Augmentation of an Institute's Kitchen: An Ambient Auditory Display of Electric Power Consumption

Abstract

Efficient feedback on energy consumption is regarded as one step towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Sonification is very apt to convey such information continuously in an ambient and effective way. This paper presents a pilot system for sonifying the electric power consumption of an institute’s kitchen. The reverberation of the kitchen is changed depending on the actual consumption and its difference to a weekly baseline. If the actual consumption is low, it is mapped to a plausible kitchen reverberation. If it is high compared to the baseline, the reverberation becomes unnatural. Evaluating the system gave insights on perceptibility and acceptance of auditory augmentation in a semi-home context.