Vision: Shining Light on Smart Homes – Supporting Informed Decision-Making of End Users

Smart Home technologies are promising to enhance quality of life, autonomous living of elderly people and home security. Yet, uncertainty in terms of personal benefits, functionality, cost, privacy and security features influences potential users' decision processes. The vision of this research thus is to support end users' informed decision-making in terms of Smart Home technologies. We developed and tested a prototype of an interactive Smart Home configurator that provides users with targeted information according to their interests. It visualizes Smart Home processes and implications for privacy and security to increase transparency and reduce uncertainty in the decision-process. Ideas for further improving and extending the concept of the Smart Home configurator are discussed.