— ABOUT

Project at Aalborg University

— DATE

June 2018

Problem

Water is not an infinite resource and should, therefore, be conserved as overconsumption can have considerable consequences for the environment. In households, water consumption is not something given much attention. The problem with water, and other utilities like electricity and heat, is that the people typically have limited perception of how much they use.

In an average danish household, 36% of the water consumption comes from showers and personal hygiene. This creates a significant potential in saving water in the shower. Changing habits is however difficult without assistance. The motivation behind the project has due to this been to raise awareness and visualize water consumption while making it easier to understand and reflect upon.

Approach

Developing a prototype, able to support a field study, and evaluating its ability to raise awareness about water consumption during a shower. Users should be able to easily get an idea of their current water consumption and be supported in choices to change habits to conserve water.

Results

A prototype was developed with the intent of evaluating its ability to raise users awareness of their water consumption. it consisted of two parts; an in-shower device and a mobile application.

The in-shower device consisted of a sensor unit and a live-feedback display. The sensor unit measured the current shower water flow and sent this information to the live-feedback display. The display visualized this information in relation to a preset water consumption goal.

The mobile application enabled the users to view a journal of all recorded showers and provided information such as; shower length, price, and water consumption. Additionally, users could view a statistics page that showed the total and average consumption of water, time, and cost.

The prototype was deployed and results showed that initially, the participants had no awareness and limited understanding of their water consumption as well as no motivation to conserve water. In the duration of the study, the participants gained awareness of their water consumption which led to the participants being motivated to conserve water. This indicated that the prototype was able to raise awareness of consumption and can promote water conservation.