ECoS: Energy control system for smart homes

One of the most efficient ways of reducing household energy consumption is through an online feedback system, which helps users in reducing their household energy. There are several research and commercial products available, yet over-consumption issues are still prevalent. An important factor fueling these issues is rendering too many features or information in the online feedback system, which results in a decrease in use of those applications over time. This study aims to develop a user-friendly system with a minimal set of features that would help the residential users achieve maximum savings. The energy control system (ECoS) consists of three major features, i.e., (a) visualization of energy, (b) recommendation of energy saving decision to users, (c) remote appliance control through recommendations, with thirteen sub-features. Based on an analysis of energy savings and user preferences, we identified the top seven sub-features suitable to be in ECoS to help users save energy. In addition, this article also provides recommendations to energy providers on the list of features that they should include in their online application to help their users save a significant amount of energy.