We’ve been busy meeting our potential households recently and finalising the technology they’ll be using. We’re looking forward to an action-packed 2016 with lots of collaborative workshops and working closely with our participants.

This week we are working with Orbit Group staff in Coventry to develop the next levels of our 3D virtual world energy game. We will be involving a range of different audiences over the next 6 months to prepare our game for use by our trial households.

From 3-5 March, the Smarter Households team collaborated with several other research projects under the umbrella of the Coventry University Centre for Low Impact Buildings (CUCLIB) to exhibit at EcoBuild 2015 at the ExCel Centre, London.

Now in its 11^th year, Ecobuild is the UK’s largest sustainable design and construction show, attracting around 45000 architects, contractors, specifiers and engineers every year. Ecobuild also offers several seminar streams each day on a range of topics from the smart city and data security, to building design to promote wellbeing.

The team had over 400 visitors to their stand across the three days. Visitors were presented with current research and recent developments from the Smarter Households project, including early stages of the 3D virtual real-time energy game. A short video demonstrated various game features such as the rain system, 24-hour day/night cycle, virtual building and the landscape. Attendees were shown how, as a player enters a particular area of the virtual building, real-time information is displayed from physical sensors installed in their home.