Smart Lamps  

Design Zen has a post about an interesting Swedish idea to make smart meter data visible to homeowners without forcing them to check a screen - a lamp which signals if their energy usage is above or below target each time it is turned on - .

Spark Lamp by Beverly Ng is a modern lighting products that helps and educate home owner in energy conservation. The main idea is to educate home users towards a sustainable lifestyle, if you understanding domestic energy consumption, for sure you can play your role and help reduce the energy crisis. That’s the concept behind Beverly Ng elegent Spark Lamp, a solar-powered lamp that educate home users reduce and minimize the energy consumption.

Spark Lamp is modern lighting that fully optimized the use of solar power to operated. The lamp collects solar energy during the day and emit light during the night, what you need to do is placed it up-side down on a windowsill to collect the sun’s rays during the day, which are then converted into energy to light up your room at night. This lamp functioned and fully equipped with 1 RGB LED, Wi-Fi module, tilt switch with biopolymers casing to protect the lamp.

This project was created in reaction to the Swedish’s government response to the energy crisis. In Sweden, future homes will be installed with smart meters that will provide real-time feedback to homeowners on the internet. Interactive Institute felt that providing the data on a website was not engaging enough; therefore, the Spark lamp was developed to enhance the experience by extending the feedback beyond the computer screen and into everyday objects in the home. Users enter a monthly energy consumption goal on the site according to their motivation (money, carbon footprints, discounts, etc).

Every time the user turns on the lamp, it activates the tilt switch and turns on the wi-fi module where it reads the home’s energy data. Spark would pulse (3 sec) the appropriate color of their energy consumption (red-below target, yellow- on target, green - above target) and notifies the users of their consumption so far that month. After the 3 sec pulse, the light then turns to a regular white light lamp. This daily usage will help create a habit and help home owners understand their energy consumption pattern. On the website users will find tips and resources on energy conservation. Once the user has developed a more sustainable consumption, Spark can still be used as a lamp.