Thirty homes throughout Frome will be opening their doors to showcase ways to cut carbon and costs this weekend (15th and 16th March) and members of the public are being asked to take part in the Greendoors research project.
The Digital Green Doors team in the University of Bristol’s Department of Computer Science is investigating how innovative technology can be used to help people gather information about retrofitting from open home events and the team would like visitors attending Frome Open Homes to test the Greendoors smartphone application.
The free iPhone and Android app provides a number of features to visitors both during and after open homes event, such as:
* Mapping and routing: Users are able to see the location of participating houses and plan their routes.
* House details: Visitors can get an overview of the measures installed at a house before they arrive.
* Note-taking: Notes can be saved to individual houses to review at a later date.
* Save favourites: Individual houses can be saved to a shortlist, for example, users can save the houses they plan to visit, or ones they wish to contact later.
* Contact: If a user has a question about a measure after their visit, they can use the app to send an email message to the householder.
* Filtering: Houses can be filtered by specific measure, size, location, and opening day.
* Scan and save: Using the QR Scanner within the app, users can scan QR codes at houses that are associated with particular measures. After the event, a personalised report about these measures will be sent to the user.
Dr Elaine Massung, research assistant in the Department of Computer Science said, “As this is Frome’s first open homes event, if members of the public have a smartphone we are keen them to download the Greendoors app and take part in our research project.
“Any feedback received will be invaluable in making sure the app is as useful and as user friendly as possible.”
The app is available for iPhones/Pad/Pods through the App Store or Android systems through Google Play. Search “Frome Greendoors”, or use the browser version at https:// greendoors.cs.bris.ac.uk/frome2014/
To participate in the research, please download and register the app, and email Elaine.Massung@ bristol.ac.uk.