The electricity by its nature is not visible, is intangible, odourless, and all our human sins cannot have perception of it (of course excluding unpleasant and dangerous accidents). We cannot directly see with our eyes the electricity that every day we use and which allows to perform the essential tasks and activity we usually do, giving them for granted.
During the development of the HOMIE App we wanted to work exactly around this concept: with its features, HOMIE App makes “visible” what naturally is not. Thanks to its capabilities the electricity that it is constantly measured and monitored by HOMIE App and HOMIE HUB, becomes for the fist time “visible” and more understandable.
Let it communicate with you to tell how much you are spending and saving for electricity in real-time, to understand how you are using it, in order to become more efficient and optimise your consumptions.
With the HOMIE APP, you can monitor solar production, your energy consuming devices, understand environmental impact, and increase your energy awareness. It provides comprehensive, easy-to-use information and analytics about your current and past energy consumption/production, as well as future forecasts, all accessible from your smartphone.
MAKES EVERY HOME SMARTER
One of our main goal is to make understandable and clear for everyone the value of the energy we consume, but unit of measurement such kW or kWh often are not well understood. For this reason when you open the HOMIE APP the first thing it will tell you is about your spend: automatically and in real-time the energy consumption is converted in €, or any other appropriate currency value. In this way, with a simple glance, anyone can get a clear idea of what is the value of the energy that has been used.
Opening the app instantly shows the current home energy consumption and (if available) production, both updated in real-time. This dynamic feedback makes monitoring concrete. We believe that combining an easy-to-understand graphical representation with real-time energy monitoring can increase awareness.
A key aspect of energy awareness is understanding the CO2 emissions from electricity consumption. HOMIE APP provides this information n in real-time, clear graphs and effective analytics to easily show carbon emissions or savings from using 100% green energy.
ERGONOMICS
AND USABILITY
The HOMIE APP is designed with ergonomics and user-friendliness in mind, considering finger size for display interaction. The interface is optimized for smartphone screens, ensuring all elements are sized for a natural and effective user experience, preventing incorrect or unintended interactions.
The buttons have been developed with the right dimensions to be used in both ways. The small componente have been avoided, where possible, because they require high precision to be activated and make the interaction more complex, while our target is to simplify it. Another aspect that has been considered to define the ergonomics and the UI of the HOMIE APP, is that the average dimension of the smartphone displays is growing, making harder to reach every portion of the screen with a single hand for interaction and holding; from this aspect is also born the cards structure of the dashboard.
FONTS AND READABILITY
From the outset of app design, we meticulously selected a neutral, simple sans-serif font for optimal readability, particularly at smaller sizes, to reduce eye strain. The app employs a dark blue background with white text, akin to coding software, further enhancing visual comfort. Information is presented in a clear hierarchy: essential data is emphasized with larger fonts, while less critical details are presented in smaller fonts and distinct styles, ensuring ease of reading.
SURF WITHOUT LOOSING THE PLOT
The HOMIE App is structured into two levels: the first comprises four main sections featuring essential information easily readable at a glance. The second level includes internal sections with specific content, dynamic graphs, and detailed information. Navigation within the app is facilitated by a 'floating' menu bar positioned at the bottom. This persistent element remains unobtrusive, allowing uninterrupted content reading and maximizing screen space utilization. The menu includes four icons corresponding to the main sections of the app. Each icon provides instant recognition of the section's content, enabling users to quickly locate desired information or navigate to specific topics.
COLOR PALETTE AND COLOR BLINDNESS
The HOMIE App's UI uses vibrant, contrasting colors against ALLO's blue background, enhancing our corporate identity. Each of the six distinct colors is associated with a specific app section for easy recognition. This color palette improves user interaction and accessibility, even for those with color identification difficulties.
We carefully selected the app's main colors to ensure they are distinguishable for those with color vision anomalies. The six chosen shades remain distinct and identifiable for everyone, including those with visual impairments. Additionally, the use of gradients enhances their recognizability.
FROM SKETCHES TO PIXELS
After defining the key user experience points and high-level aspects of the graphic interface, such as fonts and colors, the development focused on designing the user interface. Throughout this process, the goal was to streamline each screen by filtering out non-essential elements and avoiding purely aesthetic choices in favor of functional ones. This approach aimed to create an interface that prioritizes monitoring while maintaining a strong, minimalist identity.
The preparatory studies for the HOMIE App UI development can be summarized in three key steps: initial sketches integrating UX constraints and solutions, wireframe design to outline element positioning and balance, and then detailed pixel-by-pixel analysis of every UI component.
FANCY CHARTING BY HOMIE
The HOMIE App aims to increase energy awareness for all users, not just specialists. While graphs are essential in an energy monitoring app, they often appear technical and may not align with the goal of creating an accessible app. To address this, we developed a custom library that simplifies graphs, making them lighter, removing unnecessary technical details, and incorporating simple, colorful, and informal elements. These transformed graphs also serve as decorative elements within the unique user interface of HOMIE App, ensuring they are comprehensible to everyone.
Using a distinctive color palette, each section of the app is easily identifiable, whether viewing daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly graphs. Users can grasp trends quickly without needing to refer to scales or other details. Furthermore, to enhance data interpretation, each graph card partially overlaps two graphs: the current period and the corresponding previous period. This immediate comparison enriches the understanding of trends, providing valuable insights at a glance.
THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS
Inside every section is present a set of analytics and graphs that address the need to know up to the small details the spend, the energy consumption, the enrgy production and the environmental footprint, for the past, present and future of every single appliance or entire home monitored by HOMIE. Compared to the graphs in the dashboard, these have a target to transfer a lot of information, more complex and detailed, even if also in this case their stylistic development has been guided by the will to implement nice components, simple and usable by all the types of user.
INTELLIGENT DEVICE RECOGNITION
HOMIE's AI identifies electrical devices by their energy profiles, tracking their cycles, activation times, and consumption costs without the need for smart plugs or modifications to the home's electrical circuit. Installation is quick, non-invasive, and transforms any home into a smart home. We've developed a scalable cloud solution that evolves continuously. Our machine learning algorithms expand device monitoring capabilities and enhance identification performance. This platform is designed to adapt to future trends such as the rise of electric vehicles and broader electrification initiatives impacting energy consumption.
The technological brain of HOMIE, through its algorithms running in the cloud, handles the samples processed and sent by HOMIE HUB. They are active H24 and constantly processing the data, calculating your energy expenses, your consumptions, environmental impact in respect of both the whole house or a specific appliance. Everything in real-time giving all of this to you (and much more) directly on the phone you carry in your pocket.
In the HOMIE App every Icon, from single appliances to the main section, is a tailored design created to meet the specific need and functionality, a distinctive icon system pixel proof.
ALWAYS ON
THE BALL,
IN REAL-TIME
HOMIE consists of a mobile app for the user interface, a Hub for consumption measurements, and a Cloud for data processing. These elements work together to monitor your home in real-time, creating a smarter home without altering the electrical circuit.
The Energy card, in the dashboard of the app, shows real-time power consumption in kW, turning yellow for high usage and red near disconnection risk. This colour variation will be shown at the same time by the HOMIE HUB, its lighting will be working with exactly the same logic. It is a true team work, that allows to all the family members without a smartphone at hand to understand the current consumption status and take action to avoid extremely high consumption or power interruption.n general the electrification trend we are all part of.
The main target of HOMIE is to increase the people’s energy awareness and make every home a smart-home. This include of course the possibility to send and receive at the right time relevant information. So if you want, it will be like if it is your home to send a notification to alert you in real-time when a high consumption is reached or if you are risking to be cut off, or many other situations. Giving you, even when you are away from home, useful information and stronger awareness of what is happening at home