Junko: Rethinking Home Cooling

Brief

Reduce electricity usage in the home.

Research

Electricity Usage

A households electricity consumption can generate a large bill over one year. “If a 1200W single split air conditioner is used roughly 12 hours daily (4 hours when the user gets home and 8 hours when the user goes to sleep). At the end of the month, the user will end up paying about $118.57 SGD (w/GST) for using one air conditioner. ” (Electricity Usage Quote) Over a year this would total $1422.84 SGD, at roughly 33 cents per hour. In contrast, the least energy efficient ceiling fans on the market cost less than 3 cents to run per hour.

Observations

If a user is too warm in their home they may turn on their ceiling fan, to cool themselves down.

However, if the user is still too hot with their ceiling fan on they would often turn off their ceiling fan and turn on their air conditioner.

Running an air conditioner is expensive and can lead to high household electricity bills.

Air-conditioning units and ceiling fans are both used to cool the home, so why should they be separate systems?

The most efficient way.

The most efficient way to cool the home is to use a combination of the ceiling fan and air conditioning unit. Ceiling fans don’t make a room cooler, they only make the user feel cooler. By moving air over the skin, a fan can lower the body temperature, but will not affect the temperature of the room. Utilizing the fan and air conditioner together allows the user to increase the temperature setting on their air conditioner, for example from 21° to 24° Celsius, reducing the electricity usage.

Apparent temperature.

Apparent temperature is the temperature perceived by humans, caused by the combined effects of air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed. This effect is noticeable if a person is outside on a windy day, the forecast is 27 degrees but because of the wind, the person may feel colder. The temperature that the person feels due to the wind is the apparent temperature.

To calculate the apparent temperature within a room when the ceiling fan is in use we can use the dimension of the room itself, the fan’s wind speed, the relative humidity in the room and the air temperature.

Try it for yourself here: Apparent Temperature Calculator

Concept

Junko is a home cooling product that connects fans and air conditioners together. The product can determine how to create a desired apparent temperature within a room using both the ceiling fan and or the air conditioner. If the user selects an apparent temperature the product will set the fan and air conditioner to the correct settings without further user input. Essentially decreasing the electricity usage by raising the temperature setting on the air conditioner, using the fan to compensate and still achieve the apparent temperature the user wants.

Functionality

The device can read, remember and replicate the signals that fan and air conditioning unit remotes use to control these products and change their settings without the user needing to do this manually, making these products smart. If a ceiling fan in a home doesn’t use a remote control then an RF receiver can be retrofitted to achieve this functionality.

Materials
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The device is made of painted polycarbonate, rubber for the base and a white matte e-ink display, the benefit of the e-ink display is that if there are no changes on the UI then the screen can hold the image without consuming energy.

Visual Design

The dimensions of the product are 60mm x 60mm. In terms of visual design, the device is a home product so I designed it thinking that it should be in the background of the home and focal space of the user which is why the product is visually neutral and minimal in its design.

Power Supply

I designed the device to be powered through the mains instead of a rechargeable battery. I wanted the user to have as minimal interaction as possible, if the user had to constantly recharge the device then they would be constantly irritated.

Components
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The dimensions of the product are 60mm x 60mm. In terms of visual design, the device is a home product so I designed it thinking that it should be in the background of the home and focal space of the user which is why the product is visually neutral and minimal in its design.

User Interface
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The UI on the device displays the current apparent temperature. It shows the current usage of the ceiling fan and air conditioner which the user can edit.

Application
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The application is used to set up the device, the remotes are paired to the device and the home wifi is connected. The home dimensions, ceiling fan information, and air conditioner information are inputted, the product can determine the fans wind speed within the room. The user can select the desired apparent temperature, edit the usage of their fan and air conditioner and create schedules.

Thanks

Thanks for reading!