Designnord

Ever wished you could keep track of how eco-friendly you were at home? Well, the Danish Designnord group has created a visual electricity meter for home use. The FlowerPod, a semi-transparent screen with an electronic flower display, grows blooms or wilts according to how thrifty its inhabitants have been in regards to their heating, cooling, water and electricity use.

If too much energy is used, the flower will wilt or die until the user changes their wasteful habits. It would connect wirelessly to a home’s energy meters and use an Internet-based home page that keeps track of average energy use in the user’s city or region. The home page would suggest ways to improve energy usage if your flower was in trouble and would only use electricity at certain intervals when getting data from the homepage.

At the moment, the FlowerPod is only a concept, but Designnord hopes to produce it for the 2009 post-Kyoto climate agreement talks in Copenhagen.

Its makers hope that the plant can remind people to save energy.

Personally, I think the FlowerPod is a great idea. It reminds me of my old Giga-Pet, (Who met an unfortunate end back in 1998) but with an energy-saving twist. As long as you don’t drop it in the bathtub, you’ll have a flower blooming in your home all year round.