Contributing to appliances’ energy efficiency with Internet of Things, smart data and user engagement

Abstract

The project OpenFridge has designed and developed the Internet of Things data system with semantic and data analytics enablers for building new services on a top of typical home appliance data—in particular, refrigerators. In order to identify the real-life potential of the system i.e. the innovative set-up from the technical as well as user acceptance sides, pilots with real users have been run, and eventually the data has been collected in a collaborative crowdsourcing manner. The most active users of the system have been surveyed. The paper describes the OpenFridge platform and approach, its evaluation results with the real life users, and discusses the lessons learned and open issues. Though still early for the massive market deployment, the system demonstrates the feasibility of the approach of the users interacting with the semantic energy data and eventually opening it up for the data economy. Also, preferences towards more pervasive ways to interact with such systems were identified.