Abstract
Every few years a new wave of information technology finds its way into our homes. The last few decades have seen the arrival of audio and video technology, computers and internet connectivity, home cinema, mobile phones, and other digital technologies. Each wave brings with it new complexity – a new set of concepts to understand, new issues to deal with, and new frustrations to endure in exchange for the benefits that the new technology offers. Eventually, usually, the technology is domesticated and becomes part of everyday life. In this chapter we’ll address the possibility that the next big wave of new technology to arrive in our homes will not be information-related, but energy-related. We’re going to explore the likelihood that today’s comparatively simple situation, energy-wise, will be replaced with unexpected complexity that ordinary people may struggle to manage. And we’re going to suggest that the designers of this technology are making poor assumptions about their users, and using wrong understandings of how ordinary people will react to and interact with these new products. The possibility of these products being poorly designed — at least from the point-of view of user-interaction — threatens to undermine their adoption, and to reduce the global impact that they’re intended to have.
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Lewis, S.C. (2011). Energy in the Smart Home. In: Harper, R. (eds) The Connected Home: The Future of Domestic Life. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-476-0_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-476-0_14
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