Using gamification to motivate occupants to energy efficiency in a social setting of a building automation system

UID/CEC/04516/2019The widespread use of IoTs, as cheap and immersive technology, is enabling a wide range of daily life systems where Humans play a central role. It is commonly accepted that Humans sometimes present non-reliable behaviour. On the other hand, Gamification is becoming a common technique in system development to integrate business logic and induce Humans to accomplish certain goals and enforce systems reliability. Due to human nature, the evolution of game logic becomes an essential aspect of such systems to keep users engaged and participative. In this paper, we illustrate and discuss evolution in the particular scenario of a running Office Automation System in our open space. Here, the Human plays different roles such as an actuator, source of system input, a controller (decision maker), or simply environment (Human-in-the-loop). The mentioned system is the result of partially retrofitting a room of a forty years old building. It runs with a dynamic context scenario (that motivates different setups) and is formed by a heterogeneous set of IoTs. Those types of equipment are integrated to mainly accomplish two, sometimes conflicting, main goals: energy efficiency and Human comfort. As we will describe next, given the complexity of our system, various system's requirements need to be fulfilled at the same time. Those will dynamically change during runtime to contribute to both efficiency and participants' engagement. Not only the game requirements of the system evolve, but also the participants' behaviour change. We have consulted the open space's occupants on their daily routines and their preferences towards Gamification and gamified systems, particularly considering their social settings. They were also consulted on their views towards achieving energy efficiency in the open space. The results of this assessment are presented in this paper. The major suggestions were integrated into the current design of the system. We considered those that could contribute to the system's efficiency and reliability according to the system's goals. Besides, we also considered those that led to the use of several game techniques for motivating and improving the Humans' participation.authorsversionpublishe

A Novel Graphical Lasso based approach towards Segmentation Analysis in Energy Game-Theoretic Frameworks

Energy game-theoretic frameworks have emerged to be a successful strategy to encourage energy efficient behavior in large scale by leveraging human-in-the-loop strategy. A number of such frameworks have been introduced over the years which formulate the energy saving process as a competitive game with appropriate incentives for energy efficient players. However, prior works involve an incentive design mechanism which is dependent on knowledge of utility functions for all the players in the game, which is hard to compute especially when the number of players is high, common in energy game-theoretic frameworks. Our research proposes that the utilities of players in such a framework can be grouped together to a relatively small number of clusters, and the clusters can then be targeted with tailored incentives. The key to above segmentation analysis is to learn the features leading to human decision making towards energy usage in competitive environments. We propose a novel graphical lasso based approach to perform such segmentation, by studying the feature correlations in a real-world energy social game dataset. To further improve the explainability of the model, we perform causality study using grangers causality. Proposed segmentation analysis results in characteristic clusters demonstrating different energy usage behaviors. We also present avenues to implement intelligent incentive design using proposed segmentation method.Comment: Proceedings of the Special Session on Machine Learning in Energy Application, International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA) 2019. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1810.1053

Gamification in building automation - the Human in the loop in a Cyber-Physical System

Nowadays, the number of intelligent environments has been increasing, as have their energy needs. It has become quite common to find buildings with interconnected components and automated systems implemented in order to create an environment with perfect conditions, maximizing the comfort of its users and minimizing energy consumption. However, not all infrastructures are prepared to accommodate such systems, which sometimes leads to the need for human intervention. Unfortunately, due to their lack of interest in achieving the system’s goals, the level of reliability of the individuals can be low, which can cause system malfunctions. Nonetheless, there are many examples of systems where human engagement could be improved with gaming techniques. This type of techniques, known as gamification, turn common tasks into engaging activities. Even though we have found a variety of gamified systems examples, we did not find studies that implemented a building automated systems, with a human-in-the-loop, in a retrofitting environment. Therefore, we created our study to assess if gamified Office Automation Systems can be used to encourage interaction with the system and to improve users’ habits. The final product was LabRats, a gamified system adapted to our environment and tested to determine if gamification techniques can be used to encourage and strengthen the connection to the system, and also to motivate its users to adopt energy saving routines. With the implementation of LabRats, we can observe that there was an increase in participation, that led not only to a reduction in energy consumption but also to a change in the habits of the occupants

FSEA 2014 – Proceedings of the AVI 2014 Workshop on Fostering Smart Energy Applications through Advanced Visual Interfaces

It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to FSEA 2014, the AVI 2014 workshop on Fostering Smart Energy Applications through Advanced Visual Interfaces. This workshop focuses on advanced interaction, interface, and visualization techniques for energy-related applications, tools, and services. It brings together researchers and practitioners from a diverse range of background, including interaction design, human-computer interaction, visualization, computer games, and other fields concerned with the development of advanced visual interfaces for smart energy applications. FSEA 2014 is the result of the efforts of many people involved in its organization, including our programme committee, and others who have assisted us in putting this workshop together

Gamification in Energy Consumption: A Model for Consumers’ Energy Saving

In this study, the possibility of saving energy with gamification designed applications was investigated, literature studies on this subject were examined and a gamification-based approach was followed for energy saving. From this point of view, the aim of the study is to propose a gamification-based model to make energy saving easier, fun, enjoyable and beneficial. This study is exploratory qualitative research using systematic literature review, synthesis and induction methods. Within the scope of the study, the literature was first examined. The literature review focused on learning gamification-based designs that encourage energy consumption reduction. After that, a new model was developed based on the general principles of gamification, the characteristics of consumer behavior and the energy consumption target, which is the main subject of the study. As a result of the study, a gamification-based model is proposed for household consumers to reduce their energy consumption and save energy. This gamification-based model includes making energy savings easier and more beneficial for consumers, as well as making it more fun and enjoyable. After that, the proposed model was analyzed based on the studies in the literature and finally the potential of the proposed framework was discussed

Reviewing the impacts of smart energy applications on energy behaviours in Norwegian households

As climate problems escalate, it is crucial to reduce emissions. Understanding the ability of citizens to engage in decarbonization efforts is vital to address the sustainability challenge posed by climate problems. The potential for emissions reductions through changes in environmentally friendly behaviour is significant but often underestimated. Among many environmentally friendly behaviours, sustainable residential energy behaviours can have a direct impact, as a large share of total energy is consumed in the residential sector, and end-user practices can have a significant effect. As smart technology advances, various digital solutions have emerged for the end-users, significantly influencing their daily behaviour. Notably, smart energy applications have gained increased popularity among these solutions. This study aims to examine the potential and opportunities of smart energy apps to promote energy-related behaviour change and sustainable practices in the Norwegian context and to provide an overview of the relevant literature. Our findings suggest a significant lack of empirical research on the effectiveness of energy-related apps in promoting sustainable residential energy behaviour. Additionally, the limited empirical findings that do exist are mainly based on pilot-level projects, with little evidence from population-level adoption. Therefore, further research is needed to gain qualitative and quantitative insights into users' motivations and perceptions and investigate these apps' effectiveness in changing energy-related behaviours and sustaining behaviour change in the residential sector.publishedVersio