MySmartE - A Cloud-Based Smart Home Energy Application for Energy-Aware Multi-unit Residential Buildings

In this paper, we present MySmartE, a cloud-based smart home energy application (app) that aims to promote heating and cooling energy efficiency in multi-unit residential communities. The platform is designed to help residents easily apply personalized energy-saving tips to their setpoint schedule and form sustainable energy-saving habits. To induce users' behavioral change, our energy app provides three major attributes: 1) smart thermostat control capability implemented in visual and voice user interfaces (i.e., wall-mounted tablet and Amazon Alexa); 2) personalized feedback that provides a custom metric and action recommendations based on households' thermostat profiles; 3) a collaborative social energy game to facilitate community-inspired user engagement. MySmartE was implemented in an affordable housing community that includes two multi-unit residential buildings with 44 households in IN to evaluate the effect of the app on occupant behaviors during the cooling season by addressing the following research questions: 1) how do occupant behaviors change after using the MySmartE app? Does it improve households' thermostat settings and setpoint selections?; 2) how do users interact with our energy app?; 3) how can we improve user experience with the developed system? Despite the heterogeneous characteristics of households, the results from the field study show the positive effect of the intervention for all participating units during the cooling season.