Home Energy Audit Application for Android Devices
Channel: JMU ISAT
Date: 2017-07-03

Full Title: Home Energy Audit Application for Android Devices by Troy Gamboa, Jacob Hagen, Julian Hermes, and Bryan Potter
Advised by: Dr. Anthony Teate
Abstract: Energy consumption in the United States is not the most conscientious habit for much of our nation, but this something that affects our daily lives and should not be taken lightly. If everyone in the city of Harrisonburg was able to acquire convenient and simple alternatives to energy monitoring on their own, we as a whole could see drastic drops in prices of energy bills. This is precisely what our project sought to accomplish, by combining a knowledge of energy and computer programming in android studio, we were able to create a mobile application for home energy audits. This project was designed to provide ordinary families with no energy experience whatsoever with an easy to use application on their mobile device in order to effectively cut back on energy prices around the home. By simplifying the calculations of energy use, managing an energy budget in a standard American home is far more effective and convenient than hiring an outside source.

Prior to the creation of our mobile application, preliminary research was conducted to ensure we had the best possible accuracy when determining the energy consumption of our city to average costs as a whole. Once a better understanding of those factors was obtained, we moved onto the actual development stages. Using a MySQL database (hosted on an Amazon server) consisting of appliances with their respective power draws, an apache web server hosting this information was linked to our final application. The application would display a section where users can select from a list of appliances based upon brand, power consumption, and price. Then, the user would be able to determine an alternative and efficient appliance that would be suitable to their needs. It is our hope to provide our community a no-cost method to save money and energy with this application.