Belkin
Conserve Gateway

Enabling smart energy choices at home

How do you enable smart choices about energy use? While a partner at Daylight, I helped Belkin design an offering that does just that.

Most competitive offerings focus on historical usage rather than recommending actions to take in the future. They also come across as very technical. But research shows that average consumers aren’t that interested in knowing how many kilowatt-hours they’ve used. They care much more about the cost of their usage, how much they’re saving, and what they should do going forward.

In keeping with those insights, we designed the Conserve Gateway router to monitor and control specific devices and appliances hooked into the home network and provide detailed, specific suggestions for using those devices more efficiently. It also helps people see where they are headed and how to adjust future behaviors to meet their goals.

The project garnered a design award from Industrial Designers Society of America and Businessweek.