EcoBalance Energy Management

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EcoBalance Smart Home Energy System

Empowering energy independence

GE Appliances partnered with Savant Systems, Inc. to create a connected solution to help homeowners take control of their home’s energy efficiency and energy management via one easy-to-use app.

Outcome (Shipped)

A new sHEMS product introduced to homeowners and builders to manage whole-home energy usage, energy generation, and storage. MVP projected for 25,000+ users, showcased at KBIS & IBS 2024.

Role: Product Designer

Duration: 9 months

Team: VP of Technology, Program and Product manager, Could and Software engineers, Product Designers

Responsibility

Led the UI design.
Supported product features integration.
Collaborated with the VP, program managers, and product managers.
Worked with cloud and software engineers to negotiate design and feature implementation, making trade-offs based on cloud and software constraints.

Product overview

Home energy usage at your fingertips.

See the live feed of your energy generation, usage and distribution at one glimpse.

Home energy usage at your fingertips.

See the live feed of your energy generation, usage and distribution at one glimpse.

Stay connected with whole-home Net Zero Package

Product overview

Home energy usage at your fingertips.

See the live feed of your energy generation, usage and distribution at one glimpse.

Home energy usage at your fingertips.

See the live feed of your energy generation, usage and distribution at one glimpse.

Stay connected with whole-home Net Zero Package

Achieve energy independence with solar panels.

Generate free energy by solar panels, monitor generation at every hour of the day and export excess energy to the grid.

See how power is used efficiently.

Keep track of your solar power consumers at each hour of the day.

And how it is being distributed.

Monitor the trends individually and see which consumer uses how much energy.

Achieve energy independence with solar panels.

Generate free energy by solar panels, monitor generation at every hour of the day and export excess energy to the grid.

See how power is used efficiently.

Keep track of your solar power consumers at each hour of the day.

And how it is being distributed.

Monitor the trends individually and see which consumer uses how much energy.

How it came to be.

Design brief

Reimagine smart home energy management system (sHEMS) through the lens of GE Appliances brand language and values.

Opportunity

With the rise of smart Home Energy Management Systems, GE Appliances has the chance to expand beyond the home into energy ecosystems. This project identifies how we can align sHEMS design with GE’s brand, product strengths, and the future of connected living.

Design Strategy

we defined the critical elements shaping the design strategy: setting user-centered goals, analyzing competitor gaps, and understanding technical constraints. This structured the opportunity into actionable design directions.

Define the goal

Feature-Centered Design

Understand the technical process

Humanize/Simplify the feature

What are the users’ pain points?

How will the user monitor and manage energy?

Analyze competitors

What are the industry standards?

What are the problems? pros and cons

What does their architecture look like?

Do they answer to all users’ needs?

Define the components

Understand Technical restraints (Dev-Cloud)

Potential feature list

Information architecture

MVP to Vision

Define the goal

Feature-Centered Design

Understand the technical process

Humanize/Simplify the feature

What are the users’ pain points?

How will the user monitor and manage energy?

Analyze competitors

What are the industry standards?

What are the problems? pros and cons

What does their architecture look like?

Do they answer to all users’ needs?

Define the components

Understand Technical restraints (Dev-Cloud)

Potential feature list

Information architecture

MVP to Vision

Define the goal

Feature-Centered Design

Understand the technical process

Humanize/Simplify the feature

What are the users’ pain points?

How will the user monitor and manage energy?

Analyze competitors

What are the industry standards?

What are the problems? pros and cons

What does their architecture look like?

Do they answer to all users’ needs?

Define the components

Understand Technical restraints (Dev-Cloud)

Potential feature list

Information architecture

MVP to Vision

Ideation

Quick ideation based on the requirement and opportunity to build upon

Early exploration

After rough wireframes, an initial iteration was introduced to the Program and product managers for review.

SmartHQ

Energy Savings

SmartHQ

Energy Savings

SmartHQ

Energy Widget

SmartHQ

Energy Widget

SmartHQ

Energy Management

SmartHQ

Energy Management

SmartHQ

EV Charger

SmartHQ

EV Charger

First iteration for Leadership’s reference.

The first wireframe shown to the company’s leadership, regarding the UI and basic features requested. The future iteration were designed based on this

Leadership approved

Green light to continue

Market analysis

After the approval of the initial wireframe, it’s time to create a feature sheet through Information architecture and market analysis.

Solar Generation: Shows current solar energy output and allows for viewing detailed graphs.

Grid Usage: Monitors imported and exported energy, including how it was used or sent back to the grid.

Battery Status: Displays battery charge and usage settings, with alerts during power outages showing remaining backup energy.

Home Energy Use: Tracks daily energy consumption, with details on where the energy came from (solar, grid, battery).

The dashboard also provides daily summaries of energy use and self-sufficiency.

Tesla energy

Zerofy

Sense

Savant

Partner Company

UI exploration

After understanding all the requested features, a new set of UI exploration is presented based on previous iterations and SmartHQ 2.0 design system.

SmartHQ primary color is in shade of pink, however, proper color coding is necessary for better communicating different energy sections.

After understanding all the requested features, a new set of UI exploration is presented based on previous iterations and SmartHQ 2.0 design system.

SmartHQ primary color is in shade of pink, however, proper color coding is necessary for better communicating different energy sections.

Iteration #2

Share with the Leadership

Share with the Leadership

Share with the Leadership

Iteration #3

Chalanges

Legal

Meet with the Legal team to add/make changes to Information provided.

Development

Make trade-offs and negotiate with the Cloud and Dev teams to include certain features.

Nomenclature

Worked with UX director and PM to appropriately phrase information.

Standardized across corporation

The graph design of EcoBalance became the standard design of the GE Appliances design system, for other products and features.

Style guide

The style of Eco-balance follows the design language of SmartHQ, with a few new colors and icons added to the library. Color pollution is reduced by minimizing addition of new colors to the design system.