Home appliances are evolving, from being singular machines with simple functions like cooling, heating, to smart connected devices that work together and enrich our lives, but we are also facing new different challenges.
Umea Institute of Design 2021
Homes are becoming more digital with smartness and connectivities.
Data makes home appliances even better.
From fridges syncing up with smart devices to making personal suggestions, to thermometer adjust electricity usage based on users habits.
Our home is getting better and more personal with devices powered by data, the data we all generated together, but how are we treating them nowadays?
Data however has always been treated badly.
Fragile
Personal private data(user daily activities, habits, health etc)is collected by appliances all the time without users even knowing.
Messy
Different home appliances with different brands send and receive data from each other and all over the internet.
Value
Just like other resources, data is valuable, and is being collected and traded very often without us even realized.
Trust
Manufacturers are the ones storing and treating our data, should we trust the brand blandly and give them direct access to us?
Setup a data standard for all appliances in every home.
Data generated by the users themselves or provided by others deserved to be treated equally, and should be owned, stored, shared, or used in an agreed way.
By introducing a new standard as well as a new device for following and managing all appliances, our data can be used more efficiently with more transparency.
Portal, the data platform that we deserved.
Portal, the data platform that we deserved.
Portal is the gateway for all home appliances data to coming through, from intelligent fridges to fitness watches.
It receives and sends data following rules decided by the users themselves, and uses its own networks on the blockchain for better data managing.
Different home appliances all connects with the gateway, portal.
Change the way we manage data.
Traditionally, home appliances have their own networks and therefore, data is being stored and managed in different places, people in an unclear way.
With an open and secured blockchain network built by portals, data can be saved and accessed on chain in an agreed standard.
Efficient and transparent data.
Manufacturers can improve their products using certain data from the network by filtering user behaviors. Users who want to provide this information may also get certain incentives from the company, and the ones who chose not to, their data will remain untouched.
A network built by us.
Every piece of information generated by you, instead of giving them to manufacturers or cloud servers, Portal gathers it and saves it securely on its blockchain network built by all portals in every home.
Portal receives data from different home appliances.
Visible data.
Data become visibleData is something we can't see, to visualize it, portal uses a unique interaction to illustrate data being produced. Like shooting stars across the sky, each piece of data will appear on its screen in a subtle way.
With a swipe of hand in the air, the portal also gives more details, like how much data produced exactly, what's the electricity consumption, data credit, etc.
Long range connection.
It uses a long-range wifi antenna to connect different portals in different homes, and therefore, forming a blockchain network by itself. Because it is an independent network with no connection between the common internet, AWS, etc, the network can be managed easily. For example, from upgrading systems or users making certain suggestions.
