Effective Visualization and Control of the Indoor Environmental Quality in Smart Buildings

Smart environments collect huge amounts of low-level data, but tend to fail to provide this data in an accessible, user-friendly, and meaningful way. Given the amount of time we spend inside buildings, the indoor environmental quality has a strong influence on our productivity and health. We developed the system SmartSpaces that aggregates and visualizes environmental data in a smartphone application. The goal is to provide access to this data such that users can understand and improve the factors that influence their well-being. User interface guidelines for visualizing the environmental quality are proposed. We describe a case study of occupants in a smart building that allows them to access the data. The findings show that usability and transparency increase the users’ awareness of the environmental quality. This can lead to a behavioral change and therefore improve the users’ health and productivity, and optimize the energy consumption of buildings.