Is smart home a necessity or a fantasy for the mainstream user? a study on users’ expectations of smart household appliances

Abstract

Despite the various benefits that smart home technologies offer, they are not widely adopted by mainstream users. Understanding the expectations of future users is fundamental to facilitate the widespread adoption of these technologies. With a focus on smart household appliances, this paper presents 1) mainstream users’ preference for smart product features, 2) perceived benefits of these features and potential use cases in which these benefits are prominent, 3) users’ expectations of smart household appliances as well as differences in the expectations of different user types, and 4) design recommendations derived from synthesizing the results with previous work. Twenty indepth interviews were conducted to elicit users’ expectations. Participants comprised single living individuals, people living with friends or relatives, housewives and dual income families who represent early adopter and early majority technology adoption categories. The results indicated that flexible autonomy and remote control have great potential for facilitating the widespread use of smart household appliances when they are combined with the ability to increase users’ competence in household activities through providing guidance.