IoT-enhanced and Bidirectionally Interactive Information Visualization for Context-Aware Home Energy Savings

In recent years, due to deteriorating global warming, there has been increasing attention to home energy savings, which is often a serious and not so interesting task. In this regard, we proposed a playful and bidirectionally interactive eco-feedback with three kinds of information visualization integrated with a 3D pet-raising game, which synchronously visualizes the information of the physical environment with the virtual environment by leveraging IoT (Internet of Things) enabled technologies in hopes of enhancing user experience and prolonging users´ engagement in energy savings. In addition to mere mapping from physical to virtual environment for traditional game-based energy savings, this study also makes use of the other direction to form a bidirectional mapping to empower users to allow direct and flexible remote control anywhere and anytime in a more natural and playful way. Furthermore, integrating context-awareness with the bidirectional mapping in an energy-saving system also enhances the immersive experience of the users.