Fast Company reporter Ariel Schwartz spoke with EnergyHub and Smart Design Worldwide about the new Home Base and how the EnergyHub system can help people save. Here’s an excerpt:

 

Simple Home-Energy Device

“After a year of experience in utility trials and with testers, we had a sense of what we liked and what we didn’t like. It was time to put a professional level of polish on it,” says EnergyHub CEO and co-founder Seth Frader-Thompson. So EnergyHub turned to Smart Design, a company that has worked with everyone from OXO and Nike to HP and Microsoft.

“It was important to do something a little less utilitarian and more distinctive. We had seen people placing the dashboard in the kitchen or by the front door of the house,” explains Tucker Fort, Director of Industrial Design at Smart Design. “We wanted to come up with a shape and set of materials and finishes that fit well in those two settings.” Smart Design also noticed that people wanted to pick up the dashboard, so the company changed the shape–it’s now more bowl-like–to be appropriate for that kind of use.

Read more at Fast Company.