EcoShower

• 

  Shower tracker

• 

  Settings

• 

  Previous showers page

• 

  Landing screen

Inspiration

One of the simplest ways to live more sustainably is to take shorter showers, as long showers are harmful to the environment due to wasting water, consuming lots of energy, and worsening climate change by increasing greenhouse gas emissions (through heating the water). Long showers are also generally bad for one's health as well, as it can lead to dry skin and hair. However, it can be difficult for many to routinely stick to shorter showers, which is where EcoShower comes in! EcoShower addresses the "E" in the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) criteria, a criteria used to measure sustainability of a business. This project was inspired by my absurdly long showers.

What it does

EcoShower is a shower tracking web app aimed at anyone who showers and wants to reduce their showering duration to live sustainably. The app includes a timer that is started when you take a shower and stopped when you finished the shower. After the shower, you can see information about the duration, amount of water used, carbon dioxide emissions (assuming the water is heated), and average water bill cost of the shower based on how long it took to shower. There is also a section where you can input in shower duration goals, as well as messages/reminders that the app would say out loud during the shower (e.g. if you want to transition from using shampoo to conditioner at a certain time point) to keep you accountable and under your desired time limit. Additionally, you can view a list of all of your previous showers and compare them to one another as motivation to improve your shower time.

How I built It

EcoShower was built with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS using React.js as a frontend framework and Firebase for authentication and the database. For the calculations of gallons of water, CO2 emissions, and cost, I used the fact that average shower uses 2.1 gallons of water each minute, a gallon of heated water uses 0.18 lbs of CO2, and "the average water bill in the United States is $72.93 a month for a family of four using 100 gallons of water per day per person".

Challenges

My main challenge was the little amount of time I had to do it. Because I also had an exam during this time and I worked on this with no teammates, the hardest part was finding enough time to finish it.

What's Next

There are many ways to further build EcoShower into something that people can actually use on the daily. Because people are slightly more likely to bring a phone to the bathroom with them than a computer, adapting this into a mobile app can make it more convenient for people compared to having to access it through a browser on their phone screen. A summary section that totals up the calculated values and displays visualizations of one's shower trends would make the app more interesting. Additionally, making the app more customizable by allowing manual inputs of shower times, one's own water bill rate, custom number of reminders, and editing of previous shower times would make the app more flexible.

Built With

• css
• firebase
• html
• javascript
• react.js