Smart Thermostat

For the course Human Factors of my Creative Technology bachelor I designed, developed and tested a digital working prototype of a smart thermostat. Back in 2012 smart thermostats where not commonly available. Thermostats where either overly complicated or overly simple and lacking functionality.  Therefore the design challenge was to come up with a programmable thermostat interface improvement. The design is aimed at simplicity, usability and being intuitive. The working prototype is created using Processing programming and Adobe Photoshop for the look and feel. The design is tested with nine users that used different types of thermostats at the time. In general they where very pleased with the thermostat design and functionality. They especially appreciated the clarity of the house overview and easy programmability.

This design leans on per room temperature management and monitoring. This is controlled via a roomplan on a touchscreen by swiping temperature up or down. The user is able to switch between energy usage mode and temperature mode. The interface also features an energy alarm when a certain threshold of energy usage is passed. (For instance having the heaters on whilst a window is still open) The interface also has basic programming functionality. Basic to keep the interface simple and usable, which I believe is more powerful than offering countless possibilities. The programming functionality consists of a day/night setting and date to date temperature selection.