If this program gets any attention in media and people share it on social media, other industry giants like Nest, Honeywell and Emerson will have to join the program or create their own version. So please share it and talk about it to your friends.
Have you ever donated blood?
If you haven’t you really should. The benefits of donating blood are enormous for a healthy society. We think donating your data is as important as donating blood. By donating your data, you will help our society solve the biggest challenge of the twenty-first century, slowing climate change.
Ecobee takes a giant leap forward
Ecobee takes a giant leap forward fighting global warming by enabling its customers to share their data with researchers.
The subject of climate change and global greenhouse emotion have been our main concern on this site. If you read our previous post, the biggest cause of global warming is electric production and the largest portion of it is Heating and Cooling Costs, half of this cost is wasted according to IPCC.
A giant handicap we have faced when we researched the subject was the lack of extensive studies done on the subject. Consumer behavior patterns of using energy at home and at work is a very expensive study. There are only 2 major studies about the effects of programmable thermostats, one was from the year 2000 and the other was done in 2012 called Field Evaluation of Programmable Thermostats. The cost of running these studies was very high due to the fact that thermostat technology was not advanced at the time, without Wi-Fi, you have to setup a monitoring system for each house to collect this data. For example, latest research had to monitor an affordable housing complex, they had to install cameras, sensors and other hardware and software to analyze the data for 76 homes. The research team salaries are another cost added on top that. Lack of funding is another problem because nobody wants to be on the bad side of energy companies and coal states. This is why there is no reliable peer-reviewed data about the energy usage in US homes.
Why is this data so important?
Scientists will be able to use datasets created by ecobee technology at no cost, this is an amazing opportunity to figure out why we are wasting so much more on energy compare to rest of the world, and figure out a way to stop it before it’s too late. Average American spend 3 times more energy compare to British, 10 times more compare to a Japanese. If we figure out the real culprit we can take more efficient actions to lower our carbon footprint.
How is the information shared?
Ecobee will share residential energy usage data with the following partners: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Carleton University, Ryerson University, UC Davis of University of California, Toronto Atmospheric Found, American Council of Energy Efficient Economy, Resources for the Future and University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Sciences and Engineering. They have all signed the Privacy Policy listed on Ecobee’s website.
If you don’t know these partners, let’s just say that most of the research about this subject is thanks to Berkeley Lab and UC Davis. They are the good guys.
If you own an ecobee you will have the option to share your home characteristics and your energy usage patterns with researchers. The information you are going to share is going to be anonymous. Ecobee will not be sharing personally-identifiable information.
According to the company website, you will be sharing,
”
- The city and state or province
- House size, number of floors, estimated home age and number of occupants
- Heat/Cool temperature settings and overrides
- Occupancy schedules and overrides
- Indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity
- HVAC run times
”
How do you join the program?
It’s very simple, just log into your ecobee portal and click “Donate Your Data” button. You can also the data shared from the same portal by clicking your Home IQ report.
All you have to do is just one click.
Possible impact on industry
If this program gets any attention in media and people share it on social media, other industry giants like Nest, Honeywell and Emerson will have to join the program or create their own version. So please share it and talk about it to your friends.
Do the right thing.