personalized messaging. But with the introduction of Critical Peak Pricing, the In-Home Display must now be in constant contact with the utility, providing reliable transmissions with no interference and offering advanced two-way features that are capable of sending data back to the utility.
Many of today’s IHDs come with both a sensor and a transmitter that you must install yourself – this entails a complex process of connecting various wires to your electrical panel. Furthermore, you are also required to personally program the device with the rates set by your electricity supplier.
But Aztech’s portable In-Home Display communicates wirelessly with your home’s smart meter (without the need for sensors and transmitters), and is preprogrammed to track, analyze and calculate the data and time-of-use rates for display on the customer’s system. All you have to do is plug it in!
With the IHD market on the verge of exploding, Aztech believes it will be the product of choice by consumers and utility companies alike. As a major supplier of the In-Home Display to the growing Smart Meter market, Aztech has been piloting an expandable product line to include communication with gas and water meters.
The Home Area Network (HAN)
All of this will lead to in-home energy management systems.
For example, the In-Home Display may be asked to communicate with smart appliances and thermostats to trigger cost saving settings. The Aztech In-Home display can interact with existing or new appliances and thermostats from many manufactures using a new radio control protocol called ZigBee, which is rapidly becoming a part of the new Home Area Network or “HAN.” Thus, the Aztech IHD can act as a portal by which consumers can control other devices in their home. This introduces a level of sophistication and ease of use that is unmatched.
Aztech’s Light Bar
Time-of-use periods are identified by three colors that sweep across Aztech’s exclusive patent-pending arched light bar. As energy use within a specific period increases, so too does the speed of flashing light. This provides concerned homeowners with at-a-glance warnings.
Aztech’s Display Screen
These warnings are backed up by accurate and detailed information displayed in both text and graphic form in the IHD’s backlit LCD window.
And, with Aztech’s intuitive technology, utilities can also provide their users with text messaging. The Aztech In-Home Display has the ability to receive updates over-the-air directly from the utility, so warnings of such things as critical peaks or maintenance-related outages can be delivered. The Aztech In-Home Display is battery backed-up, and can even display the “last gasp” message when power delivery has been interrupted.
In some cases, the In-Home Display may ask a consumer to acknowledge they have read a message, or it may give the consumer the option to “opt out” of a program to offload an air conditioner, etc. In-Home Displays must now be able to do all this and more in the future.
CONCLUSION
Among industrialized and developing countries, Canada consumes per capita the most energy in the world, with the U.S. ranking second. Canadians want to learn how to reduce their carbon footprint as much as possible by using energy wisely. Aztech's practical and attractive In-Home Display is targeted at those who want a basic, easy-to-use tool to accomplish this. Thus, the Aztech In-Home Display is the everyday workhorse that empowers customers to control costs and lower their bills.
Together, Aztech and North Americans can all look forward to a greener future with reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved waste reduction, more sustainable land use, and better air and water quality.
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