‘Home, Smart Home’ – Exploring End Users’ Mental Models of Smart Homes

Abstract

Smart Home technologies are increasingly available for private households. Still, the level of acceptance varies among potential users. Possible reasons include a lack of knowledge and negative user perceptions, e.g. in terms of privacy and security. To support researchers and practitioners in designing Smart Home technologies that align with the users’ needs and expectations the mental models of 42 potential Smart Home users were examined using a semi-structured interview approach. The results revealed that the users’ understanding of Smart Homes was rather superficial. The use cases and benefits reflected the options currently available for sale, such as automated heating and lighting. Nearly all users doubted that their data was secure within a Smart Home. However, the scenarios described often included remote control of the Smart Home and thus a transfer of the data to the internet. Hence, future work could ex-plore options to increase Smart Home security by e.g. limiting internet access to certain user-defined scenarios.