Using gamification to motivate occupants to energy efficiency in a social setting of a building automation system

Abstract

The widespread use of IoTs, as cheap and immersive technology, is enabling a wide range of daily life systems where Humans play a central role. It is commonly accepted that Humans sometimes present non-reliable behaviour. On the other hand, Gamification is becoming a common technique in system development to integrate business logic and induce Humans to accomplish certain goals and enforce systems reliability. Due to human nature, the evolution of game logic becomes an essential aspect of such systems to keep users engaged and participative. In this paper, we illustrate and discuss evolution in the particular scenario of a running Office Automation System in our open space. Here, the Human plays different roles such as an actuator, source of system input, a controller (decision maker), or simply environment (Human-in-the-loop). The mentioned system is the result of partially retrofitting a room of a forty years old building. It runs with a dynamic context scenario (that motivates different setups) and is formed by a heterogeneous set of IoTs. Those types of equipment are integrated to mainly accomplish two, sometimes conflicting, main goals: energy efficiency and Human comfort. As we will describe next, given the complexity of our system, various system's requirements need to be fulfilled at the same time. Those will dynamically change during runtime to contribute to both efficiency and participants' engagement. Not only the game requirements of the system evolve, but also the participants' behaviour change. We have consulted the open space's occupants on their daily routines and their preferences towards Gamification and gamified systems, particularly considering their social settings. They were also consulted on their views towards achieving energy efficiency in the open space. The results of this assessment are presented in this paper. The major suggestions were integrated into the current design of the system. We considered those that could contribute to the system's efficiency and reliability according to the system's goals. Besides, we also considered those that led to the use of several game techniques for motivating and improving the Humans' participation.