ElecTrack - Mobile Electricity Usage Tracking and Visualizing

• Main Author: NGU, KELVIN TECK YEUN
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2013
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/13539/1/Thesis_13096_Kelvin%20Ngu%20Teck%20Yeun.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/13539/

The main objective of this project is to develop an electricity usage tracking application for all mobile Android platform to effectively track their electricity usage over time and hopefully will also help to raise awareness towards the conservation of energy and preserving the quality of the environment. This application features the ability of monitoring the electricity usage, by using the inputs that the users had entered to calculate the total electricity consumption based on the unit Watts (W). Another important feature of this application is the functionality to visualize the overall electricity consumption in various graphical forms as an approach for the users to review the distribution of their electricity consumption. Researches and studies were done on several articles, research papers and other sources of information related to the subject. A number of previously conducted experimental studies were also used to support the study and development of this project. These sources of references were critically analyzed through an extensive research methodology whereby every key aspects of the information were extracted and used for literature review. The development of this application will be conducted in Java programming language, by utilizing Android Software Development Kit (SDK) to support the development of this application. The methodology used for the development of this application is Rapid Application Development (RAD) – Prototyping method. The justification for the selection of the above methodology is because of the time constraint for this project. Therefore, this method is the most suitable since it involves fast and interactive development processes of the prototype which will suit this project the best. The prototypes are tested continuously for feedbacks until the final prototype is ready to be released. The final release of the prototype is also tested with potential users for usability and acceptance testing. The final prototype is able to provide dynamic feedback for households’ electricity consumption and by providing tailored information regarding electricity consumption pattern, awareness towards energy conservation can be raised.