March 18, 2009 Educating children about power usage can be a difficult task. It’s not easy explaining the concept of electricity to a five year old, let alone the fact that we have to pay for it. A cute little pig might help to solve this problem and monitor television and game usage at the same time.
Power Hog is a power-consumption meter design concept in the form of a green and silver piggy-bank. You simply plug the tail into the power outlet and the snout into the electric device, feed in some coins and this little piggy does the rest. When the Power Hog is connected the dollar sign glows green, it fades when there is sufficient credit and alerts you that money is running low by blinking red.
It is made from Xenoy grade resin from Sabic who use recycled PET. The packaging was developed in line with sustainable packaging guidelines, the pig itself is 100% recyclable and the cord is PVC free.
The Power Hog was designed by Mathieu Zastawny, Mansour Ourasanah, Tom Dooley, Peter Byar, Elysa Soffer and Mathieu Turpault and won second place in the Greener Gadgets Design Competition held in February, 2009.
OK, your kid may just unplug the pig and plug their device directly into the wall but in this age surely anything that heightens a child’s awareness of power usage is a positive.
Jude Garvey
Via Core 77.
