Exploring the Sustainable Values of Smart Homes to Strengthen Adoption

Abstract

Despite numerous benefits and developments, smart home technology has not been widely adopted by mainstream users. The purpose of this study is to suggest user-centered smart home design strategies to promote smart home adoption. This study has the following research goals: First, it selects smart home design factors to promote adoption. Second, it examines the importance of how users perceive smart home design factors. To achieve the goals, a user survey was conducted in Korea. As a result, six items, including 38 subfactors, were suggested as smart home design strategies to promote adoption: (1) creating an automated residential environment, (2) guaranteeing service scalability and diversity, (3) increasing service accessibility, (4) improving the lifestyle balance of potential users, (5) securing long-term safety in relation to the use of systems and facilities, and (6) reducing environmental load. The differences in user perception regarding the importance of these factors were investigated. Based on a comprehensive understanding of smart home adoption, this study proposes sustainability values for the factors influencing smart home adoption as they focus on the ability of smart homes to address user burden in terms of physical and spatial changes, and also help to identify adaptations that can be incorporated to meet the diverse needs of users. The results of this study can improve the overall understanding of the process of adopting smart homes and provide reference material regarding user perceptions of the performance conditions, functional characteristics, and service operation and quality of smart homes.