MAY 11

Folks, the term “EcoGeek” officially has new meaning. Oliver Goh, founder of startup company Shaspa, has created a video game which allows the players to control their home energy and water consumption.

Ok, maybe calling it a “video game” is a little misleading. Really, the OpenShaspa Home Energy Kit is just a program (plus a hardware kit) for remotely controlling all of the different power, water and gas consuming devices in your home. Plenty of other companies are rolling out programs and hardware that will do the same thing.

In this program, though, rather than executing these commands by clicking buttons, users get to control a little avatar which walks through a Second-Life-esque 3D environment. When your avatar turns off the porch lights, your actual porch lights turn off. And there’s a level of interaction with other players, too – your energy consumption is displayed for everyone else to see, bringing some competition into the picture.

This strikes me as the kind of thing that is 90% likely to fade into obscurity, but 10% likely to catch on as a fad. It certainly taps into the Second Life crowd, and even offers them something that they have never been offered before – the ability to actually use their avatars to manipulate things in the real world. Granted, turning the water up and down isn’t exactly high throttling action, but it’s more fun to do it in a virtual world than through a plain old display.

Via Earth2Tech
Image via seriousgamesinstitute’s Flickr

Comments (5)

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not just to turn on and of water
written by oliver, May 11, 2009

the examples mentioned are trivial, just imagine taking this one step further. You get one of the kits, configure your sensors and actuators in your home and then the virtual equivalents are automatically created (logical view). You can then decide it you want your region in standalone mode or link it to the shaspa grid. In the grid you can share your configuration with others, learn from other configs and compare with others. They object can be assigned to a property service management company to look after certain things for you (provide services). It might not be clear that the device offers Web, Mobile and 3D access. Each access method can be activated/deactivated if not required.

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Federal Agencies Unite - Effort to Bring
written by Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis, May 12, 2009

I love the environment probably more that most people, and technology gets the word out, but I have an aversion to having something created that gives people one more excuse not to get up out of their seat. People need to be made to move. I personally like those video games that require your whole body to get involved, like virtual tennis.

Anyway regarding energy efficiency, I wrote an article about how the federal government is in the process of providing new energy retrofitting and weatherizing programs for lower income people in rural and urabn areas. It will also create a lot of green jobs. The story, Federal Agencies Unite - Effort to Bring More Jobs, Energy, and Home Weatherization, can be read at:
http://www.greenvitals.net/homebusiness-efficienciesnet/

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written by Fred, July 14, 2009

more uses for video games, which are using energy. eh maybe not

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