Designing the ultimate, non-touch smart home: Parental Redesign
Currently, smart homes are equipped with automated lights, blinds, locks, appliances, irrigation systems, thermostats, hubs, and smart speakers and are controlled by applications linked to mobile devices. Features of smart homes are predominately wifi powered meaning users can have full control even if they are not actually in the home. When it comes to evolving smart homes even further, non-touch interactions are increasingly becoming a reliable possibility. The increase in non-touch technology being released over the recent years has proven its reliability and opened this market up to a larger audience. It has also shown how far non-touch technology has come. Through the use of voice UI, biometrics, and gesture recognition, smart home living could be brought to the next level, easing life by completing tasks for users, and assisting the home experience without having to physically control the capabilities.
Current home automation utilizes various forms of technology such as Wifi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Z-Wave which use mesh network technologies, short-range, low-power radio signals to connect smart home systems. The technology used plays a crucial role in the overall functionality of smart home systems.
With the current technology used, and the integration of voice UI, biometrics, and gesture recognition, a smart home designed with a parental lifestyle in mind would ease and assist new parents into the transition of parenthood, and parents who want to implement smart home technology in their homes for safety and security reasoning. Users will be able to keep track of their family's health, safety, and security overall bettering the living experience.
Heuristic Evaluation
#1: Visibility of system status: Because of all the technology presented in one place, it is important to ensure that users are always informed about what is happening. Feedback such as Voice UI home assistant replies can be an effective way to communicate with users. Another way of doing this is through the centralized system application to notify users via smartphone, or other smart devices where the application is installed.
#2: Match between system and the real world: Ensuring that the jargon used in the voice UI home assistant is common and does not reply with unrecognizable terms that confuse users is important in order to make the smart home experience enjoyable. Through the mobile application, common and familiar techniques of setup would be the smartest way to ensure a user can navigate the capabilities of the smart home smoothly.
#3: User control and freedom: Through the app and verbal communication through voice UI, users will be able to undo actions that they have committed mistakenly or just simply want to undo without having to go through an extended process.
#4: Consistency and standards: In using a mobile application that is unified and cohesive, users will be able to navigate the smart home on their own terms and fully understand each capability.
#5: Error prevention: For permanent actions such as a creation/deletion of activation of devices on the mobile application, creating and canceling events, users will be notified prior to the completion stage asking if they confirm or discard their request.
#6: Recognition rather than recall: Ensuring that the users know how the specific technology they want to use works and how to access that information through voice UI or the mobile application is important in minimizing the user’s memory load. All information including help should be available and retrievable when needed.
#7: Flexibility and efficiency of use: With the addition of voice UI, biometrics, and gesture control, users can operate and manage some devices through multiple means of communication. Whether it be verbal through Voice UI, physical through biometric and gesture, or digital through the application, the design and usage will cater to all types of users.
#8: Aesthetic and minimalist design: It is important that the application is sleek, minimal, and easy to understand because it serves as the centralized system to manage all devices within the home. This ensures all users can interact with the home with the same level of comfortability.
#9: Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from error: Since the smart home system has various technologies and forms of use, error messages will be carried out through the notification system attached to the mobile application or announced through voice UI and provide constructive solutions.
#10: Help and documentation: When it comes to the documentation within the home, users are provided with help either through voice UI responses or through the mobile application’s notification system. This would ensure that the user is satisfied with the quality of ease in completing their tasks.
Usability and Accessibility
When evaluating the usability of this smart home equipped with such advanced technology, it is important to understand that it would be a lot to take in for a new user. Due to that fact, it is essential that the home has a centralized system where users can view, access, and adjust all the home’s capabilities in one place. This can be done through an application. The app could be installed to grant users access to view and manage the smart home but it would not be the only way of controlling it, giving users the flexibility of use. Even though the smart home would be a lot to take in, users will be able to adapt quickly because the technology will be familiar to them as it mirrors popular devices already used commonly such as smartphones that use voice UI and biometrics, voice UI home assistants like Alexa from Amazon Echo. A lot of the technology will be there to assist them, so everything works on a need basis of catering to the user.
In order to ensure that no matter the user, the experience is great, accessibility is a key element that must be considered. In using various forms of method and control, users will no longer be limited to the constraints of devices that only allow them one way to operate. Although voice UI, biometrics, and gesture control are activated within the home, users can choose how they want to use it. Hands-free offers comfortability and flexibility to a new level which excels the current modes of operation. Through the different modes of non-touch operations, disability concerns are considered and the option of choice offers something to users that weren’t always available.
A variety of technology that exists today could revolutionize a smart home if implemented. On a parenting level, home life is heavily surrounded by raising children and ensuring the utmost safety in your home. AN example of a device in which technology could be implemented within the home would be the Owlet Smart Sock. The Smart Sock is a baby monitor to track your baby’s oxygen level and heart rate — the best indication of baby’s health — while they sleep, if this vital technology was implemented into a mattress, it would essentially create a SmartBed, and parents would be able to have the comfort of knowing their kids are safe, even when they sleep.
Another revolutionary technology that would be a perfect fit for the ultimate smart home is the smart mirror technology used in the MIRROR. The mirror is an interactive fitness device that’s like having your own private gym. further evolution of this technology and implementation of gesture control, this mirror could be used for many useful tasks as well as keeping users active in the comfort of their own home. From a parental perspective, the mirror could be used for educational purposes for young children as information can be displayed on the screen.
The New Experience:
Voice UI and Commands:
Users will be able to control devices in their home using voice commands much like Siri on Apple devices, Alexa on Amazon Echo, and Google Home. Users would be able to call out the nickname they assign their home upon activation within the mobile application in order to make a command.
Users will be able to:
- Check smart bed monitors attached to the children’s room using voice commands.
- Smart Bed Technology keeps track of heart rate and oxygen levels and sleeps patterns.
- Lock/unlock home and garage doors for emergency purposes.
- Control light settings throughout the house
- Control Bluetooth and audio speakers.
- Control television and parental controls based on voice recognition.
- Control Smart thermostats through voice detection.
- Power on Smart mirror technology.
- Activate a home assistant that essentially answers questions and is the verbal communicator of the household smart devices.
- The smart home assistant will notify users if there is an issue with any connected technology in the house or if an emergency situation is observed.
Use of Biometrics:
Users will be able to control devices in their homes using biometrics for security and ease of use to enhance the smart home experience. Through the integration of Biometrics into smart homes, users will be able to:
- Lock/Unlock home and garage doors.
- Access certain parental controls
- Safe Access for important documents or personal items.
- Lock/Unlock certain areas of the home that are not designated for children.
The Use of Gesture Control:
The use of gesture control throughout smart homes would ultimately improve the ease of living if implemented correctly. Simple integrations like the activation of water faucets to the opening of the garbage containers would assist users and provide ease of use. This would prove to be especially helpful for parents who run into cluttered surfaces while cooking for the family.
- Water faucet activation
- Garbage container open/close
- Open/Close doors (based on location and set up upon activation)
- Smart mirror activation
NFC Incorporated in the Smarthome
NFC technology relies on a specialized reader in order to operate. this means users would have to be wearing or have implanted chips to make it work. Through research, I found that NFC can be used in the automation of any smart device improving the quality of flexibility and efficiency of use. NFC can simplify the process as it can automatically activate any device within the hoe simply through detection.
Not quite yet, but not so far away…
Through researching smart home technology, it is evident that we are headed in the direction of an increase in development as automation becomes more common than ever. This is occurring through devices such as smartphones, and through home assistants like Amazon Echo, google home, and more. Something that particularly interested me is the idea of integrating gesture control into devices to create ease of use. An example of this would be through kitchen appliances such as garbage container lids and water faucets. When it comes to designing the ultimate parenting smart home, you want to consider all the possibilities and constraints and how the tech of the home will benefit the user in the best way possible. Safety, health, and security are top priorities when it comes to the children for most parents, so in keeping that in mind, it is important to integrate technology like smart locks, smart bed monitors, and parental controls to keep users informed on the status of their children. It is key to put yourself in the user's perspective and think as though you are building the home with your family in mind. Ask yourself key questions about the quality of living you want your clients to endure and that will put you on the right path. Smart home technology will continue to develop and make its way into every home in the future. What once was considered unreliable and achievable has become a near future as research, feedback and further development take place into evolving smart home devices further than they have ever been before.
