Creating and Deploying a Data Acquisition Kit for monitoring real-life home appliance use

Continuing the work of assessing home appliances, FCências.ID team developed a Data Acquisition Kit (DAK) that enables examination of real-life home appliance use.

These kits take many data points from various sensors, including energy use, water flow and pressure, ambient temperature and humidity, and acceleration.

Before deployment, a selection was made from the available households in SATO's Seixal residential pilot to create a pool of appliances that represent a wide range of machine types, ages, and usage.

These DAKs are currently deployed, gathering data from clothes washers, clothes dryers, dishwashers, and refrigerators within the residential pilot.

The collected data is already in use for many applications, such as assessing the performance of these appliances and inferring additional usage analytics, like the weight of washed clothes based on energy consumption.

The objective of this deployment is threefold, (1) To present the user with the necessary information to select the best appliance for their needs and afterwards use the appliance most efficiently (by choosing the best wash program, for example). (2) To be able to assess and detect deficiencies with the appliances to reduce faults, and (3) To create a diverse and comprehensive data set that allows new developments in home appliance assessment.