Title: Who's In Control?: Interactions In Multi-User Smart Homes
Advisors: Franzi Roesner and Yoshi Kohno
Abstract: Adoption of commercial smart home devices is rapidly increasing, allowing for in-situ research in people's homes. As these technologies are deployed in shared spaces, we seek to understand the interactions among multiple people and devices in a smart home. We conducted a mixed-methods study with 18 participants living in multi-user smart homes, combining semi-structured interviews and experience sampling. Our findings surface tensions and cooperation among users in several phases of smart device use in the home: device selection and installation, ordinary device use, when the smart home does not work as expected, and over longer term use. We observe an outsized role of the person who installs devices in terms of selecting, accessing, controlling, and fixing them; minimally voiced privacy concerns among co-occupants; and negotiations between parents and children. We make design recommendations for supporting long-term smart home use and non-expert household members.