Aparna Ghantasala
This project focuses on motivating people to recycle water and minimize their water consumption through a water system investment plan.
Project Highlight
With Azure IoT technologies, I believe this solution can be scaled to impact millions of people and empower cities to have an intelligent water distribution plan for a sustainable future.
Role
UX Designer and team lead for a team of 5. An innovator with the design concept and responsible for user research, design, and implementation.
Design Platform
A mobile app, product resource kit, front and back-end working IoT prototype.
Duration
1 month.
Project Context
Through research, we found that significant amounts of water is being consumed and wasted over the years. And with multiple unknown factors, the water quality may degrade by the time it reaches a residence pushing people towards buying good-quality drinking water and increasing additional costs. Running the water without tracking how much is being used leads to thousands of gallons wasted every year
What is the Problem?
People don’t have access to consistently good drinking water which trickles down to other adverse effects on both water consumption and the environment.
This is becoming a growing problem, even within industrialized nations as water scarcity increases. Users at the city level are unable to monitor sources of water waste and water quality degradation.
Why is it a Problem?
As individuals, users may not be motivated to conserve water and cannot foresee the negative environmental impact when water is not conserved. People may not know ways to conserve water and water positive change is only possible when communities work together.
Goal
The goal is to help users understand their water consumption at home and how that directly affects their monthly bills and the environment. The goal is to provide clean drinking water to communities, help people recycle water, reduce wastewater consumption resulting in reduced water bills.
I strive to make an impact at residential and city levels by motivating people to contribute towards water conservation to promote sustainability practices for a positive impact on the community.
Azure IoT technologies, can support our solution which can be scaled to impact millions of people and empower cities to have an intelligent water distribution plan for a sustainable future.
The Solution
The solution is an Investment Strategy.
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Return on investment (ROI) is a method to motivate people to invest in a sustainable water plan. Residents invest in setting up filters, proper pipework, and Azure devices.
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Azure hub and IoT sensors provide real-time data and monitor the quality of water and quantity used. Evaluating a resident's investments, the city gives benefits based on their water-saving efforts.
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This is a win-win situation for the city and the people because the city has an intelligent system that helps them manage a dynamic city water plan. And residents have an incentive to optimize their water usage and reduce their bills.
Check out our quick 5-minute final presentation video.
How does this product benefit customers?
With a simple process and little effort, users can save water allowing them to easily reduce the cost of water usage in their homes, improving sustainability practices, and increasing customer satisfaction.
What Business opportunity does it create?
At the city level, municipalities can manage the intelligent dynamic city water distribution plan making a greater sustainability impact. This return on investment strategy can increase the customer base and a user contribution with minimum effort.
A scalable product
For our project, we chose to focus on the individual user. In the following model, we are going to show the approximate level of installation and information a user would generate.
This model can be scaled from small neighborhoods to larger subdivisions, cities, and then larger metropolitan areas.
The water system plan
How do we monitor the water quantity and quality of water used?
Our proposed system monitors the water quality and quantity used in a house. By connecting the Azure Hub and IoT sensors, we can measure the usage of water and the pH values which determine if water can be reused for other purposes.
This real-time data can be shared with the users so that they are informed about their consumption, projected monthly bills, leaky pipes, and more!
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Features
AquaSave helps users monitor their in-house IoT devices and filters. They can see their everyday usage and projected water usage.
Key product features
01
Usage Chart
What it is:
A summary of total water usage in gallons. Users can see the projected monthly bill in dollars.
Why is it important:
Informs users about their water consumption and helps users to take action in reducing their water footprint. A simple chart reduces cognitive overload on the user.
What’s the impact:
Projected monthly cost encourages users to reduce their usage. Users are also notified of water wasters (leaky faucet, faulty garden irrigation) and can take immediate action.
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02
Saving Suggestions
What it is: ways in which users can minimize their water usage.
Why is it important:
If the monthly bill is expected to exceed the limit, users can take actionable steps to reduce usage without reinventing the new methods.
What’s the impact:
Minimal effort on the user’s part to effect big change in their household water usage, contributing to a water positive future.
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03
Away Mode
What it is: ways in which users can minimize their water usage.
Why is it important:
If the monthly bill is expected to exceed the limit, users can take actionable steps to reduce usage without reinventing the new methods.
What’s the impact:
Minimal effort on the user’s part to effect big change in their household water usage, contributing to a water positive future.
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03
Water Wars
What it is:
Quarterly challenges and a leaderboard displaying overall household water usage.
Why is it important:
Users can compare water consumption with similar households, percentage of water saved, etc.
What’s the impact:
Friendly competition and recognition motivating users to display their best efforts increase engagement, and the admin can adjust incentives for neighborhood competitions based on the need to save water.
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Easy install kit
The app accompanies a Starter kit to complete the AquaSave system. The AquaSave kit consists of 1 control hub and 3 monitoring sensors that can be easily installed in your home to measure your water quality and monitor your water usage.
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Concept installation + working
A step-by-step process of installing your IoT devices in your house and how to monitor real-time information via the mobile app.
Users can monitor the quantity of water used and also measure the water contamination at various stages.
High-level Overview of Azure IoT Reference Architecture
A high-level Azure IOT architecture for IoT Solution subsystems consists of hardware devices that are pH sensor, TDS sensor, and Rasberry pi connected together.
The back end simulates data through the docker edge runtime. To communicate the data, we used SQL, text stream analysis, and Azure hub.
In return, the real-time data is shared with the user via Azure app web services and displayed to the user's mobile phone dashboard.
For more information on the working of the product visit the AquaSave website.
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Connecting backend to front end
This is is how everything works seamlessly. Alongside is a simple breakdown of how the backend and frontend tie together.
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Conclusion
Our project demonstrated just the surface of what’s possible using these types of technologies. The resounding positivity and interest that this project produced was inspiring for our team. We hope to continue working on it and one day perhaps even produce a more functional prototype.
Click on the AquaSave logo alongside to visit the AquaSave project website.
Aparna Ghantasala
Product Designer
Ryan Curtis
Product Designer
The Team
🏆 Winner
Alexandra Talsky
Product Designer
Praveen Chandrabhanu
Developer
Amarnath Tadigadapa
Developer
Team: Future Aqueous
Thank you Devpost & Microsoft Azure!