Home Battery
A home battery named ‘Terry, a management tool named Tracey, and a car charger named Troy were designed for this project. These designs were prototyped and digitally connected with other design projects within a speculative future home. The prototypes explored the energy-human relationship and interacted with users in both passive and active ways.
Design Process
This Figure shows the entire design process of the prototypes. The prototypes drove our process because the project speculated on how the form of the home battery could represent the human-energy relationship. Later, the mobile application, Tracey, and the car charger, Troy, were included to round out the family of products. These decisions were inspired by a 89 person survey I designed for current electric car owners on how they maintain their vehicles.
Prototyping and Ideation Session
Piet de Koning and I working on the project together. Here we were speculating on how battery percentages and settings could be visualized in a physical way.
Final Home Battery Prototype
This was the final prototype of the home battery, 'Terry. I built this prototype, including the soldering of the lights and the communication aspects with the other prototypes. In this photo, the lights are on showing that the battery is charged to the capacity that Tracey set but can be charged further. The front of the battery and the organic shape was also designed to move in subtle and pleasing ways mimicking a fireplace, the traditional center for warmth and energy in the home.
Tracey and 'Terry
Tracey energy usage application loading screen (Left) and CAD rendering of ‘Terry home battery (Right).
