Literature review of Smart Home Technology

Home automation is not a new concept at all and multiple homes have different components of home automation installed in them which includes the central domestic heating, home security systems, washing machines and even the remote controls for the video recorders as well as television.

In this article the author discusses different aspects of Raspberry PI and how it has helped enable multiple aspects of IOT and is a dream enabler. The author in the article discusses the connectivity of Raspberry PI to phones via internet and other network mediums making it a technology helpful for generations to come. There is not just a single role of having smart home technology at home, it can also support the disabled people through allowing the simple access to different devices installed within the home and different kind of social alarm systems that helps in linking the house to the remote care centers. Despite all these potentials, smart home technology has failed to make a significant market effect on assistive centers of technology and mainstream. All this happened due to the lack of available items or products and have a clear focus on the applications that can help in the selling of this technology to a mass market. (Vamsikrishna Patchava et al, 2015)

In this article writer says, there is not just a single ongoing experiment but multiple experiments are in process for investigating that how smart home technology can be applied in the sectors of social housing along with the costs and benefits of performing it. Here is an example of it, care is required to make sure that smart home technologies don’t remove the choice, as well as proper consent, should be given with honesty while any personal information is being transferred to the third party. (Peace, S. & Holland, C., 2001).

Writer is saying that it is compulsory to make a clear connection between the social exclusions of disabled people along with the lack of different accessible homes that are responsible for making the best use of available technologies. Many disabled people and not wealthy enough have a complete right to use such inclusive designs, use of smart home technologies as a standard source but not as a special need. (Thomas, P. & Ormerod, M., 2001).

The European Commission has also funded several different initiatives for promoting the independence of disabled and older people by the use of smart home technology along with this, also published several different relevant reports. (Cullen, K. & Moran, R., 1992)

Fisk (in Peace, S. & Holland, C., 2001) also emphasizes on the fact that to maximize the user acceptance, associated services and intrusiveness of technologies need to be minimized. Issues related to the intrusiveness also increases the number of different ethical issues as well related to the functionality of the smart home technology system, the kevel to which different laptops and computers can be counted on to make certain automated decisions. Personal information only belongs to that person alone without the interference of any other individual until or unless that person on his own choice to share it with someone else. Controlling with the help of the user is a key requirement and any of the service users should be able to operate the on and off switch to any of the systems that are considered intrusive.

Using smart home technology for safety, security, comfort and all the possible surveillance of different people having a disease called dementia further raises several different ethical issues. At the heart of all these ethical issues is the main principle of informed consent, demanding of the information which is provided to an individual about every possible option and their consequences and that individual has the competence of understanding the various options. (M. Downs in Bjørneby, S. & van Berlo, A., 1997).

Professor Mary Marshall serving at the Dementia Services Development Center, University of Stirling proposed six different questions that should be asked before introducing any of the new technology for the care of people having dementia. (Marshall, M., 1995)

1. What is the reason for introducing the new technology?

2. For whom is the main problem?

3. What kind of different inventions has been tried so far to address this problem?

4. Who decided that installing such technology is helpful?

5. What are the benefits as well as drawbacks of having a technology installed in an area where people with dementia lives?

Different benefits are being noticed through different researches of this smart home technology among which the biggest one is that people explained their life has become much easy and convenient. Now they can easily save enough of the time from their busy schedule. They don’t have to worry about memorizing the small things at all.

Another biggest advantage mentioned by writer in this article is about the life of an individual installing this technology is the security of the house. Now people are seen less worried because they can observe different activities taking place at home even if they are not home and anywhere in the world. They explained that now they feel relaxed no matter where they are. Whether children or old people are home alone or the house is empty. (Cheek, et al. 2015)

Time and money both are being saved by the people who have this technology installed in their house. Along with this, energy is also being saved abundantly through the installation of smart home technologies. One surprising thing is that all these devices work on their own so whenever you enter home garage door opens on its own without waiting outside the home. Lights can switch on and off on their own. (Louis, Jean-Nicolas, et al 2015)

No doubt that smart home technologies have made life easy and everyone is living a convenient life due to such technologies but apart from its benefits, there are risks as well that has made life difficult for the people who have such technologies at home.

Not everyone around us is well aware of the complex technology, many people don’t find it easy to understand it and how to use or operate them. Smart home technologies have made the life easy of only those people who understand them better and know about such technologies otherwise there is no use of installing them at home.

For such technologies to be truly effective they run through a specific protocol and handout is often available with them but what if it gets lost and then what? No one can learn the whole procedure that how to use them so therefore only the manufacturer has the benefit of having these technologies in the home.

Privacy is what matters a lot to everyone, there are many places where these devices work and people around the home or ones that are not in the home can easily have access to all the data and routine of the people living in the house. (Wilson, et al, 2017)

Hackers these days are easily hacking these devices and then can operate them on their own and the owner would not even know about it at all. Along with this, thieves or outsiders can have access to your gates and can easily come inside the home and can rob. So, this is one of the major disadvantages of smart home technologies. (Jacobsson, et al. 2016)