PerFridge: An Augmented Refrigerator That Detects and Presents Wasteful Usage for Eco-Persuasion

The excessive consumption of resource such as water and electricity is a societal issue, in which a persuasive technology is getting attention to address the issue. The amount of resource usage is often utilized as a persuasive eco-feedback, however, the information merely increases the awareness of resource usage, or a user might be frustrated against a feedback in an exceptionally unavoidable excessive consumption. In this paper, we augment a household refrigerator with sensors and a display to realize an eco-feedback that reflects user's wasteful behaviors in resource usage to make the feedback more persuasive and acceptable. We conducted a user study with a family for two weeks. The result implies the effectiveness of "waste-based" presentation compared with a traditional "amount-based" one.