The Connected Home The Future Of Domestic Life

The title of this new book: “The Connected Home” reflects the move away from the idea that smart homes would alter the lives of those living in them by providing technologies to take over tasks that were previously the responsibility of the householder, such as managing entertainment, education – and even eating! Up until around 10 years ago this view was commonplace but time has shown that the technologies to support a smart home have not developed in such a way as to support this premise. Instead, what people do in their homes has moved the concept of a smart home into that of the ‘connected home’. The rise of on-line games technologies, video connections via Skype, social networking, internet browsing etc are now an integral part of the home environment and have had a significant effect on the home. The contributors to this exciting new book consider and discuss the effects and ramifications of the connected home from a variety of viewpoints: an examination of the take-up of personal computers and the Internet in domestic situations; an analysis of the changing intersection of technology and human habits in the connected home; the impact of gaming, texting, e-book readers, tablets and other devices and their effect on the social conditions of a household; the relationship between digital messaging applications and real geography; and an overview of how sensing technologies for the smart home might evolve (lightweight medical technologies for example). The book culminates by addressing unfinished ambitions from the smart home agenda, the factors that have prevented their realisation, and addresses the need for extending research into the area.

This book introduces the concept of the wise home. Whilst smart homes focus on automation technologies, forcing users to deal with complex and incomprehensible control and programming procedures, the wise home is different. By going beyond intelligence (or smartness) the wise home puts technology in the background and supports explicit (enhanced user-experience) as well as implicit (artificial intelligence) interaction adequate to the end-user’s needs. The theoretical basis of the wise home is explored and examples for its application for future living are presented based on empirical studies and field work carried out by the author. Principles of HCI and the meaning of the home from differing scientific perspective are discussed and a research model (based on the concept of user experience (UX)) and iterations is introduced. This has resulted in field deployment guides being produced through a systematic development process. The Future Home is Wise, not Smart will be essential reading to home system developers, designers and researchers, responsible for smart home deployment or Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) who will get insights on how to follow a novel approach in developing and adapting smart home systems to their users’ needs. Students with an interest in software design for pervasive systems will benefit by receiving information on how to develop and customise systems for the specific needs of living environments.

This book uses a multidisciplinary approach to examine the relationship between the quality of domestic life and the home environment, in its material and relational dimension, with individual and social happiness, in the context of current changes. The theme of happiness and well-being is framed within two significant changes, themselves affected by the recent COVID-19 pandemic: the relationship between the individual’s quality of life and engagement within the community, and the role of new technologies in everyday life. The authors highlight the relational nature of happiness and the centrality of the home environment in its promotion. Three dimensions of psychosocial well-being in the home are analysed: the personal one, consisting of a sense of stability, intimacy and sharing; the social one, which considers the domestic environment as a place for civic education and, in times of pandemic, the site of professional activity and the physical one, consisting of spaces, services and architectural styles. This book is ideal for readers who wish to cross disciplinary boundaries and explore the topic of domestic happiness in its different facets. The target audience is both professional researchers and advanced graduate and undergraduate students. Chapter 12 of this book is now OA on www.taylorfrancis.com under Creative Commons licens CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Using clear and accessible language this book examines the growing field of ‘smart technology’ for the home. The author first introduces the field before exploring the various background issues, including how the home differs from other environments. He then shows how these background issues affect the design and usability of these technologies. A detailed case study looks at the use of handheld and wearable digital technology in sheltered housing. The last section examines what it is like to live in a smart home and why they have so far failed to reach the levels of success originally predicted. Invaluable reading for anybody interested in designing smart technologies for the home.

This book provides a comprehensive review of how digital communication technology can help families network and communicate across generations, despite differences in family composition, residential location, cultural values and orientations. Covering the full spectrum of intergenerational relations (including child to parent, and parent to grandparent), it offers a positive view of the value of digital technology usage within families. The author focuses on three European countries: Finland, Italy and Slovenia, but also touches on other European countries and parts of the United States, revealing evidence that challenges ideas of universal adoption of information communication technology (ICT) and consistency in the social effects of such adoption in different regions and cultures. Further, the book discusses numerous other challenges and issues, such as: • the social transformations and technological developments that have made digital families possible; • the resulting changes in family roles, responsibilities, and practices; and • the theoretical and conceptual implications of digital communication-technology use in families. The author illustrates how ICT can facilitate family solidarity and how it helps to provide new ways of being together, and they discuss how social media, particularly instant messaging applications, helps develop affinity between family members better than traditional one-to-one personal communication tools. Combining highly nuanced material with fresh sociological thinking, it enhances readers’ theoretical understanding of the meaning of the ‘digital family’, making it a powerful resource for graduate and undergraduate students, as well as academics. Thanks to its structured format with easy-to-understand explanations, it appeals to practitioners and researchers alike.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction and Knowledge Discovery, HCI-KDD 2013, held in Maribor, Slovenia, in July 2013, at SouthCHI 2013. The 20 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 68 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on human-computer interaction and knowledge discovery, knowledge discovery and smart homes, smart learning environments, and visualization data analytics.

The Future Home in the 5G Era looks at new hyper-connected home environments in which devices and apps will work together seamlessly to respond to and anticipate customers' needs, all with maximum security and privacy. Enabled by 5G, AI, and other new technologies such as eSim and edge computing, the Future Home's powerful service ecosystems will be a quantum leap from today's fragmented smart home technology, effectively extending the boundaries of the home even beyond the traditional bounds of the physical, to ultimately make consumers feel 'at home' anywhere. This will create tremendous opportunities for businesses including communication service providers (CSPs), device manufacturers and app developers, as well as those providing services in diverse sectors such as entertainment, health and social care, education, retail, and more. The Future Home in the 5G Era combines original research from Accenture with practical insights and examples, showing how intelligently orchestrated Future Homes can yield economic success for businesses. Written by leaders of strategy and technology consultancy at Accenture, the authors have vast industry experience leading major units of Fortune 500 companies and start-ups. This book looks at how businesses, especially CSPs, can overcome the challenges and capture the multi-billion-dollar Future Home market by putting strategic emphasis on excellent customer experiences, developing new business models, and turning their organizations into competitively agile platform-based innovators. For business leaders in any sector relevant to the Future Home, this book is an indispensable and value-creating guide.