What it's about: Water Off is a playful water-saving app. Users can plant trees with the saved water and build their own landscape.
Die Grundidee war Leute zu benachrichtigen, wenn sie zu viel Wasser verbrauchen. Daraus entwickelten wir das Konzept, einen physischen Sensor mit einer App zu vernetzen, auf der man seinen Wasserverbrauch mit dem seiner Freund:innen vergleichen kann.
The gameplay: When opening the app, users see a small landscape with a lake in the center. This landscape represents whether they are a good or bad water saver. The display below shows the amount of water they can freely use each day. From this water, they can plant new trees in the app. However, when they take a real shower, the bar also reduces by the amount of water they use during the shower.
The remaining water at the end of the day automatically flows into the lake. Over time, as the level of the lake increases, new tree species are unlocked. However, if too much water is consumed, the bar fills up in red with the excess amount that exceeded the limit.
As a result, the lake can lose water and be downgraded in level. In such cases, the trees may also start to wither. To stay motivated, users can visit the landscapes of their friends. Additionally, we have included statistics to track progress over the past days, weeks, or months.
For our technical prototype, we utilize an ESP-32 microcontroller connected to a flow sensor that measures the amount of water flowing through the shower. The ESP-32 sends the sensor data via Wi-Fi to a database, which is then displayed on a simple web representation of the app.
Team partner
Aaron Eichler
Michelle Bauch
Supervision
Prof. Michael Schuster
Benjamin Thomsen
My Role
Concept development, 3D-Design & modeling, interface design