=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2382/ICT4S2019_paper_22
|storemode=property
|title=Per-appliance Energy Feedback as a Moving Target
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2382/ICT4S2019_paper_22.pdf
|volume=Vol-2382
|authors=Erik Rosberg,Cristian Bogdan,Anders Lundström,Omar Shafqat
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ict4s/RosbergBLS19
}}
==Per-appliance Energy Feedback as a Moving Target==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2382/ICT4S2019_paper_22.pdf
Per-appliance energy feedback as a moving target
Omar Shafqat Erik Rosberg, Cristian Bogdan, Anders Lundström
Dept. of Energy Technology Dept. of Media Technology and Interaction Design
Royal Institute of Technology KTH Royal Institute of Technology KTH
Stockholm, Sweden Stockholm, Sweden
omars@kth.se cristi@kth.se
Abstract— Energy feedback through interactive technologies is result of a deployment of the state-of-art smart energy monitor
often proposed as a major approach to reduce household energy Smappee in two different areas in a Scandinavian city. In total,
consumption and carbon footprint. However, this vision is chal- 25 units were installed and 15 users were interviewed for the
lenged by critics. This paper seeks to inform this debate through
purpose of this study.
a case study of an advanced energy feedback device providing
runtime and de-aggregated per-appliance feedback through a
The aim of this paper is to explore how users of the de-
smartphone app. This study, based on 15 contextual interviews, aggregated feedback device called Smappee act upon its ser-
aims to investigate how users understand and act on the various vice. The goal is to address the following research questions:
levels of feedback received from the device and the resulting im- • [RQ1] Does Smappee de-aggregated feedback contrib-
pact on user behaviour. We found that appliance detection can be ute to a better understanding of users’ energy con-
a “moving target” that hampers the intended aims of energy sumption?
feedback, as it reduces user understanding of the technology. The
• [RQ2] Does Smappee de-aggregated feedback contrib-
lack of understanding was further deepened by unrelated sup-
plementary functionality added in the package, in the form of
ute to an energy behaviour shift? And if not, what are
smart plugs. Despite gaining a better understanding of their en- the main causes preventing it?
ergy consumption, the users felt limited in terms of their ability The study found that despite improving the users’ under-
to change their behaviour considerably. standing of their energy consumption, the impact on savings
was limited due by the effort required from the users. The
Author Keywords: Energy feedback; Home energy “moving target” aspect of appliance labelling led to users los-
management; user behaviour; de-aggregated feedback. ing interest. Additionally, a majority of users quoted a lack of
time in order to fully utilize the device.
I. INTRODUCTION
II. RELATED WORK
In Europe, households account for 25% of the energy-
related greenhouse gas emission [6]. Household energy con- Various studies have been conducted within the area of
sumption and energy efficiency thus have high saving poten- smart meters and their influence on user behaviour [22]. Cur-
tial, making it an important target area for policy makers [13]. rently, there is little research on de-aggregated feedback, yet
Currently, IoT based Home Energy Management Systems according to Hargreaves [1] users wonder about energy con-
(HEMS) are gaining popularity by providing high resolution sumption of each appliance. In Hargreaves study, household-
information, control, and automation possibilities to end-users ers turned appliance on and off, checked the total (aggregated)
[2]. consumption change, and made estimations of how much vari-
According to Burgess [3], energy is so-called ‘double invis- ous appliances consumed. This is pressing as de-aggregated
ible’ to households. Firstly, it is an abstract and invisible force feedback is the only way of providing a direct link between
and, secondly, it is a part of inconspicuous routines and habits. actions and results [2], hence brings awareness of peoples ac-
This also means that it is difficult for people to connect activi- tions.
ties to energy consumption [11]. Before smart meters, house- A determining factor for the success of feedback on behav-
holds consumed energy within an information void [4], una- ioural change is the initial motivation of the users [3], [4]. With
ware of how much and when different appliances used energy. low motivation, the system will typically remain unused. Kel-
Energy feedback brought by (e.g.) smart meters is a key sey [5] concluded that the major motivation is financial and
component for achieving behavioural change [9] and reducing that the users that are most motivated are the users who are in
carbon footprint [4]. Hence it is also a means to overcome en- charge of the household’s electric bill. One result that is quite
ergy’s ‘double invisibility’. However, the effect of real-time common is that it is usually the man in the household that is
energy feedback is not as simple as cause and effect as energy motivated and takes charge of the energy feedback system [1],
feedback may be complex to understand and use in practice. [4], [6].
In this paper we look at energy feedback from the perspec- Users tend to lose interest in the feedback after a while [1],
tive of per appliance, or de-aggregated, feedback. The paper [5], [7], [8]. However, according to Kelsey [5] that could be
addresses the per-appliance feedback based on issues found in avoided if the feedback constantly changes in a way that makes
previous research on energy feedback [7], [8]. The study is a the user experience always new. Hargreaves [8] found that the
loss of interest occurred when households had learned about history at a high time resolution (5 mins) of their aggregated
their consumption patterns and after that they only looked at total energy consumption (see Figure 1). The intention is that
the feedback on special occasions. Participants in the study by people can learn from this data.
Dam [6] used the feedback as a baseline check, usually at bed-
time, just to see that the consumption was on a normal level.
Other studies showed that the feedback was used as a reminder
and motivator, rather than an educational aid [7], [9].
Strengers [18] believes that providing electricity feedback
to consumers in order to make them optimize their energy con-
sumption is a perspective designed for the so-called “Resource
Man”. Instead, a better approach that works for a much larger
segment of the society should focus on activities rather than
KWh and designing ways to decouple energy from these activi-
ties.
Selvefors [3] categorized hinders for adoption of real-time
feedback into three barriers: technology, motivational and life-
style barriers. The technology barrier can be overcome if the
feedback is presented in a pedagogical way and that the mes-
sage is clear for the user. The lifestyle barrier relates to making
the feedback into a part of the users’ daily routine and lifestyle.
According to Kelsey [5] if the users check the energy display Figure 1 Usage history in the Smappee app
frequently, they managed to incorporate it into their daily rou- The feature that differentiates Smappee from many other
tines and as soon as they understood the information provided, smart home energy monitors is the fact that it recognizes appli-
they started to move towards energy savings. To make it easier ances individually using what Smappee calls “non-intrusive
to get the feedback into the users’ daily routine, the information load monitoring” (NILM). NILM employs amperometric
should be accessible through a routinely used device, such as clamps (one for each electricity phase) clamped around the
the smartphone, which is what Wallenborn [4] also concluded. electrical wires at the fuse box (Figure 2) [11].
Dam [6] also suggests that integration into a routinely used
device is a good idea since the long-term use is uncertain.
However, Selvefors [3] found that participants were reluctant
to access the information even after such measures are taken.
Studies by Allcott [10] and Dam [6] showed that if house-
hold owners were compared to their neighbours in similar
households, energy consumption was reduced by 2%. Howev-
er, people that consumed less before the comparison tended to
consume more when they were compared to their neighbours,
Figure 2 Smappee connected to the main fuse box for a single-phase system
which is termed the “boomerang” effect. This is because they (three clamps for three phase system) [Source Smappee installation manual]
saw that they were able to consume more energy in order to fit
with the rest.
Knowledge about energy can be seen as another type of Smappee determines the energy consumption of individual
barrier, a barrier that hinders the change of consumption behav- appliances by differentiating appliances based on their unique
iour supported by feedback. Dam [6] found that users, for lack electrical signature (e.g. due to different nature of loads con-
of better knowledge, chose to set a timer on their refrigerator to duction/inductive) generated when turning an appliance on and
reduce the consumption. This shows that even though the mo- off as well as the overall power values [12]. Smappee identifies
tivation for saving exists, it can still be hard to make changes various individual appliances, but the user has to figure out
towards energy savings. which physical appliance it corresponds to and label it in
Smappee. Each appliance is initially labelled by default as a
III. DE-AGGREGATED ECO-FEEDBACK IN number. To help the users with appliance labelling Smappee
logs the on/off events of each detected appliance and shows it
SMAPPEE in an event-list (see Figure 3). Such de-aggregated energy data
Smappee is a device with an interactive application running provides the user with information about each appliance’s con-
on tablets and smartphones that monitors the users’ household sumption as well as how much energy it consumes costs per
energy consumption. It provides real-time feedback of the in- day, week, month or year.
stantaneous energy consumption (often termed ‘real-time’ en- Smappee also comes with so-called “Comfort plugs” (here-
ergy use) as well as the amount of energy that is so-called “al- after referred to as ‘plugs’), which are controlled through the
ways-on” (e.g. routers, standby devices etc.). This information application. They allow users to turn the plug on or off or set
is stored in the cloud and the user can explore total energy use plug activation triggers such as sunset, sunrise, or based on
geofencing. Even if their functionality seems unrelated to the
core energy feedback, we will show that the plugs did play a Table 1: Overview of the interviewees in terms of age group, dwelling type,
role in the device understanding and usage. working status and prior energy know-how of the interviewee
User Dwelling Age Household Working Prior En-
code type group members status ergy
knowledge
1 Apartment 60-75 2 Retired Low
2 House 40-50 4 Working High
3 House 40-50 4 Working Low
4 Apartment 30-40 2 Working Low
5 Apartment 30-40 2 Working Medium
6 House 40-50 4 Working Low
7 Apartment 40-50 5 Working Low
8 Apartment 30-40 4 Working Low
9 Apartment 30-40 4 Working Medium
Figure 3 Event list in Smappee app with some appliances labelled and others 10 House 40-50 4 Working High
not labelled.
11 Apartment 60-75 2 Retired Medium
IV. METHOD 12 House 40-50 3 Working Low
This study was performed in two dwelling areas (in a Scan- 13 House 60-75 2 Retired Medium
dinavian city), in 9 apartments and 6 town houses. The house- 14 Apartment 40-50 5 Working Low
holds was provided with Smappee kits (energy monitors +
comfort plugs, version 2017) at no cost. The energy monitors 15 Apartment 50-60 2 Working High
were installed and commissioned for the residents and the
plugs were provided to be installed at their own discretion. As a A qualitative thematic analysis of the interviews was per-
follow-up to the installation, a support document with detailed formed in several steps. First, we correlated each interview data
information of the various functions was provided. Our data with the energy use data found in the corresponding Smappee
corpus consists of the Smappee accounts containing energy account. The coding was performed inductively after reviewing
consumption, appliances data and event logs of the households the interviews. The results were then structured to find the fol-
(acquired with consent), as well as interview data performed lowing emerging themes across our data corpus:
with one member of each household. The users had access to • Initial impression
the system for 6 months (apartments) and 1 year (houses). Ta- • De-aggregated feedback and user’s interaction with it
ble 1 presents an overview of the interviewees background.
• User’s understanding of Smappee including the appli-
Both areas have good socio-economic conditions with a posi-
ances recognition
tive environmental perspective. In both cases, heating is gener-
ally not included in the electricity bill (except for some sup- • Smappee use patterns
plementary floor heating e.g. in bathrooms) and is primarily • Behaviour change
provided by central district heating. • Socio-economic context
The aim of the interviews was to gain a deeper understand-
ing of how users understand and act upon de-aggregated energy V. RESULTS
feedback. The interviews lasted 45 min on average; the shortest
At the time of the interviews, all Smappee installations
lasted 30min and the longest was 1h 30min. The interviews
were still in working order. We will begin by describing our
were divided into two parts. The first part was a contextual
analysis themes.
interview where the participants were asked how they utilized
the system and demonstrate the various features frequently A. First Impression
used. The second part was semi-structured on topics regarding
Most of the participants (14 out of 15) first impression was
de-aggregated energy feedback and Smappee practicalities.
that it was exciting to see their energy consumption right away.
Table 1 provides and overview of the interviewees, including
They did not have any previous knowledge about how much
type of dwelling, age group, household members, working sta-
they consumed in real-time, only their monthly consumption
tus and prior energy knowledge. The details presented are of
written on the electrical bill. Another positive impression was
the primary users of Smappee. In a majority of the cases (12
that it was accessible through the phone, which allowed them
out of 15) only one user in the household used the application,
to see their consumption away from home.
in 3 households there were 2 users.
However, two participants had direct negative impressions
as one wondered “is this really gonna help me?” and another
“what should I do with this?”.
Not surprisingly these participants did not see the use of tects the increase and decrease and if Smappee, after a while,
Smappee in their household. Another similar participant said measures the same type of increases and decreases it assumes
that it was confusing and hard to understand. that it is an appliance. However, most of the participants could
Another common trajectory was that a good first impres- not understand how Smappee differentiates between two appli-
sion was followed by disappointment when actually starting to ances with the same power.
use Smappee, For instance, one participant said that the start
screen, where he could see his real-time consumption, gave C. The moving target of labelling appliances
him an easy and fast overview. Hence, it looked like Smappee One thing that is important to understand in order to use
had lots of possibilities and that it was working well with the Smappee properly is that a number of “appliances” detected by
plugs and the de-aggregated feedback. But then he got disap- Smappee may belong to the same physical appliance within the
pointed and his impression of Smappee changed, as it was hard household. For example, one participant had noticed that
to label the different appliances. Other participants also ex- Smappee detected the different stove hobs as different appli-
pressed a need for help at this point as it was difficult to under- ances. Another participant described that a few detected appli-
stand how to use Smappee in practice. ances in Smappee belonged to the washing machine, since it
has different routines in its process of washing. That is why
B. De-aggregated feedback in Smappee Smappee detects more appliances than there are physical appli-
For most (10 out of 15) participants, labelling appliances in ances within the household. However, most of the participants
Smappee was a difficult process. Five participants never even had not understood that. One more thing that confused the us-
tried to label appliance and one did not understand that ers is that an appliance can be detected as a new appliance if it
Smappee was able to detect individual appliances. Two of the is used in a different way. One of the participants had labelled
15 participants had labelled one appliance but said that they his toaster long before the interview but had recently changed
made a mistake when they did that and stopped with that activi- the temperature of the toaster, which made Smappee detect it as
ty. The rest of the participants (8 of the 15) had tried to label as a new appliance, he realized that during the interview.
many appliances as possible but stopped when they made a One participant had seen that Smappee had detected appli-
mistake, when it became too difficult, or when they did not ances and thought that they were too many, she said: “Ah there
think it was worth to continue with labelling. One participant are so many appliances, and I don’t understand what is what.
said: Then it results in that you stop, because you do not have that
“many were easy, then it got harder and harder and after a much time to engage in electricity stuff”
while I thought… why am I doing this? The information isn’t When she, during the interview, looked at the information
that interesting”. about some of the detected appliances she could not understand
He continued by saying: how she possibly could determine which physical appliances
“It is complicated, and it does not give you the reward for within the household they correspond to. She thought that there
trying, because sometimes you make mistakes, and then you get were too many appliances, which made her think it was too big
into a loop: ‘What was I doing?’ and the value of it feels lim- of a job to label them.
ited”. She also said that she thought that she was logged into
Most participants chose to label the easiest appliance first, someone else's account and that the appliances didn’t belong to
which was most of the times an appliance that could be turn on her since she did not recognize the number of appliances in the
and off with a switch and consumed a lot of energy. Generally, list (see Figure 4). Two more participants, who lived in apart-
the appliances that the participants could turn on and off on ments, thought that the list of appliances was too long, which
their own were easier to label compared to the automatically made them question whether those were their appliances. One
controlled appliances such as refrigerators or thermostat- of them explained: “You see how many it shows? I do not have
controlled floor heating. The users who were able to label the that many. So it probably shows many others within the build-
refrigerator either sat next to it and heard when the compressor ing”.
started to work, others had previous knowledge about the fridge
electric power and the on-and-off pattern which they recog-
nized in their event list (Figure 3).
Users who had labelled some appliances did that during the
first couple of weeks. They said that they initially thought it
was fun to walk around and ‘hunt’ appliances in the house. But
they stopped doing that later on, either because they had la-
belled the ones that were obvious to them, or because they
thought it was, in general, too hard to continue.
Ten out of the fifteen participants had some idea of how
Smappee detects appliances. Some did not want to tell their
view right away since they were unsure, others had thought of Figure 4 Appliances shown in Smappee before labelling
it during their time of using Smappee. The general perception The interviewee who had best succeeded with the labelling
was that Smappee measures the electricity used and that it de- did not look at the information about the appliances more than
once. He said that he learned roughly how much the appliance pressed “on” nothing happened. Her interpretation was thus
consumed and how much that energy cost him per month or that the smartphone sends a signal directly to the plugs to turn
year. He felt that he acquired the knowledge needed in order to it on or off, while in reality the Smappee box is sending a radio
get an overall understanding. He also felt that he had hit the signal to the plugs when it turns on/off, which is independent of
ceiling with Smappee’s per-appliance labelling. where the smartphone is located.
E. Smappee use patterns
Only two of the participants used Smappee on a regular ba-
sis, the two of them used it many times a day. The others had
used it many times a week during the first couple of weeks but
then started to look at Smappee more rarely (cf.[1], [5], [7],
[8]), some said that is because they learned the information
they needed. The two that use it regularly were both retired.
One of them described that he looks at Smappee for the same
reasons he looks at Facebook or when he randomly looks at the
time table of public transportation: “It is fun, little dynamic
information to keep track, ‘Is this real?’ ‘Has something hap-
pened?’ Normally nothing has happened. You look at Face-
book and you look at Smappee.”
Most of the participants used most frequently the main
screen, where their real-time, high resolution consumption and
their always-on consumption are displayed. They looked at the
real-time consumption in order to get an overview if everything
looks correct according to them. One of the participants noticed
during the interview that his consumption was low at that mo-
ment and said: “Now it is fun to see that it is just the basic ap-
pliances that are on, nothing else.”. One of the participants that
Figure 5 De-aggregated information about one appliance had got a routine in using Smappee looked at the real-time con-
sumption every time he went to bed, to know that everything
Only one participant had an ambition to label all appliances was off. He looked at it during the days also, and if the con-
within his apartment. He usually looked at the information that sumption was high he started to investigate what it was that
depicted in Figure 5, illustrating when the appliances were on consumed energy. It worked like a baseline check for him.
during an average day and figured out what appliance it might
be. He looked at the “appliance DNA” (figure 5) for the appli-
ances that he had labelled and started to assess whether he
thought it was used in a reasonable way. During the interview,
he looked at the refrigerator on and off pattern and thought that
it was working too much which made him consider buying a
new refrigerator. He also noticed that the timer-controlled
lights for his aquarium were turned on for a while during the
night, which he would adjust.
D. Smappee and the Plugs
The only participant who had not seen that Smappee is able
to give de-aggregated information had not used Smappee that
Figure 6 Real time consumption, "always-on" readings and a de-
much. He thought that we, who conducted the study, were in-
crease of 865W by an unlabelled appliance
terested in the data and that it was measured through the plugs
that were given alongside of Smappee. He had placed one of Some of the interviewees, who did not use the per appliance
the plugs where he ironed his clothes and connected the iron to function in Smappee, made an own estimation about how much
the plug whenever he used it and thought that the iron’s con- appliances consumed by looking at the real-time consumption’s
sumption was measured. increase and decrease when they used an appliance (cf [1]) (see
Two users had a problem to understand the difference be- Figure 6). They reported that this gave them enough knowledge
tween the labelled appliances and the plugs. They thought that about their appliances. They thought it was easier compared to
they could control appliances in the household once they had labelling the appliances and get the information from that way.
labelled them. Some participants looked at their usage history and tried to
One participant described that she had a problem some- analyse the diagram and tried to evaluate the peaks, why they
times with turning the plugs on and off and she described that occurred and what they might have done during that time. They
even though she sat very close with her smartphone when she
said that for them it worked as a “receipt” for their consump- difference in using Smappee based on economic resources. No
tion. one used Smappee because they had a hard time paying their
The plugs that are delivered with Smappee were not used electrical bill and their economic resources had no impact at
that frequently in apartments. A common thought of the users all. There was no difference between the users in the two city
who live in apartments is that they are more suited for houses areas in this aspect either, even if the real estate price in the
with two floors, where one can turn things off at the other floor areas is at significantly different levels.
without having to walk a long distance to do that. One family, Some participants said that they would use Smappee more
who lived in a house, used the plugs frequently to help with fire often and analyse it more if they would live in a villa (with
safety. Other users used it to turn off their standby consump- heating included e.g. with a heat pump). When one has a higher
tion, which they became aware of thanks to Smappee. consumption, they thought that they would be more motivated
to use Smappee in order to lower their consumption because
F. Behavioural change that would have a larger impact.
Almost all of the participants said that they could not
change the way they use most of their appliances since the ap- VI. DISCUSSION
pliances fulfil a practical use that they can’t be without. How- The main lesson we draw from our study is that even if us-
ever, just under half of the participants had tried in some ways ers express a wish for (Hargreaves [1]) de-aggregated feed-
to change their consumption behaviour due to the feedback back, it does not add much to the user experience if it is not
from Smappee. One of them had noticed the difference in con- detecting appliances correctly, completely and in a short start-
sumption between boiling water in a kettle compared to a up period (a few days). Any imperfection, like the “moving
saucepan. So now he only uses the kettle for that purpose. He target” effect we have seen, is bound to lower the user trust in
had also noticed the difference in consumption between the the technology and to add one more reason for users not to
different stove hobs, which made him use the one that best change their behaviour, or even to keep interest the feedback
suited the size of the saucepan whereas before Smappee he device. De- aggregated feedback is seen as a good thought by
chose one randomly. the users, but it is practically too difficult, and unless one has a
Another participant had seen that his “Always on” con- personal curiosity (cf. the “Resource Man” [18]) the appliance
sumption increased drastically when he had the floor heating in labelling activity will be soon abandoned. The users employ the
the bathroom on. He was not aware of how much it consumed. device in the way that they perceive as manageable and the
By acknowledging that, he had started to turn it off from time way they think they get a fair exchange of information consid-
to time. But he admits that he believes that it is just a temporary ering the effort they have to put in, which is why the total real-
action and that he thinks that he will continue as normal later time consumption was mostly used in our case in the end,
on, because it doesn’t cost him that much. since it does not need any configuration. Generally, our users
One of the users who noticed the difference in real- time did not feel that it was worth the effort to label the appliances
consumption when using a certain appliance had seen that the since the information was not seen as useful enough. Based on
dishwasher is consuming surprisingly much. That knowledge this result, we believe that a rough indication about how much
had made him more meticulous when using the dishwasher, appliances consume in comparison with other appliances is the
ensuring that it is full and he does not use it half empty. He information that users want, especially since they feel it is too
referred to this as: “.. or not to run an empty dishwasher just hard to understand the de- aggregated information as it is struc-
because the dishes smell”. tured now in Smappee.
A common thought by the participants was that Smappee Even for users with a nearly correct appliance detection,
worked as a reminder of saving energy by not having applianc- per-appliance feedback did not prevent losing interest in the
es turned on when they did not use them. device over time. Like reported by previous studies, our in-
formants expressed that they learned the information that
G. Socio-economic context Smappee provided, which resulted in them not needing to look
One thing that became clear during the interviews was that at the feedback on a regular basis. The information void that
the participants who used Smappee more often than the rest did Carroll [9] described was thus filled. They only needed to look
so because they had more spare time. The participants who did at Smappee when they felt that they did not know, roughly,
not use Smappee often, or had stopped using Smappee, said how much they consumed in real-time, either because they had
that it was mostly because they did not have time to use it. forgotten or because it was a special occasion (cf. [8])
Some participants expressed that it was hard for them to reduce Another lesson is that adding supplementary functionality
their energy consumption because they lived in the household to energy feedback can hamper the energy feedback effects,
with others. Families with children thought it was very hard because the users may wrongly relate it to energy feedback.
since the children have their consumption patterns and do not This was the case with the smart plugs delivered with the de-
think it is that important to save some energy. vice we studied. Along with de-aggregation, the plugs created
One participant said during the interview when his kid was confusion and false expectations, which in our interpretation
looking for food: “The kids kind of open the fridge and look for reduced expected behavioural effects of energy feedback.
food whether it is food time or not. Daniel! close the freezer, Regarding our first question, de-aggregated feedback did
you cost me money now!”. The interviews did not show any improve energy use understanding for many users. However,
the practices that users had to recourse to are very similar to in real-time and when they saw their consumption, some users
those found by previous energy feedback research [21]: for did not perceive it as being large. As mentioned previously,
example, turning appliances on and off to achieve proper appli- participants thought that they would use Smappee more often if
ance detection. The most common way participants used they had a higher consumption, for instance if living in a villa.
Smappee was as a reminder and an observer of the household
energy consumption. They used the total real-time consump- VII. CONCLUSION
tion (thus no per-appliance functionality) to observe whether The results suggest that per-appliance feedback presents
they had a high or low consumption at the moment and that many of the same issues found in traditional smart meter ener-
worked as a baseline check, just as Carroll [9] and Faruqui [7] gy feedback. Typically, here is a degree of enthusiasm in the
found. The existence of Smappee reminded some users of turn- beginning, with lots of attention to the device, followed by a
ing unused appliances off and the baseline check worked as a gradual abandon except for a few enthusiasts who conform to
reminder if the users had forgot to turn something off. the “resource man” archetype. In other words, adding more
The three barriers (motivational, technical and lifestyle bar- information to energy feedback does not necessarily increase
rier) described by Selvefors [3] have in general been confirmed its value for users.
by the interviews. The biggest barrier is the technical barrier, Additionally, despite gaining a better understanding of their
since the participants thought it was too hard to use the system, energy consumption, the users felt limited in terms of their
especially to label appliances. The motivational barrier is not ability to change their behaviour considerably. This was in part
just the initial motivation, the motivation to use Smappee be- due to the mental cost-benefit model of the users in terms of
fore receiving it, but also a motivation to save energy in gen- low amount of savings vs. the time effort required.
eral. Many participants thought that they could not do a signifi- Another lesson that we draw from the complex pro-
cant saving since they were having an already low consump- cessing/intelligence of de-aggregated feedback is that if the
tion. Instead they thought they would be able to save more if intelligence is not ‘complete’, if there are still aspects that the
they would live in a villa and had a higher consumption. In user needs to figure out by themselves, such lack of complete-
contrast, the participants who had a slightly higher consump- ness can also encourage the formation of an inaccurate concep-
tion, thought that they used the appliances they needed and tual model. Indeed, the Smappee device multiplicity has led to
could not control their consumption all that much, some of users incorrectly believing that they see devices from their
them had children that independently increased the consump- neighbours. We would like to encourage designers to pay atten-
tion drastically. The users who were motivated to save energy, tion to emphasizing these “intelligence shortcomings” in the
did that for ideological rather than financial purposes, which is user interface.
contradictory to Kelsey [5] who concluded that financial moti-
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