On the Suitability of HbbTV for Unified Smart Home Experience

Hybrid broadcast broadband TV (HbbTV) is a standardization initiative aimed at harmonising the broadcast and broadband delivery of entertainment services to consumers through connected TVs, set-top boxes, and multiscreen devices. A smart home (SH) is a suitable home setup where appliances and devices can be automatically controlled remotely from any Internet-connected device. For the seamless integration of a variety of devices within the SH, HbbTV solutions are gaining a pivotal role, acting as a central hub for audio and video broadcasting services, home automation and other devices, including smartphones, tablets and Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled devices. In this context, a standard, compliant and platform independent, solution is preferred as it can enable dynamic environment where heterogeneous devices contribute to the overall user experience. This paper proposes an architecture for the seamless integration of a SH environment with a HbbTV-enabled television set and consumer's handled devices, such as smartphones and tablets, using the HbbTV 2.0.1 Companions Screen and Multimedia Synchronization framework. A complete architectural design and its hardware implementation have been developed and deployed as a proof of concept. Subjective tests based on mean opinion score (MOS) have been conducted to assess the benefits of the proposed system in terms of Quality of Experience (QoE). Results are encouraging and show that the accurate design of hybrid services through HbbTV could lead to satisfactory QoE perceived by users in the fruition of unified TV and SH services. Based on the obtained results, a preferred common configuration of notifications in terms of position, duration, and sound was indicated.